Barack Obama did not come to Boston Thursday to remember, to mourn or to commemorate. He came to rally the
city in an upbeat and uplifting speech about the inability of the
marathon bombings to disrupt or destroy the spirit of the country.
“That’s why a bomb can’t beat us. That’s why we don’t hunker down.
That’s why we don’t cower in fear,” he said at the peak of his speech,
during an interfaith service at the Cathedral of the Holy Cross. “We
carry on. We race. We strive. We build and we work and we love.”
Presidential addresses at commemorative events after national
tragedies have become a grim routine for Obama. He spoke in Newtown,
Conn., in December, in Aurora, Colo., last summer, in Tucson, Ariz., in
2011, and at Fort Hood, Tex., in November of 2009. His Boston address
differed strikingly from those other events, which all followed mass
shooting events. Less somber, less policy focused, and less
introspective, he came to Boston to give the city and the country a pep
talk.
“You will run again. Because that is what the people of Boston are
made of. Your resolve is the greatest rebuke to whoever committed this
heinous act,” he told the crowd, which interrupted his address several
times with standing ovations.
At other memorial events, he has quoted Christian scripture for
wisdom on how to overcome hardship. Those quotations have usually dwelt
on loss and mourning. “He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and
death shall be no more,” he said in Aurora, Colo, after the movie
theater massacre last summer, a line from the book of Revelation. By
contrast, in Boston, he quoted a line from Hebrews that spoke not of
loss, but of perseverance and ambition. “Scripture tells us to run with
endurance the race that is set before us,” he said.
He went on to praise the city of Boston, noting its international
role and his families own roots in the city, where he and his wife
attended law school. “We join you in saying, Boston, you are my home,”
he said.
And he promised to find those responsible for the blasts, which have
so far killed three and injured more than 100. “Yes we will find you.
And yes you will face justice,” he said.
A full transcript of his remarks follows below.
Hello, Boston. Scripture tells us to run with endurance
the race that is set before us, run with endurance the race that is set
before us. On Monday morning, the sun rose over Boston, the sunlight
glistened off the State House Dome. In the Common, in the Public Garden,
spring was in bloom.
On this Patriot’s Day, like so many before, fans jumped onto the T to
see the Sox at Fenway. In Hopkinton, runners laced up their shoes and
set out on a 26.2-mile test of dedication and grit and the human spirit.
And across this city, hundreds of thousands of Bostonians lined the
streets to hand the runners cups of water and to cheer them on.
It was a beautiful day to be in Boston, a day that explains why a
poet once wrote that this town is not just a capital, not just a place.
Boston, he said, is the perfect state of grace.
(APPLAUSE)
OBAMA: And then, in an instant, the day’s beauty was shattered. A
celebration became a tragedy. And so we come together to pray and mourn
and measure our loss, but we also come together today to reclaim that
state of grace, to reaffirm that the spirit of this city is undaunted
and the spirit of this country shall remain undimmed.
To Governor Patrick, Mayor Menino, Cardinal O’Malley, and all the
faith leaders who are here, Governors Romney, Swift, Weld, and Dukakis,
members of Congress, and most of all, the people of Boston and the
families who’ve lost a piece of your heart, we thank you for your
leadership, we thank you for your courage, we thank you for your grace.
I’m here today on behalf of the American people with a simple
message: Every one of us has been touched by this attack on your beloved
city. Every one of us stands with you.
Because after all, it’s our beloved city, too. Boston may be your
hometown, but we claim it, too. It’s one of America’s iconic cities.
It’s one of the world’s great cities.
And one of the reasons the world knows Boston so well is that Boston
opens its heart to the world. Over successive generations, you’ve
welcomed again and again new arrivals to our shores, immigrants who
constantly reinvigorated this city and this commonwealth and our nation.
Every fall, you welcome students from all across America and all
across the globe. And every spring, you graduate them back into the
world, a Boston diaspora that excels in every field of human endeavor.
Year after year, you welcome the greatest talents in the arts and
science, research. You welcome them to your concert halls and your
hospitals and your laboratories to exchange ideas and insights that draw
this world together.
And every third Monday in April, you welcome people from all around
the world to the hub for friendship and fellowship and healthy
competition, a gathering of men and women of every race and every
religion, every shape and every size, a multitude represented by all
those flags that flew over the finish line.
So whether folks come here to Boston for just today or they stay here
for years, they leave with a piece of this town tucked firmly into
their hearts. So Boston’s your hometown, but we claim it a little bit,
too. I know this…
(APPLAUSE)
I know this because there’s a piece of Boston in me. You welcomed me
as a young law student across the river. Welcomed Michelle, too.
OBAMA: You welcomed me…
(APPLAUSE)
You welcomed me during a convention when I was still a state senator and very few people could pronounce my name right.
(LAUGHTER)
Like you, Michelle and I have walked these streets. Like you, we know
these neighborhoods. And like you, in this moment of grief, we join you
in saying: Boston, you’re my home.
For millions of us, what happened on Monday is personal. It’s
personal. Today our prayers are with the Campbell family of Medford.
They’re here today. Their daughter, Krystle, was always smiling. Those
who knew her said that with her red hair and her freckles and her
ever-eager willingness to speak her mind, she was beautiful. Sometimes
she’d be a little noisy, and everybody loved her for it. She would have
turned 30 next month. As her mother said through her tears, this doesn’t
make any sense.
