It has been a long and lonely and painful journey at times [involving] personal and business sacrifice, but I'd do it again in a heartbeat because it's an investment that we're all required to make in our democracy and one that I am proud to make. But it is comforting to know that there are those who share my conviction, who share my beliefs, and, although I'd do it if I were the only one on the planet who so believed, and I think you know that, there is comfort in knowing that you do not stand alone. But this tribute really must be shared with others. They deserve this tribute tonight as much as I.

My wife, Eileen, my family, my business staff, who have endured so much over the past two years, to my friend, Pete Wilson, who is not here tonight but he has consistently been there when I needed him. Rumor has it that the Governor got me involved. That's not really true. I did ask the Governor to get involved and I recall when I did, he said, without hesitation, "Of course, I will help you, but you know that both you and I are going to catch hell for this. Instead, our opponents will call me a racist and they will come after you with every penny that they have." And he was, oh, so right, but he never, ever wavered in his fidelity to the cause.

This tribute belongs to my allies in California...[Mr. Connerly kindly thanks his personal and business acquaintances who worked closely with him on the California Civil Rights Initiative] It belongs to the donors, the contributors, big and small, who stepped forward at a time when we really needed dollars...It belongs to the talk shows, that great, great, great American communication vehicle that we have out there: Roger Hedgecock, Mary Matalin, Ken Hamblin, Oliver North, KSFO in San Francisco.... They helped us to counter those who had more in dollars and were louder in voice, but the talk shows helped us to get our message across.

I do not deserve to be honored for believing that all Americans are entitled to equal treatment by their government. Or that racial, gender, and ethnic, preferences are morally wrong and endangered in that American adventure we call democracy. There are millions of Americans who hold that view and, for them, there will be no dinner. But I will share this honor with my nation, America. I'm a product of America.

Fifty two years ago, my aunt, uncle and I made the trip from Louisiana, away from David Duke, to Bremerton, Washington. We stopped for gas at a service station. Remember those? They preceded these facilities that I call "fuel empowerment centers," where you do it yourself. I remember a white attendant looking with disdain at us and asking my uncle, "What do you want, boy?" My uncle responded, "Fill her up, please, sir." After we left the gas station, we went down the road a mile or two and we stopped at a secluded field -- forgive me -- to relieve ourselves. It was not that the service station didn't have any restrooms. They just didn't have any for colored people. Later that afternoon, we stopped at a greasy-spoon truck stop to eat. My aunt entered through the side door. You see, she was fair skinned with freckles and that allowed her to at least enter. When she went into such places, she looked first to see which sign hung on the wall: one that would say "We do not serve coloreds," or the one that said, "We reserve the right to refuse service to anyone." The latter meant that if the place was not too busy, or there wasn't some white patron on the premises who insisted that the owner not provide service to colored people while whites were present, my aunt would be served. "Wait outside," not by choice, but because our skin color denied us the opportunity to do otherwise. The memory of that [brought me from] the deep south [of many years ago] to a better time of opportunity.

Never forget that no American citizen should be mistreated because of race, skin color, sex, religion, disability, whatever. As President Bush would say, "Been here. Done that. Wouldn't be prudent to do it again." But given those experiences, you might ask, "Well, why are you paying tribute and sharing this tribute with America?" Because my country has given me sufficient positive experiences. That the scars of those early years have healed. As I reflect on my life, for every wrong that I have endured because of skin color, there are several demonstrable examples of fairness, America's passion for fairness, to which I could point.

When I was fifteen, I worked 27 hours each week at a downtown fabric store. School let out at 2:30 and the job was about seven blocks from school. I had to run home each day to be ready for the bus when it arrived at the bus stop near my house at about 2:45. When I arrived at home, the bus driver had paced his route to give me time to get home. This was a white bus driver. I grabbed a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, rushed to the bus stop and then he drove like a daredevil to make up the time so that he could get back on schedule. When I arrived at work, usually about 3:10 every day, someone in that all-white work force had clocked me in at 3:00. Ten additional minutes each day gave me a little over $2.50 a month, which paid my bus fare for almost a whole week.

When I hear my opponents talk about a racist society, I think, perhaps they never encountered someone like that bus driver, or like that all-white work force that gave this kid ten additional minutes a day on the time clock. But those people exist throughout America. They provide great acts of concern and kindness every day in ways big and small. But we don't hear about them. This tribute is for them. It's for a goodness of America that happens all the time, which makes me very optimistic about our nation. I salute them because their acts have deterred me from taking that membership in the "Victims Club of America." Their capacity to look forward rather than backward is one which helps us to define America and it is the greatest challenge facing my fellow black Americans. That, together with the ability to see the glass as half full and rising instead of half empty with a rusty bottom.

