I thank you, with all my heart ... thanks to the Westchester Human Rights Commission and its great board.
Thank you to all my friends and colleagues who have either come this morning or have written me such supportive and loving notes ... Thank you to the students at the Connie Hogarth Center for Social Action at Manhattanville College who are here.
And thank you, our County Executive, Andy Spano, my good friend, a man who has served Westchester county and human rights with deep commitment and devotion all these years. And thank you to the family of Ossie Davis, friends I cherish -- Ruby Dee, Guy Davis, Hasna and Wali Muhammed, thank you, thank you.
Not only is this a great honor but I am so deeply humbled ... because Ossie Davis was for me, not only a friend and political and spiritual comrade, but a man for all seasons, who represented the very best of what a human being could and should be: humane, kind, superbly creative, brilliant, direct and authentic in his forever message for peace and justice and human rights ... truly a man of all people.
No one, we like to think, is irreplaceable, but in my view, he is irreplaceable. What would Ossie say and do, in these difficult days?
What would Ossie do?
Well, I think he would deplore the lack of action to foster human rights both here at home where both funds and heart are needed desperately, as people lose jobs, their homes, their hopes and too many young people see their only future in going to war ... and human rights globally, in so many countries where the rights of children, women, gays and lesbians and those who differ from the views of their governments meet dreadful abuses, torture, deprivation, even death.
What would Ossie say and do?
He would be speaking out and struggling against poverty , the ultimate abuse of human rights; against the lack of health care for all -- healthcare which is a human right, not a privilege of those who can afford it -- and along with his powerful and gifted wife, Ruby Dee.
They would be struggling together to end gender discrimination,
And identifying and exposing racism in all its faces, still so very much alive, and taking its toll on our children, on the lives of so many of our young men and women who spend their youth in our jails and prisons ... instead of colleges and universities.
What would Ossie do?
He would be fighting for the human rights of children not to go hungry. 50% of our children will be on food stamps this year ... and the numbers grow ... a disgrace to our nation.
Our youth should be guaranteed the right and opportunity for a good education, instead of jail or the military ... Education, the basic key to a functioning democracy -- one of Ossie's greatest loves.
What would Ossie do?
He would be speaking out for the human right to clean air, water and the urgency of global action to avert or at least reduce the impending catastrophe -- unless we act now -- of climate change, as it impacts most heavily on the most vulnerable people and those who are not responsible for global warming but suffer the most -- those who live in coastal areas where they have suffered severe flooding from the rising sea as in Bangladesh ... or those like in Kenya and Sub-Sahara Africa, struck by intense drought and consequent starvation, illness and disease.
Ossie would probably be going to the un international conference on climate action, in Copenhagen, Denmark which is being held as we meet, or else he would be joining us at our vigils all over the world next weekend in support of saving the planet -- for at least seven generations ahead!
And, of course, Ossie would be joining us on the picket lines for working people, still ever struggling to organize and secure their rights to decent working conditions and pay ... while a tiny percentage of Americans are reaping huge benefits and not feeling the despair, the pain, of this terrible recession that has hit working people and families the most.
And I have no doubt that he would be marching and vigiling with us for the human right to live in a world without war, marching to end the wars now ravaging people across the globe.
What would Ossie do?
Working, walking, talking for a world at peace, the human right to live in peace. and I am sure he would be protesting the current escalation in Afghanistan as he did with us at the start of the Iraq war.
For me, I must now recommit myself to his vision, to our vision of this better kind of world and country.
And here in Westchester, to keep support constant for the work of this Human Rights Commission as our local beacon of hope and promise, for bettering the human condition where we live.
For this honor, I will keep on keeping on in the spirit of Ossie Davis, Ruby Dee, and the many nonviolent activists who preceded us.
Once again, my profound thanks to the commission and for all the good work it must be helped to continue to carry on.
---CONNIE HOGARTH
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