Sanford Cloud, Jr, President and CEO - The National Conference for Community and Justice

Mr. President, faith leaders and invited guests, I stand before you today with a great sense of humility with President Clinton's charge to The National Conference for Community and Justice; in awe of the extraordinary efforts of the faith leaders in this room and around the country who are reinvigorating and creating bold initiatives and programs addressing racial justice; and exhilarated by the amount of territory that we are committing to cover in the next decade.

NCCJ continued the momentum generated by the President's Initiative on Race within the faith community by holding a summit with a diverse group of faith leaders. Thirty-eight leaders from the three Abrahamic faiths, as well as Unitarian Universalists, Native American leaders, Baha'is, Buddhists, Hindus, and organizations as diverse as the North American Council for Muslim Women, the National Council of Churches, and the National Council of Jewish Women convened for a two-day summit in Washington, D.C.

Our goal was to determine whether current initiatives around racial justice were meeting the challenges of our time, and to design efforts that would more effectively address race relations over the next decade. We focused on initiatives that would eliminate racism within ourselves, congregations, denominations, and the broader community. We concluded that we had to address our own institutions' challenges, and become truly anti-racist. It is no longer enough to be quietly anti-racist. We must be bold and we must be heard.

Many promising ideas resulted. Most of the suggestions were grounded in the concept that racism is incompatible with God s intention for humanity. Therefore, faith leaders must work to reconcile spiritual beliefs, principles and behaviors. We have now secured funding to begin the next steps. We greatly appreciate the grant provided by the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and Allen and Joan Bildner's gift to NCCJ's Public Policy Institute so that together, we can develop new initiatives.

The new initiatives will address four overarching themes, and participating faith leaders have committed to the following action items which will be coordinated by NCCJ. I also want to recognize our planning committee for all of their work over the past few months in initiating these efforts.

Faith leaders will identify and name racism as a sin, an evil that must be addressed, and a problem of the heart. Labeling racism as a sin, while seemingly obvious and uncontroversial, is profound in its implications. We will publish and disseminate a compilation of common theological underpinnings and scriptural concepts that name racism as a sin, including excerpts that honor indigenous oral traditions. This will be distributed by national organizations, denominations, and their members.

Faith communities will name overcoming racism as a top priority for our nation. To support this goal, we will hold a forum for hundreds of faith leaders from across the country in 2001. The forum will highlight commitments made by the diverse faith groups; examine how to translate national efforts into community practices; and seek commitments from additional faith leaders for this historic collaboration.

Participating faith leaders will declare that we are morally bound to engage in anti-racist activities. Given the pervasive and often invisible advantages of a racist system, if one is not actively anti-racist, one is precluded from the ultimate realization of his or her faith tradition. Therefore, training sessions for faith leaders will provide an opportunity to explore our own issues surrounding racism.

Finally, we will address race issues in our own institutions. We will complete self-evaluation processes, which assess our place on an 'anti-racist continuum.' Each organization and denomination will determine the extent of the work to be done regarding the issue of race. We will then be able to assess our capabilities to undertake such work as well as the most effective programming to accomplish our goals.

America's faith community remains a unique vehicle for realizing such commitments, and it is time for such tangible results. While continuing the dialogue is an essential part of this process--- we will not stop at talk alone. We will not stop because of the memory of our forebears, because of the laws of our land, and because of the messages in our scriptures and oral traditions. As we again take our rightful place of leadership, I look forward to our journey together. Thank you.

We are honored this afternoon to share our commitments for the nation's future with the person who has led the American people in a national conversation on racial justice. Through his words and actions, President Clinton has given all of us hope by calling us to a new level of engagement built on mutual respect. He shared his vision for our future most clearly when he said, "A people's greatness only comes when every person has an opportunity to be great."

It is my honor and privilege to introduce the President of the United States, William Jefferson Clinton.

Meeting with Clinton Main Page 

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