Recently, Enis Cosby was tragically murdered. After an appropriate period of mourning, his father, one of America's greatest citizens, called Dan Rather and asked if he could talk and he had this to say. I'm sure you remember. He said, "We have to learn to laugh again. It's time to get on with life," said Mr. Cosby. Now, if ever there was a person who had a right and a reason to be bitter, my friends, he had it. But his dignity and grace under adverse conditions were traits that revealed something about the American character, our ability to move ahead, to look ahead, to look forward, to find that silver lining, to laugh again. To get on with life. Those who talk about the poison of racism, who talk about slavery and segregation, it's time to get on with life. It's time to move forward. Our nation demands it. We all learned from Mr. Cosby because, just as the O. J. Simpson trial highlighted and accentuated our racial division, the attitude and conduct of Bill Cosby can help reunite us. If we will simply accept his counsel to get on with life.

Thomas Payne once said, "I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress and grow brave by reflection. Tis the business of little minds who shrink. But he whose heart is firm, and is conscious of his conduct will pursue these principles unto death." America's caught in the midst of a profound clash of values. On the one hand, there are those who say that race matters, we have to use race to get beyond race. Then there are those of us who believe, as President Kennedy said in 1963, "Race has no place in American life or law." We believe that the fourteenth amendment protects the rights of individuals, that government derives power and authority from the American people. That there is a moral force from which we can draw our strength and guidance, and that certain principles are in violate.

Then there are those who believe, as I said, that race matters, that we have to use race to get beyond race, that the fourteenth amendment is intended to protect the rights of groups, to ensure that groups have equal opportunity and parity. They believe in a more intrusive government, which defines how long of a leash the American people will be allowed. That nothing is inviolate and everything is up for grabs. Nowhere is this values conflict evidencing itself more than in matters related to race and color.

Over 70% of my fellow black Americans believe that Mr. Simpson was not guilty. Over 70% of my fellow white Americans affirmed his guilt. 70% of Asians and whites believe that a two year limit on welfare benefits is acceptable. 70% of blacks and Latinos believe that's unacceptable. And you can apply the same corollary to affirmative action. We are equally divided. We're in a state of paralysis in our attempt to resolve this clash of values. We live in a period, as someone said earlier, when there are no men and women to match our mountains. When our political system has more cowards per capita than anytime in our history. And I, of course, exempt from that all of those who are here tonight. Some of our leaders are captives of identity politics. They hide behind the [walls] designed to blur sensitive issues and to allow them to maintain support of some groups while not offending others: "Mend it, don't end it." Other elective officials run and hide from that which they privately profess to support. We live in the era of Rodney King politics.

Can't we just get along? Now, I have no objections, Mr. Speaker, to you having invited Jesse Jackson to sit in your box at the State of the Union address, as long as your wife could endure Jesse Jackson for the duration of a Bill Clinton speech. I have no objection to that. I believe this is an honorable gesture and I think you are to be commended for that. But, I must say, that if you are going to invite Jesse Jackson, I think that the President ought to invite me to the White House, [invite me] to spend a night in the Lincoln bedroom without paying $100,000...Jesse Jackson is my intellectual opposition. The Speaker is my intellectual ally. If my ally embraces my opposition, but my opposition's ally shuns me, we are not getting along.

And I do want to say that I understand that J. C. and Jesse pray together, J. C. apologized. J. C., when you pray with Jesse, don't close your eyes. Because I want to tell you at the Regents meeting on July 20th of 1995, Mr. Jackson came before us and said, before he spoke, "Let's all pray." Thirty minutes later, he kicked me every place that there was to kick me verbally.

But if apologia is the new state of the art in politics, I would like to ask Mr. Jackson to apologize for calling me house slave, strange fruit, and a puppet for the white man. And while we are at it how about Emerge magazine apologizing to Justice Thomas for referring to him as a lawn jockey. How about Jesse Jackson, Willie Brown, and Diane Watson apologizing for calling the Governor of California and those who supported proposition 209 racist. To use the phrase that my rivals often use: The playing field is not level when it comes to name calling, attacks and the consequences of such conduct. You see, this has to work both ways. But Mr. Jackson doesn't come to the dinner table with clean hands and he should not be allowed to leave as a statesman because he is the first to throw stones. He is the first to throw stones and it should not be that way. I don't call him names. But if this debate is going to proceed in a civil manner, it has to work both ways.

You know, at the end of the day, I want to see the most liberal member of Congress dining with the most conservative member of Congress. That's the sort of thing that allows people to work together and to do what's right for the American people. But the next day, I want to see them pursuing their agendas respectfully, but with high intensity. To do otherwise cheats the cause of democracy and those who engage in such practices should be given no safe haven by their allies. And there's a difference between getting along and going along. And I believe that we need to hold true to our beliefs, stand firm, do not reduce ourselves to name calling, that there should be no mistake that we are going to stand our ground on those things that we believe in.

