Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) hit Sunday in Selma, Alabama, at people in the “highest offices” who “traffic in hatred” and at those who remain silent and inactive.
Booker stood in Brown Chapel for a unity breakfast commemorating the voting rights demonstration that led up to March 7, 1965, “Bloody Sunday” beatings on Edmund Pettus Bridge.
He called on attendants to “defend the dream,” according to the Honolulu Star Advertiser.
“It’s time that we dare to dream again in America,” said Booker who called on the crowd to “defend” the dream. “That is what it takes to make America great. It is up to us to do the work that makes the dream real.”
“People want to make it just about the people in the highest offices of the land…People who traffic in hatred, people in office that defend Nazis or white supremacists, people that point fingers and forget the lessons of [Martin Luther] King,” Booker said of America’s challenges. “What we must repent for are not just the vitriolic words and actions of bad people, but the appalling silence and inaction of good people.”
He credited the 1965 Selma marchers for inspiring the lawyer who later helped his family fight discrimination to buy a home in a white neighborhood where they had been denied, according to the report.
“The dream is under attack. You honor history by emulating it, by us recommitting ourselves to it,” said Booker. After the speeches Booker marched arm-in-arm with the Rev. Jesse Jackson and others to the historic bridge.
The event involved fellow 2020 contender Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT) and potential 2020 candidate Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH).
Michelle Moons is a White House Correspondent for Breitbart News — follow on Twitter @MichelleDiana and Facebook