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But my grandfather had larger dreams for his son. It's what allows us to pursue our individual dreams and yet still come together as one American family. That promise is our greatest inheritance. The fourth issue that I will address is democracy.
And it's around this time that some pastors I was working with came up to me and asked if I was a member of a church. No, the word is very near. Because we all have the capacity to do justice and show mercy; to treat others with dignity and respect; and to rise above what divides us and come together to meet those challenges we can't meet alone. In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity: I've seen it in the workers who would rather cut their hours back a day than see their friends lose their jobs, in the soldiers who re-enlist after losing a limb, in the good neighbors who take a stranger in when a hurricane strikes and the floodwaters rise. That experience guides my conviction that partnership between America and Islam must be based on what Islam is, not what it isn't.
They know they have to work hard to get ahead - and they want to. Go into any inner city neighborhood, and folks will tell you that government alone can't teach our kids to learn - they know that parents have to teach, that children can't achieve unless we raise their expectations and turn off the television sets and eradicate the slander that says a black youth with a book is acting white. But my journey is part of a larger journey - one shared by all who've ever sought to apply the values of their faith to our society. You see, we Democrats have a very different measure of what constitutes progress in this country. And today I am announcing a new global effort with the Organization of the Islamic Conference to eradicate polio.
For eighteen long months, you have stood up, one by one, and said enough to the politics of the past. They have affiliates in many countries and are trying to expand their reach.
But I will also renew the tough, direct diplomacy that can prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons and curb Russian aggression. What the nay-sayers don't understand is that this election has never been about me. For eighteen long months, you have stood up, one by one, and said enough to the politics of the past. Let us keep that promise - that American promise - and in the words of Scripture hold firmly, without wavering, to the hope that we confess. Together, you represent the harmony between tradition and progress. All of us have a responsibility to work for the day when the mothers of Israelis and Palestinians can see their children grow up without fear; when the Holy Land of three great faiths is the place of peace that God intended it to be; when Jerusalem is a secure and lasting home for Jews and Christians and Muslims, and a place for all of the children of Abraham to mingle peacefully together as in the story of Isra, when Moses, Jesus, and Mohammed (peace be upon them) joined in prayer.
Thank you, and God bless America.