Good morning.  It is the greatest honor to be here today.

Mrs. King, thank you. And thank you again for being such a great friend to my family for more than 40 years.

Thank you also to Martin Luther King the third, for helping me and my family on many, many different human rights causes over the years. Martin, I am so happy to be with you again here this morning.

Martin Luther King stood up to government oppression at grave personal risk in the non-violent pursuit of human rights. 

He was imprisoned in Birmingham, received countless death threats, and saw his colleagues tortured and lynched because they fought for basic rights.

These Human Rights defenders are the Martin Luther Kings and Eleanor Roosevelt's of their countries. 

They daily risk imprisonment, torture, and even death for their work.  

Again and again they enter the mouth of hell in local communities and come face to face with unspeakable human agony.

And while others respond with indifference or hand wringing, they relieve suffering and save lives.

I started working in human rights 20 years ago, as an intern at Amnesty International in Washington, DC.    

I was assigned the task of documenting abuses committed by US immigration officials against refugees from El Salvador.

Beyond my particular assignment, I learned of Refusniks in Russia, of Anti-apartheid leaders in South Africa, of democracy activists in Chile.

The cause was compelling, the enemies dangerous and powerful. 

But I found myself surrounded by Davids, who, with little more than the slingshots of their hearts and nerve and sinew to support them, stood up against a world full of Goliaths. 

Looking back, it seems that the angels prevailed:

Then, Military dictatorships ruled throughout South America .

Today, the only one left standing is Castro in Cuba.

Then, Communism dominated Eastern Europe. 

Today, the last of the Communist era tyrants, Slobadan Milosevec, is standing trial at the war crimes tribunal. 

Then, South Africa suffered the agony of Apartheid, and, at the time, the leading human rights defender from South Korea was in exile in Boston.

A few years ago, that same exile, Kim Dae Jung, became President Kim, and won the Nobel Peace Prize for reaching out to North Korea.

At the time, women's rights were not on the international agenda. 

Today, CEDAW, the women's rights convention -- has been ratified by 172 nations. 

But sadly not our own.

And, at the time, the white, northern government of Sudan was just launching its assault on the poor blacks in the south. 

On Monday of this week, that war came to an end and peace agreements were celebrated in hamlets across the land.

All of these changes came about not because governments, militaries or multi national corporations wanted them to, but because people with few resources beyond their own determination fought for human rights. 

Individuals created change. 

They harnessed the dream of freedom and made it come true. 

And their efforts created a ripple effect, encouraging others, building a tidal wave which swept down some of the mightiest walls of repression.

So today, as we look at the challenges which lay ahead, we need to muster both a sense of responsibility to protect human dignity and advance liberty, and faith that the angels are on the side of freedom.

The angels are on the side of human rights defender Ka Hsaw Wa when he holds multi-nationals responsible for abuses committed in their names.

Ka Hsaw Wa, just won a legal battle against US oil company UNOCAL for employing slave labor in Burma.

The angels are on the side of human rights defender Sister Dianna Ortiz, who was brutally raped by security forces in Guatemala under the direction of  their American boss --

She has since faced the challenge of stopping cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners in the 100 plus countries, including our own, that practice torture.

The angels are on the side of human rights defender Harry Wu, Who spent 19 years in the hell hole of the Chinese laogai or prison system and has spent the last 20 exposing abuses and creating change.

The angels are on the side of human rights defender Marina Pisklakova, who stops domestic violence in Russia where 14 thousand women are murdered by their husbands each year.

The angels are on the side of human rights defender Van Jones who is recreating our own juvenile justice system, from one that is crowded, dangerous, cruel, and race-based, to one that is fair and worthy of the children placed in our collective care.

The angels are on the side of  human rights defender Lucas Benitez, who works to guarantee living wages and dignity to the women and men who plant and pick our food, instead of the slavery to which many of them are now subjected.

During his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize 40 years ago, Dr. King spoke about the civil rights defenders.  He said:

"Most of these people will never make the headlines and their names will not appear in Who's Who.

"Yet when years have rolled past and when the blazing light of truth is focused on this marvelous age in which we live -- men and women will know and children will be taught that we have a finer land, a better people, a more noble civilization -- because these humble children of God were willing to suffer for righteousness' sake."

Today, we are reminded of Dr. King's willingness to suffer for righteousness sake.

And it is up to us to take a stand on the race-based civil rights issues which continue to plague our land. 

Today's headlines are full of stories of the terrorist threat to our nation. 

But you at who are on the ground in our own country every day know that an even more dangerous threat to our future is discrimination.

Discrimination is more insidious because the problems that destroy us in life are the problems we are unwilling to admit and address.

The latest census confirmed that our country is increasingly a nation of immigrants. 

The New York City school system now encompasses a minimum of 175 different languages; but we still have not addressed the issues of Black and White in America, much less brown and yellow and tan and red and every other skin tone out there.

We continue to witness heinous crimes and barbaric acts based on race.

 -- The wholesale imprisonment of the black community in Tulia Texas based on trumped up charges of a single policeman;

-- The shooting of Amadou Diallo in New York;

--  The pistol whipping of Matthew Shepard.

We have institutionalized cultural discrimination.

We live in segregated housing.

We send our kids to segregated schools.

We belong to segregated clubs.

Racism is institutionalized in  our banking system, in our housing system and in our employment system.

We see racism every day. 