So, let the message go forth to our opposition. We're not trying to eliminate preferences because we want to take opportunities away from women and minorities. We want to eliminate preferences because we believe doing so is the only way that we can have an America in which its people are aligned. We believe the American people are fair people and will display their better nature if allowed to do so. We believe that hard working, high achieving women and minorities should not have to live under the cloud of affirmative action and it's insulting premise that we are incapable of winning in an open competition. We want a better America and we're convinced that affirmative action, as we know it, is now standing in the way of that objective.

We believe that the pursuit of happiness cannot occur for every American when we become a society of never ending power struggles between organized racial, gender, and ethnic groups, and our government allocates opportunities on the basis of skin color and genitalia and the spelling of last names. We believe that true diversity does not exist when black and Latino students are self-segregated on our college campus with little or no interaction with white students and others. And we want to do something about it. We believe that separate graduation ceremonies for black and for Latino students at the University of California are not what Dr. King had in mind in his "I have a dream speech," when he talked about little black boys and little black girls holding hands with little white boys and girls.

Now, I know I can get in trouble by quoting Dr. King because his legacy is some how off limits to those who share my point of view. But I'll take that risk...We're the warriors of democracy. For 30 years, our nation has learned to share space, black and white. We must now in the next 30 years learn to share values. And once we learn to share values, then our nation will be the better for it.

Let's begin by reaching out to people who are different from us. And I want to share a true and wonderful story with you. This black couple had season tickets next to a white couple at the Sacramento Kings basketball games. They met somewhere along about the third or fourth game of the season, when the white couple asked the black couple if they would like anything brought back from the snack bar. The next game, the black couple returned the favor. At the game after that, both couples went to the snack bar together. During these games, they began to discuss their lives and learned that, while they had very little in common in their personal lives, they just enjoyed each other's company at the game. After one game, one of the couples asked if the other would like to go to the lounge upstairs and wait for the crowd to clear rather than going outside to the parking lot to join the stampede. From that invitation, they began to meet for lunch and dinner. Today, they are the best of friends. That is how we're going to get beyond this divide that we have. People who are different in background, look different, but see beyond those things because they have something in common. It might just be a basketball game. It might be something else. But that's what's going to heal this racial divide in America.

This is what Ronald Reagan had in mind, I believe, when he said, and I use this often because it brings me back to [where we must begin]: "Whether we come from poverty or from wealth, whether we are Afro-American or Irish American, Christian or Jewish, from big cities or small towns, in the eyes of God, we are all equal." But he wanted to say, in America, that's not enough. We have to be equal in the eyes of each other.

The task ahead of us will not be easy, but as Henry Ward Beecher said, "Victories that are easy are cheap. Those only are worth having which come from the result of hard work." I have no doubt that we will prevail. The man that we honor today, Mr. Lincoln, when he signed the Emancipation Proclamation, said, "I have never been more certain of anything than I am as I sign this paper." I have never been more certain in my life that I want to make a [statement, that] getting Americans thinking as Americans, moving forward, is the only salvation for democracy.

Recently, a Mr. Jack E. White of Time magazine trivialized and ridiculed my efforts and your efforts after his misrepresentations and false statements with the theme that my campaign has them rolling in the aisles. Well, I think that any of those five who we heard tonight [did not find it funny]. When they were thrown out of class, when they couldn't adopt a child, when they are asked to sign the form saying they were a female-only contractor in order to get a benefit, when they were [judged by] a higher standard at the University of Texas. I think many laugh at that because [they think] it is funny. Well, I'll tell you this. In the focus of time, Mr. Jack E. White will have that silly little grin wiped off his face and we will have the last laugh.

In order for victory to be ours, we must rekindle the flames of patriotism and rededicate ourselves to the proposition that all Americans, all Americans, are entitled to equal treatment for every government franchise in every village in this nation without regard to their race, color or sex or ethnic background or their national origin. We must see it as our individual duty to welcome those who do not look like us...We must reach out to each other, as the Speaker did, and I commend him for it. To say, "Let's talk, let's get together, let's find out where we can find that common ground." We must become an activist for the American character, exemplified by Bill Cosby. I love America. I love this land. And, I'm sure you do, too. But there is a better America that is ahead. We are the ones that are going to take the nation there...We're not taking anything away. We're giving what our founders said, was our destiny.

And so, my friends, as I bring this to a close, as I look over the horizon every day, I cling to that view that Ronald Reagan [shared] and is just around the bend and we want the bridge to get to it. Because it's in our hearts.

America, America, God shed thy grace on thee and crown thy good with brotherhood from sea to shining sea. May the lord God bless our beloved America and thank you, my friends.

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