00:00As I have looked forward to this morning, I have returned to the words of a man who I know
00:05is a hero to many here.
00:07Federico García Lorca.
00:10Córdoba, far and lonely, black pony, full moon, and olives in my pocket, although I know the roads, I'll never
00:19reach Córdoba.
00:20When García Lorca published Ryder's Song nearly 90 years ago, the world, just as it is now, was in a
00:28moment of immense darkness and upheaval.
00:32Fascism crept across Europe.
00:34Here in New York, where García Lorca had found a deep resonance between the African-American poetry of Harlem and
00:41the flamenco of his native Spain,
00:43isolationism was the prevailing movement of the day.
00:46Our nation had been scarred by conflict and suffering.
00:50In 1937, we did not see ourselves as interconnected, but safer the more separate we were.
00:57In Spain, as the Civil War raged, Franco's forces of repression perpetrated atrocities against those they deemed to be too
01:05left-wing.
01:06A year before Ryder's Song was published, García Lorca was killed by Franco's men, executed by a firing squad.
01:13He was right. He never reached Córdoba.
01:17García Lorca never concealed his beliefs. He believed too deeply in the possibility of a better world.
01:23Today, nine decades later, those of us in this room hold the power to make that vision a reality.
