Jerry Brown visits South Los Angeles churches
Kaitlin Parker | 10-24-2010 | Comments |
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Listen to Jerry Brown's speech at the First African Methodist Episcopal Church.
View the slide show here.
Hot off his appearance with President Barack Obama at the University of Southern California, Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown spoke from the pulpit of several South Los Angeles churches on Sunday. Gavin Newsom, the mayor of San Francisco and Democratic candidate for Lieutenant Governor, traveled with Brown to the churches.
Over the course of the morning, Brown visited four churches in South Los Angeles and Compton. Brown used these visits as a means to encourage voter participation and to preach the Democratic platform in preparation for the midterm elections.
One of his stops, the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, is the oldest African American-founded church in Los Angeles. The pastor, the Rev. John Hunter, introduced Brown with a line of implicit support.
“The Lord oftentimes anoints and moves people to offer themselves to lead and to be a part of the solution,” Hunter said before Brown took the stage.
Brown is no stranger to speaking to religious audiences, as he was at one time in the seminary himself. Speaking to the large congregation appeared to energize him, even though he had just been ushered into the building moments before, running late after speaking at another church.“I know you’re going to vote,” Brown said. “I just want to remind you to vote. This is real important. If you don’t vote, you don’t count.”
Enthusiastic applause broke out after Brown said he wants to make sure everybody has the God-given right to exceed, to soar, and to go however high they can go.
Brown continued, peppering his speech with religious references, while at the same time making powerful jabs at his Republican opposition.
“With your help and God’s blessing, we’ll make it work for everybody. Not just the powerful. Not just the people who seek out Mammon. You know, the children of darkness in their own way are pretty smart, but this is the time for the children of light. Follow the light. The light that will give us the kind of illumination that will lead us to the right path.”
He made a final call to fix the schools and reform the prisons, and then was off to his next destination.
Ward African Methodist Episcopal Church offered a smaller, but no less enthusiastic audience for Brown. His speech became folksier and he spoke on a more intimate level to the church members, who at this point were already two hours into a church service.“Seeking and praying and serving, that’s really what we need from our people in government,” Brown said, before launching into a tirade against money-grubbing politicians.
“They’re called public servants. But we know some of those folks over there in Bell, California, were like public potentates. They were paying themselves more than the President of the United States for running a little city. I don’t know if they were running the city, they were running off with the city.”
He asked how many people have already cast their absentee ballot. When several hands shot up, Brown responded, “Well that’s good! It’s good if you voted for me! If you didn’t, it’s bad.”
The congregation laughed, and then continued to offer verbal affirmations and smatterings of applause as Brown insisted that it’s time to stop pointing fingers and to start coming together to solve problems. “At the end of the day, we’re all Californians, and we all have to live in the state.”
Outside of Ward, one church member lamented that they didn’t have a red carpet to roll out for the man he hopes will be the next governor of California.
John Frierson, another church member and long time South Los Angeles community and political activist, shook his head. “I’ve known Brown for 40 years. He’s not the kind of guy who would like a red carpet.”
Slide Show:
Created with Admarket's flickrSLiDR.
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