Our prayers are with the Lu family of China, who sent their daughter,
Lingzi, to BU so that she could experience all that this city has to
offer. She was a 23-year-old student far from home. And in the heartache
of her family and friends on both sides of the great ocean, we’re
reminded of the humanity that we all share.
Our prayers are with the Richard family of Dorchester, to Denise and
the young daughter, Jane, as they fight to recover. And our hearts are
broken for 8-year-old Martin, with his big smile and bright eyes. His
last hours were as perfect as an 8-year-old boy could hope for, with his
family, eating ice cream at a sporting event. And we’re left with two
enduring images of this little boy, forever smiling for his beloved
Bruins and forever expressing a wish he made on a blue poster board: “No
more hurting people. Peace.” No more hurting people. Peace.
Our prayers are with the injured, so many wounded, some gravely. From
their beds, some are surely watching us gather here today. And if you
are, know this: As you begin this long journey of recovery, your city is
with you. Your commonwealth is with you. Your country is with you. We
will all be with you as you learn to stand and walk and, yes, run again.
Of that, I have no doubt you will run again.
(APPLAUSE) You will run again.
(APPLAUSE)
Because that’s what the people of Boston are made of. Your resolve is
the greatest rebuke to whoever committed this heinous act. If they
sought to intimidate us, to terrorize us, to shake us from those values
that Deval described, the values that make us who we are as Americans,
well, it should be pretty clear by now that they picked the wrong city
to do it.
(APPLAUSE)
Not here in Boston.
(APPLAUSE)
Not here in Boston.
(APPLAUSE)
You showed us, Boston, that in the face of evil, Americans will lift
up what’s good. In the face of cruelty, we will choose compassion. In
the face of those who would visit death upon innocents, we will choose
to save and to comfort and to heal. We’ll choose friendship. We’ll
choose love.
The Scripture teaches us, God has not given us a spirit of fear and
timidity, but of power, love and self-discipline. And that’s the spirit
you’ve displayed in recent days. When doctors and nurses, police and
firefighters, and EMTs and guardsmen run towards explosions to treat the
wounded, that’s discipline.
When exhausted runners, including our troops and veterans who never
expected to see such carnage on the streets back home, become first
responders themselves, tending to the injured, that’s real power.
When Bostonians carried victims in their arms, deliver water and
blankets, line up to give blood, open their homes to total strangers,
give them rides back to reunite with their families, that’s love.
That’s the message we send to those who carried this out and anyone
who would do harm to our people. Yes, we will find you. And, yes, you
will face justice.
(APPLAUSE)
We will find you. We will hold you accountable. But more than that,
our fidelity to our way of life, to our free and open society will only
grow stronger, for God has not given us the spirit of fear and timidity,
but one of power and love and self-discipline.
Like Bill Iffrig, 78 years old, the runner in the orange tank-top who
we all saw get knocked down by the blast, we may be momentarily knocked
off our feet, but we’ll pick ourselves up. We’ll keep going. We will
finish the race.
(APPLAUSE)
In the words of Dick Hoyt, who’s pushed his disabled son Rick in 31 Boston Marathons, we can’t let something like this stop us.
(APPLAUSE)
This doesn’t stop us.
(APPLAUSE)
And that’s what you’ve taught us, Boston. That’s what you’ve reminded
us, to push on, to persevere, to not grow weary, to not get faint, even
when it hurts. Even when our heart aches, we summon the strength that
maybe we didn’t even know we had and we carry on.
OBAMA: We finish the race. We finish the race.
(APPLAUSE)
And we do that because of who we are. And we do that because we know
that somewhere around the bend a stranger has a cup of water. Around the
bend, somebody’s there to boost our spirits. On that toughest mile,
just when we think that we’ve hit a wall, someone will be there to cheer
us on and pick us up if we fall. We know that.
(APPLAUSE)
And that’s what the perpetrators of such senseless violence, these —
these small, stunted individuals who would destroy instead of build and
think somehow that makes them important, that’s what they don’t
understand. Our faith in each other, our love for each other, our love
for country, our common creed that cuts across whatever superficial
differences there may be, that is our power, that’s our strength.
That’s why a bomb can’t beat us. That’s why we don’t hunker down.
That’s why we don’t cower in fear. We carry on. We race. We strive. We
build, and we work, and we love, and we raise our kids to do the same.
And we come together to celebrate life, and to walk our cities, and to
cheer for our teams. When the Sox and Celtics and Patriots or Bruins are
champions again, to the chagrin of New York and Chicago fans, the
crowds will gather and watch a parade go down Boylston Street.
And this time next year, on the third Monday in April, the world will
return to this great American city to run harder than ever and to cheer
even louder for that 118th Boston Marathon.
(APPLAUSE)
Bet on it.
(APPLAUSE)
Tomorrow, the sun will rise over Boston. Tomorrow, the sun will rise
over this country that we love, this special place, this state of grace.
Scripture tells us to run with endurance the race that is set before
us. As we do, may God hold close those who’ve been taken from us too
soon, may he comfort their families, and may he continue to watch over
these United States of America.
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