Governor Hochul: “Sometimes you have to stand up and have the courage to do what's right in the face of adversity, because God will reward you. And today I'm proud to be in a position where I can use the power of the Office of Governor to do good for people. That's all I want to use this power for.”
Hochul: “Together, coming out of NAN stronger and more powerful, you have a Governor who will work hand in hand with you as we challenge anyone who gets in our way. We'll take on any fight. Anyone who stops us in our march toward justice and doing good for the people of this great State and this nation.”
Earlier today, Governor Hochul delivered remarks at the National Action Network Convention.
VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of the Governor's remarks is available here.
PHOTOS of the event are available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:
Good morning, friends. Oh, what a crowd this is and what a day it is. First of all, Reverend Al – thank you for being on the front line of all the causes that matter in this country for half a century. For 33 years, NAN has been the powerhouse that our nation has looked to as a conscience of America. When things are not going the way they should, we have Reverend Al Sharpton to show up in person – to comfort families, to be there, to call out injustice, especially when there's been some of the most horrific murders and assassinations in our country. And I want to talk about one.
Reverend Al came up to my hometown of Buffalo, New York. It was May 14, 2022. My family, our friends, my community were devastated that someone had the audacity, a young man whose mind was polluted on social media – gets his hands on a weapon, goes down to Pennsylvania to get a bump stock, which means he could have even more magazine capacity so he could do more death. And he decided, after doing his research, he wanted to go to the community that was the most Black close to him, is what his words were. Now he could have gone to New York City, it would have been three hours and a half. Buffalo is three hours and fifteen minutes. So, he decided to go to from the southern part of New York up to Buffalo to wreak his damage and hatred and the white supremacy that he was so enraptured with. And he even had the audacity to show on social media what he was doing when he was doing it. You know who showed up in the aftermath to help heal a community that was grieving? Reverend Al Sharpton showed up. That's what he does. He's there for us in countless, countless ways. And he has the wounds that show for it, literally the scars on his chest, when someone attacked him for being the voice of America. I want to thank him.
I want to thank Reverend Franklyn Richardson. We've developed a deep friendship, you are a powerful man of God, and I want to thank you for the generosity of spirit that you do every single day to help lift up our people. I know we'll be joined by our great Mayor – Mayor Eric Adams, who's been a strong friend, proud of his accomplishments, working together to keep our streets safe. And also, a special shout out to one of the highest positions in state government, after mine I guess, and that'd be our Chief of Staff, Stacy Lynch, who cut her teeth with the movement, the daughter of the movement here
I was reflecting, 56 years ago yesterday that our nation buried Dr. King. Now most of you look way too young to remember that. Right? Now, you weren't even born, both of you, I can see this, but I was a little 10-year-old, and I was growing up in a social justice Catholic family. What does that mean? It means that you do things that nobody else in your neighborhood does. My parents, we grew up in a conservative community, they lived in a trailer park, but we were protesting the Vietnam War, we are joining the Civil Rights marches – my parents came to Washington, we didn't have much, but we knew there were others who needed our help and our voices. So, I knew the day he was assassinated. We held hands and cried at our dinner table, all of us, a large Catholic family. And I've never lost that feeling of sometimes you have to stand up and have the courage to do what's right in the face of adversity, because God will reward you. And today I'm proud to be in a position where I can use the power of the Office of Governor to do good for people. That's all I want to use this power for.
Now we've seen power. Power can also be used in a cruel and brutal way. Going back, yes, to the whip of the overseers in the fields who are dominating other human beings. The Jim Crow laws and all the ways we were kept down – the redlining, the inability to get a good education. There are countless ways that power is used to oppress people. And power can be so intoxicating. Just think about a man who was in power in our country just a few years ago, who didn't want to leave office when it was his time and used his power to instruct an insurrection to take over our democracy. That's what power can be used for in the wrong hands.
But my friends, power in the good hands, the just hands, the hands of the people in this room, can be a force for good that can take us to new levels. And that's why I'm using the power I have, humbly, as a servant of God and a servant of the people of New York, to work on a Budget right now. Most of you don't care about our Budget, that's okay. But all I know is that's the place that I can make sure that we have a plan to start building more housing because it's just too expensive in the great City of New York and across our State. We've lost 200,000 black and brown families. Why? They can't afford a home.
So, we're going to make sure we start building and building so kids who were raised here can raise their own families here. Home ownership, to build generational wealth that's been too long denied to black and brown families. We're going to start that with this Budget. And in this Budget, we're going to point the spotlight on the fact that more black babies die at two and a half times the rate of white babies.
Black moms are dying at a higher rate, three to four times the rate of white moms, because they are not getting the attention they need. I'm going to — for the first time in America — say that in the State of New York, we're going to lead the way for pregnant moms who don't have the time to take off work because they have a low wage job or no one to watch the kids. They're not getting prenatal care for their babies, and they are suffering. We're going to mandate paid time off for expected moms so we can start reversing the trend and start taking care of our babies.
We're also making sure we deal with people who are struggling with mental illness. My God, we put $1 billion for it and I'm going to need some more. In our streets, in our subways, in our prisons, people are suffering. And we're going to help them, because that's what the power of this office can allow us to do together.
And there's one more issue — I have so many more to talk about, but I also thought to thank Reverend Al for standing with me just last fall, when we talked about for the first time that the State has even entertained the idea in a powerful way of having reparations. Acknowledging the fact that there was a time in our city when one out of five New Yorkers were enslaved. Everybody thinks it all happened down south, right? One out of five New Yorkers were slaves. They're the ones who with their sweat and toil built up this city. And we're going to study the possibility of how we can help right the wrongs of the past because you cannot move forward until you acknowledge the ugliness, and the racism and the cruelty of the past. And that's what we're doing here in the State of New York.
As you convene for the next couple of days, this powerful group of people, politicians, I think all of our elected officials and the elected wannabes were referenced here today. And the academics, and the clergy and the people that are just social activists.
But at my core, I'm an activist. I thank you for gathering here to study the problems of today. But at the end of this conference, there's one thing I hope we can take away. And that is the realization that we do have the power to take away people's pain and to give them a chance at life. That's why we're here on earth.
That's why God put all of us here. I believe that to my core. And we will give people hope again. The young people are feeling so disaffected that they don't think the future is going to be good for them anymore. That is so sad because youthfulness was always about optimism. Let's restore that again.
Let's give them a country and a democracy and a world that they deserve. And together, coming out of NAN stronger and more powerful, you have a Governor who will work hand in hand with you as we challenge anyone who gets in our way. We'll take on any fight. Anyone who stops us in our march toward justice and doing good for the people of this great State and this nation.
Thank you very much, everybody. Enjoy the conference.