The racial profiling in police stops and searches. 

How many blacks have been stopped because their skin color didn't match the make and model of their cars? 

San Francisco's  Police Watch Gets ten complaints a day about police misconduct toward citizens. 

Consider the education dollars which support Internet access in predominantly white schools while predominantly minority schools don't even have a basketball net.

We have a larger percentage of our population in prison in the United States than any other country in the world. 

And of that group, 44 percent of the men and 75 percent of the women incarcerated are African American.

Dr. King worked tirelessly to assure the right to vote, but that right has been stripped from all those convicted of federal felonies. 

The incarceration of minorities becomes even more insidious when the death penalty is added to the mix.

Forty Two years ago Martin Luther King said:

"I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." 

It is frightening to consider what it means to be a little child and black in America today.

Every Day in America:  

All that is happening right here in our own country. 

What are we doing to stop this. 

We cannot allow it to go on.

We are blessed to be living in a country born of revolution where institutions are capable of change because of citizen involvement and activism. 

We must participate in the political process if we truly seek change. 

And as we learned in these last elections, we abdicate our right to vote at our peril. 

For this project, Speak Truth to Power, I spent two-and-a-half years traveling the world and interviewing the most courageous people on earth. 

Like all of you, they wake up in the morning, kiss their kids, and forge ahead -- as lawyers or journalists or members of religious orders, all trying in their own ways to do what you do daily, just enlightened people about their rights and responsibilities, about the world they live in, and about their capacity to create a difference in that world.

Their work, like that of Dr. King, is founded on a set of immutable principles of fairness.  

It appeals to the good, the generous, the instinct for justice. 

The instinct which says we can make a difference no matter how insurmountable the problems may seem. 

That same impulse engages us in the struggle for human rights that echoes the ancient Greeks who believed it was ennobling to take part in the life of the nation. 

It, too, is an appeal to the spirit.

It is shared, by all of those who survive torture or abuse and go on to take up the cause of human rights, people like Rigoberta Menchu and Bobby Muller and so many others around the world, who have never given in to the forces of futility nor the temptation to violence.

They inspire us to embrace our beliefs and hold fast to our dreams.

I grew up in the Judeo-Christian tradition where we painted our prophets on ceilings and sealed our saints in stained glass. 

They were superhuman, untouchable, and so we were freed from the burden of their challenge.

But here on earth, people like these are living, breathing human beings in our midst. 

Their determination, valor and commitment in the face of overwhelming danger, challenge each of us to take up the torch for a more decent society.

Today we are blessed by the presence of certain people who are gifts from God. 

They are teachers, who show us not how to be saints, but how to be fully human.

I would like to end with these lines from a poem by Langston Hughes:

O, Let America be America again --

The land that never has been yet --

And yet must be --

The land where every one is free.

The land that's mine --

The poor man's, Indian's, Negro's, ME --

Who made America,

Whose sweat and blood, whose faith and pain,

Whose hand at the foundry, whose  plow in the rain,

Must bring back our mighty dream again.

We, the people, must redeem

Our land, the mines, the plants, the rivers,

The mountains and the endless plain --

All, all the stretch of these great green states --

And make America, America again!

As you leave here today, hold fast to your dreams -- to your courage and your commitment.

And, make America, America again.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Publisher's Note:  Kerry Kennedy has led more than forty human rights delegations to more than thirty countries over the course of two decades.  

Kerry established the Robert F. Kennedy Center for Human Rights in 1987 to ensure the protection of rights codified under the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights.

She has worked on diverse issues such as child labor, disappearances, indigenous land rights, judicial independence, freedom of expression, ethnic violence, the environment, and women's rights.

Her book, Speak Truth to Power, spawned a play by Broadway playwright Ariel Dorfman, a photo exhibit by Pulitzer Prize winner Eddie Adams, an award-winning website, an education packet, a series of Public Service Announcements and a documentary broadcast on PBS.  

Kerry serves as Chair of the Amnesty International Leadership Council and serves on boards or advisory committees of Human Rights First, The Bloody Sunday Trust, the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, The Gleitsman Foundation, The China Information Center, the Committee on the Administration of Justice (Northern Ireland), and the International Campaign for Tibet, among others.

Kerry Kennedy is a member of the Massachusetts and District of Columbia bars. 

Established by family and friends over three decades ago, the Robert F. Kennedy Memorial, based in Washington, DC, is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that furthers RFK's vision by advancing respect for human rights and fighting for social justice around the world.

Robert F. Kennedy Memorial Center for Human Rights

1367 Connecticut Avenue, N.W., Washington, DC  20036

Tel: (202) 463-7575   Fax: (202) 463-7575

 www.rfkmemorial.org

Please see: 

Kerry Kennedy's Biography : http://www.maximsnews.com/kerrykennedybio4sept2004.htm

Kerry Kennedy's photos and Email from Liberia  http://www.maximsnews.com/kerrykennedyafricajuly2004.htm

SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER, HUMAN RIGHTS DEFENDERS WHO ARE CHANGING OUR WORLD

By KERRY KENNEDY

KERRY KENNEDY has published a powerful, moving and inspiring book on human rights defenders around the world -- the Martin Luther Kings of their countries. The book is published by Crown Publishers/Random House (ISBN 0-8129-3062-2) and the photographs are by EDDIE ADAMS.  

"You cannot kill an idea, you cannot imprison freedom.