Remarks by President Biden at the United We Stand Summit
SEPTEMBER 15, 2022
Location: Not determined

3:45 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you, Susan.  Thank you.  Please be seated.  Thank you for that introduction. 

And, you know, many of you have lost parts of your heart and soul yourselves.  And you know that although moments like this, where we are working like the devil to see to it other people don’t go through the same thing, as Susan knows, it just brings back everything.  It’s hard to stand up here when — and recall exactly what happened without it all flooding back as if it’s happening again.  

So, Susan, thank you not only for your words, but for your courage.  I really mean it.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.  (Applause.) 

Through your pain, you’ve found purpose worthy of the life that Heather lived and purpose to help us stand united as she did.

And that’s what so many of you have done for so long in your own way as survivors of hate-fueled violence, family, victims, you know, allies and advocates, mayors and community leaders, members of Congress.  Your presence is a testament to the truth that we must and we can come together regardless of our backgrounds, our beliefs. 

We have to stand united against hate-fueled violence — because it’s real, and you know it better than anyone — to affirm that an attack on one group of us is literally an attack on all of us. 

I sincerely appreciate all of you joining this first-of-its-kind summit held here in the White House.  And I want to thank Ana Navarro and Lisa Ling for participating.

And I want to thank the civil rights organizations that called for such a summit after the evil came to Buffalo four months ago: the National Urban League; the Anti-Defamation League; the Asian Americans Advancing Justice; the League of United Latin Cit- — Latin American Citizens; and the National Action Network.

Jill and I — my wife Jill and I — and she’s teaching; that’s why she’s not here — traveled to Buffalo to grieve with families and deliver a message from deep in our nation’s soul: In America, evil will not win.  It will not prevail.  (Applause.)  Hate will not prevail.  And white supremacists will not have the last word.  And this venom and violence cannot be the story of our time.

So we convened this summit to make clear what the story of our time must be.  It has to be a story in which each and every one of us has a vital role to play.  A story — a story with this message from the White House: United — united — united we stand.

Look, I decided to run for President, as Susan knows, after Charlottesville — literally, not figuratively.  I had no intention of running, I give you my word.  I was teaching and I thought that was the best thing for me to do — as Chris knows, my colleague from Delaware. 

But Charlottesville changed everything, because I believed our story is to unite as people of one nation and one America.  When those folks came out of those — that field carrying torches — the United States of America — carrying torches, chanting the same antisemitic bile that was chanted in Germany in the early ’30s, accompanied by white supremacists holding Nazi flags.  And I thought to myself, “My God, this is the United States of America” — Senator — “How could it happen?”

No, I — I really mean it.  As my friends in the movement — Civil Rights Movement know, I got involved in politics because of civil rights as a kid.

But the idea — the idea that in the first quarter of the 20th century we’d have people come out of fields carrying torches, Nazi flags and banners, chanting the bile, accompanied by white supremacists, David Duke and his crowd.  And an innocent young woman is killed.

When the last guy was asked what did he think, he said he thought there were some “fine people on both sides.”  

Look, folks, there are core values that should bring us together as Americans.  And one of them is standing together against hate, racism, bigotry, and violence that have long haunted and plagued our nation.

Another core value is standing united, for the enduring source of our strength is the idea of America.  We’re the most unique nation in the world. 

Every other nation is based on ethnicity, geography.  In America, we’re based on an idea — literally, not figuratively — an idea.  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all [women and] men are created equal…endowed by the[ir] Creator…” et cetera. 

We’ve never lived up to that, but we never before walked away from it.  We never walked away from it.