Read AOC's Full Speech at the Democratic National Convention
After closing night one with Michelle Obama's fiery speech, the Democratic National Convention continues into its second day with a whole new roster of speakers, guests, and performers. While Jill Biden and former president Bill Clinton are slated to speak, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also delivered an address in which she presented presidential nominee and Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders. (Although Joe Biden is the presumptive Democratic candidate, it's standard protocol for the DNC to introduce both nominees.)
The New York congresswoman had only a 60-second slot in tonight's broadcast, during which she delivered a prerecorded speech for the virtual convention. Despite the meager screen time, she graciously confirmed the news with a Benjamin E. Mays poem on Twitter last week, ensuring that not one second of her time will be wasted. (The post even reconnected her with her second-grade teacher.)
“I only have a minute.
Sixty seconds in it.
Forced upon me, I did not choose it,
But I know that I must use it.
Give account if I abuse it.
Suffer, if I lose it.
Only a tiny little minute,
But eternity is in it.”
- Dr. Benjamin E. Mays
(and recited by Elijah Cummings) 💜 https://t.co/ul9CE7NriV— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) August 12, 2020
"In fidelity and gratitude to a mass people's movement working to establish 21st century social, economic, and human rights, including guaranteed healthcare, higher education, living wages, and labor rights for all people in the United States," she said.
Read her full address below.
Good evening. Bienvenidos. Thank you to everyone here today endeavoring towards a better, more just future for our country and our world. In fidelity and gratitude to a mass people's movement working to establish 21st century social, economic, and human rights, including guaranteed healthcare, higher education, living wages, and labor rights for all people in the United States; a movement striving to recognize and repair the wounds of racial injustice, colonization, misogyny, and homophobia, and to propose and build reimagined systems of immigration and foreign policy that turn away from the violence and xenophobia of our past; a movement that realizes the unsustainable brutality of an economy that rewards explosive inequalities of wealth for the few at the expense of longterm stability for the many, and who organized a historic grassroots campaign to reclaim our democracy; in a time when millions of people in the United States are looking for deep systemic solutions to our crises of mass evictions, unemployment, and lack of healthcare; in espíritu del pueblo and out of a love for all people, I hear by second the nomination of Senator Bernard Sanders of Vermont for president of the United States of America.
You Might Also Like
