Alan Keyes
October 17, 2001
J.W. Marriott hotel in Washington, D.C.

I guess I am one of those folks in this room who understands the enormous amount of work, effort, and patient building over the course of many years that has brought the Centre for New Black Leadership to this moment--and to the many moments that will come in the years ahead.

The vision of the center is to bring an alternative that, though it speaks to and motivates and inspires and encourages the leadership of black Americans, does so on behalf of those common principles which all of us share. Whatever our backgrounds, whatever our religions, whatever our creed, I think that understanding that black Americans stand before this nation not only to speak for themselves, but to speak to and for the great heart of American principle. That is the truth that you represent and have carried forward, and I think it is something that this nation desperately needs, and I thank God for you and for the center.

I also feel privileged to be able to say a word (after all the wonderful things that have been said, it's hard to know what), but you know, we stand right now in a period when we are focused especially upon the terrible threat that was exemplified on September 11th, and that woke a lot of Americans up to the reality of our vulnerability to that evil which, in fact, has stalked us for several decades.

One of the things we need to keep in mind, though, I think, is that every time a free country, every time a republic faces the challenge of war, it faces a challenge that will not only test its strength, test its courage, but that will also, from time to time, raise those issues which will test the survival of its liberty.

I look at the future that we now face, in which the threat from terrorism is not likely to go away tomorrow or the next day. For the first time in our history, we are likely to face a threat of war that won't end in a month or two months or three months, but that can become a permanent feature of our way of life. I know that we shall meet the test of that threat, but I also know that in the course of it, many temptations will come our way.

I've been listening to folks who are commentators on television telling us all about how we have to give up our liberties in order to secure this nation from danger, wanting to have debates about just how much of our freedom and just how much of our self-government is going to have to go so that we can defend ourselves against terrorists.

The very fact that these people raise that equation ought to warn us against the danger that it represents. Free people do not give up their freedom in order to obtain security. Freedom, in fact, is what we will struggle, and fight, and die for in order to secure.

And that being true, I have to say I've had my sleepless nights. And I guess, with great confidence in the American people, I don't have sleepless nights over whether we're going to bomb Afghanistan back to the stone age, eventually get Osama bin Laden, teach terrorist sponsors, including people like Saddam Hussein--I think we'll teach them a lesson. I think we'll get after them. I think with all of the money, and the wealth, and the skill that we afford into our security apparatus, once mobilized, it will get the job done. What keeps me awake more, though, is that in the meanwhile, there may be those who are tempted to follow that path of surrender, and to give up on behalf of the American people that which terrorists would gladly take from us: the security of our freedom in exchange for a life lived with the apparatus of fear.

But when I'm tempted to spend a sleepless night about that, you know what I find the most encouragement and reassurance in? And I think it's probably the greatest word of praise that I will be able to speak from my heart to him this evening. I think that there is a great bulwark that stands against the surrender of our liberties, our self-government, our constitutional way of life. It is something that came about as a result, I think, of a great combination of God's providence and the great courage that he himself displayed in the spite of all that was brought against him. But I know, in the midst of this great crisis, that we as a people can have no greater reassurance that our Constitution and our liberty will survive this crisis than that the heart, the courage, and the dedication to American principle that Clarence Thomas represents sits on the Supreme Court of the United States. I do not think it will go too far to say that there will come times in the course of the next few years that because you are there, sir, American freedom is more likely to survive.

I want to thank all of you for coming this evening. In the midst of the times we live in, it's sometimes, I know, a little hard to tear ourselves away from the focus that the media and events impose upon us, but we all know that in this great country of ours, whatever the threat, whatever the difficulty, one of the great things about America is that our life goes on. We are a people who are not about fighting the enemy; we are about building our life in freedom and peace. What we devote to the securing of that peace is a reflection of the great goods, and benefits, and hopes that we can realize as we move forward on the path of realizing those positive benefits that come from our work, and the things that we can hope for in the future.

I know that we continue in that path, especially because of another thing that gives me great confidence in the wisdom, and courage, and leadership of someone like Justice Thomas--and that is this: from its beginning, this nation has been founded upon one great and fundamental principle. I think we have been brought every now and again to forget it--we can let it become obscure, we can push it into the background. But especially in the context of the Centre for New Black Leadership, it's important for us to remember, because the people who probably most embody that remembrance, who had the deep and dark times in our history when nothing else was going for us, had but this to rely upon: it's the simple truth expressed quite clearly in the Declaration of Independence, expressed quite clearly in the work, and heart, and courage of people who fought for independence, and fought against slavery, and fought for civil rights and human rights down through our history, and that is the confidence that we can claim our freedom, and fight for freedom, and live in freedom in dignity, because it comes not from human judgment, but from the hands and will of Almighty God.

With faith in Him, we know, as black Americans have long understood, that there are no chains that can bind our spirit, there is no foe that can defeat our courage, there is no despair that will ever overshadow our hope.

With our firm faith in Him, and our hand in His as we walk toward the future, whatever its dangers, I think we can be secure in the truth that with a leadership of folks like Justice Thomas with the courage and heart and understanding that come from black Americans and from all Americans who have survived, through faith, in adversity, we shall continue to hold up the banner of the better human destiny that America is supposed to represent.

God bless you.