Transcript: Secretary Buttigieg Remarks in Selma, Alabama on the Anniversary of Bloody Sunday
Good afternoon! What an honor to be with you, to be with my cabinet colleagues, and to be with the Vice President.
It is impossible to stand here and not to think of what it was like here two years ago: my first time in Selma, and my last time in the presence of Congressman John Lewis. I can never forget his voice that day, even as late into his illness as he was—how that voice thundered across this place, telling us how he thought he would die on this bridge. Urging us to carry on that struggle he so heroically served.
He and the other marchers hallowed this place. And their example calls us to examine how we are making ourselves useful to the cause of racial justice and equal rights.
Now, some are asking what transportation could possible have to do with racial justice. Some have been asking that very pointedly.
So it’s all the more fitting that we’re here at this bridge: this piece of infrastructure that became a battleground in the struggle for equal rights. This place that reminds us how transportation and civil rights have always, always been related.
From the ships that carried so many into bondage, to the ferries and wagons of the Underground Railroad that transported so many to freedom… From the train car at issue in Plessy vs Ferguson, to the bus where Rosa Parks decided to keep her seat… We are reminded again and again how deep is that relationship between the physical movement of human beings and the social movement that changed this country.
And so it falls to all of us who work in transportation to carry that movement forward.
Whenever a highway was right straight through a Black neighborhood that lacked the wealth or the power to demand that road take a different course, it falls to us to do something about it.
Wherever a generation of jobs working on infrastructure right in a community of color excluded those workers and businesses actually rooted in those communities, it falls to us to do something about it.
Wherever the ranks of those who work in transportation—from airline pilots to cement finishers to officials in my department—wherever they do not reflect the diversity of this country, it falls to us to do something about it.
And I’m proud to say that we are doing something about it, especially now that our President and Vice President are leading this investment in America’s transportation infrastructure.
We won’t let this time be like the past. This time we are seeing to it that no one will be left behind.
No one will be left behind when we’re looking at who will be served by the construction of a bridge, or who might be displaced by the expansion of a road.
As hundreds of billions of dollars are being invested in our transportation future, we are partnering on local and economic hiring to create access to jobs that build generational wealth.
We’re working with HBCUs to make sure that a range of careers in this field, including the makeup of my department, capture the aspirations of a new generation of Black professionals.
We’re working with cities and states to see to it that Black pedestrians, who are more likely to lose their lives on our roadways, see the benefits of safer streets…
That Black commuters, who are more likely to count on public transit, see the benefits of new buses and improved subways…
That Black children, who are more likely to become ill from breathing polluted air, see the benefits of cleaner air from the transportation technology of the future.
That is our responsibility, and that is what we are doing today in this Administration.
We will ensure that no one is left behind.
And in this time, when some would rather ignore our past than come to terms with that past in the service of a better future, we’re here to put ourselves in contact with history, so that yesterday’s examples guide us in building our own bridges to that more equitable tomorrow.
Thank you for the chance to address you, and thank you for your commitment. It’s an honor to be with you.
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