Transcript - Remarks: Joe Biden Attends a Screening of the Movie Till at The White House - February 16, 2023 | Factba.se

Joe Biden

00:00:00 - 00:00:15 ()

Hello, hello, hello. [Applause] Hello! The House is here!

Joe Biden

00:00:15 - 00:00:22 ()

Well, welcome to the White House, everyone. This is a special, special occasion.

Joe Biden

00:00:22 - 00:00:36 ()

You know, I'd like to start by thanking the members of Congress who are here. And is -- is Emanuel Cleaver here? I know that Al Green is here, and Jonathan Jackson is here. There you are. I gotcha. Okay, now I can see you. Thank you.

Joe Biden

00:00:36 - 00:00:45 ()

I'm honored to host all of you at this special evening during Black History Month for a simple reason: History matters. [Applause] History matters.

Joe Biden

00:00:45 - 00:00:50 ()

Hi, guys. How are you? Are you all students? [Audience calls out "Yes"]

Joe Biden

00:00:50 - 00:00:54 ()

Well, good to see you. Welcome to the White House. [Audience calls out "Thank you"]

Joe Biden

00:00:54 - 00:01:02 ()

Now, remember me when one of you are President and they say, "Joe Biden is in the waiting room." Don't say, "Joe who?" Okay? [Laughter] You know what I mean? All right. Anyway --

Joe Biden

00:01:02 - 00:01:08 ()

To remember history is to shine a light on the good, the bad, the truth, and who we are as a nation.

Joe Biden

00:01:08 - 00:01:20 ()

And our history shows that while darkness and de- -- denialism hide very much, they erase nothing. They can't erase the past, and they shouldn't.

Joe Biden

00:01:20 - 00:01:33 ()

Only with truth comes healing and justice and repair and another step forward in the -- for that promise we all made but have never reached: a more perfect union. But we've never fully given up on it.

Joe Biden

00:01:33 - 00:01:47 ()

That's why we can't just choose to learn what we want to know and what we should kn- -- we have to learn what we should know. We should know everything about our history. And that's the -- great nations do. Great nations. And we're a great nation.

Joe Biden

00:01:47 - 00:01:51 ()

And that's why history matters so much. You know, that's why this film matters so much.

Joe Biden

00:01:51 - 00:02:11 ()

You know, it was almost exactly one year ago that I signed a law more than 100 years in the making. [Applause] It was an honor. It was one of the great honors of my career. The Emmett Till Antilynching Act, making lynching a federal hate crime.

Joe Biden

00:02:11 - 00:02:31 ()

You know, folks, lynching is pure terror, enforcing the lie that not everyone belongs in America and not everyone is created equal. Pure terror to systematically undermine hard-fought civil rights. Innocent men, women, children hung by a noose from trees. Bodies burned, drowned, castrated.

Joe Biden

00:02:31 - 00:02:57 ()

Their crimes? Trying to vote. Trying to go to school. Trying to own a business. Trying to re- -- preach the gospel. False -- false accusations of murder, arson, robbery. Lynched for simply being Black, nothing more. With white crowds, white families gathered to celebrate the spectacle, taking pictures of the bodies and mailing them as postcards.

Joe Biden

00:02:57 - 00:03:02 ()

Hard to believe, but that's what was done. And some people still want to do that.

Joe Biden

00:03:02 - 00:03:12 ()

You know, as this film powerfully does, it tells the story of a mother's loss and a young son's promise, a nation's reckoning about hate, violence, and power.

Joe Biden

00:03:12 - 00:03:34 ()

You know, before 14-year-old Emmett Till left on his trip to visit his family in Mississippi, Ms. Till, a teacher who knew the history, reminded him: "Be very careful how you speak. Say 'yes, sir,' 'no, ma'am.' Don't hesitate to humble yourself if you have to get down on your knees."

Joe Biden

00:03:34 - 00:04:05 ()

That conversation is not in the distant past. Same talk today. So many Black and brown family -- parents have to have that similar conversation with their children, worrying about whether they'll come home from a walk down the street or playing in the park or just driving their car -- like we saw Tyre Nichols, just last month -- and becoming a victim to too many acts of hate and violence unleashed on those known and unknown.

Joe Biden

00:04:05 - 00:04:19 ()

Folks, I thought -- I got involved in the civil rights movement as a public defender, as my colleagues know, when I was a kid getting out of law school. And I thought you could defeat hate, we -- because we passed the Civil Rights Act and so many other things.

Joe Biden

00:04:19 - 00:04:30 ()

But I learned a lesson: Hate never goes away. It just hides under the rocks until it's given a little oxygen by lousy people.

Joe Biden

00:04:30 - 00:04:37 ()

And what stops it? Only one thing that stops it is all of us. Silence is complicity. It really is. Silence is complicity. [Applause]

Joe Biden

00:04:37 - 00:04:48 ()

And, folks, we can't remain silent. Denialism is worse, and it's unacceptable.

Joe Biden

00:04:48 - 00:05:06 ()

To the Till family, the civil rights leaders, faith leaders, and so many others gathered here today, as I told many of you at the bill signing last year: Thank you, thank you, thank you for never ever, ever giving up and always -- as my mother would say -- keeping the faith.

Joe Biden

00:05:06 - 00:05:19 ()

To everyone involved in this film, to paraphrase Maya Angelou: People will never forget how you make them feel. People will never forget how you make them feel.

Joe Biden

00:05:19 - 00:05:24 ()

You know, you have that artist's gifts of making us feel our common humanity.

Joe Biden

00:05:24 - 00:05:32 ()

And there is one more hero in this story they have to acknowledge, and it's -- a lot of people forget this: the Black press at the time.

Joe Biden

00:05:32 - 00:05:48 ()

At the time -- [applause] -- at the time, Jet Magazine, the Chicago Defender, and other Black newspapers were unflinching and brave in sharing the story of Emmett Till and searing it into the nation's consciousness.

Joe Biden

00:05:48 - 00:06:00 ()

Fearless trailblazers like Ida B. Wells, a brilliant, gifted writer, exposed the barbaric -- [applause] -- the barbaric nature of lynching as a tool to intimidate and subjugate Black Americans.

Joe Biden

00:06:00 - 00:06:13 ()

She once said, quote, "The way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon the wrongs." "Turn the light of truth upon the wrongs." That's our charge today; it still exists.

Joe Biden

00:06:13 - 00:06:26 ()

Just imagine Emmett Till standing with us today. Just imagine if he was standing with us today. Maybe he'd be a grandpop, passing down wisdom of the struggle and hope to all the young people here today.

Joe Biden

00:06:26 - 00:06:31 ()

At the start of this new year, I signed the -- posthumously awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to Emmett Till and Mrs. Till.

Joe Biden

00:06:31 - 00:06:48 ()

Imagine -- [applause] -- no, imagine if we could've done that in person, celebrating their contributions to the American life as a reflection of the dreams that they made possible.

Joe Biden

00:06:48 - 00:07:04 ()

Imagine. And let's continue the work ahead after we imagine that to inspire people of this great nation to reach higher, search for the stars, dig deeper in our souls, to fill the true -- the true and sacred promise of America for all Americans.

Joe Biden

00:07:04 - 00:07:27 ()

And now, from the White House, during Black History Month, it's my honor -- and it is a genuine honor -- maybe the greatest honor I've had since I've become President -- my honor to introduce the film, "Till." God love him. [Applause]