Of us who are lightest friends will forever remember him but you, will remember him most. Every time the sun flashes on our face and warms us, we will miss elijah. You will miss him most. We loved him, but you would come to love him most. Please accept is you see, collective condolence of a whole host of americans who share this moment in front of tv strings and radios it will take this moment and teach in schools actually and who will share it with their own children. [applause] our prayers go out to his siblings, to his children, to all of those who were related to elijah. I said to me, now if you go before i go dont get up there and wing it. [laughter] [applause] he said write it down. Then he said, no really write it down. [applause] so here we are. His words of these, i think i know. The houses in the village. He will not see me stopping me here to watch his woods filled with snow. Yes those woods, are lovely dark and deep, but i have promises to keep. And miles to go before i sleep, and miles to go before i sleep. You would think that the words of robert frost were almost written is if he knew that elijah would one day be among us. With his spirit and his energy and everything he did and how he actually lived his live. This was is if he did have miles to go before he would decide to sleep. To be both proactive and evocative. Evaluate to capture our wills and dear to be different. To communities all over the country and then challenged us to dare to make a difference. Elijah and i spent a lot of time in the last couple of years privately just talking about our own live, our own death, our own humidity, our own mortality, our own funerals. Weather he was going to go before me or i was going to go before them and because i was three years older than elijah, he liked to kind of alchemy. Is elijah, based on, i will probably be leaving here before you. And he would see, dude, i hear the roth brother filled up downstairs where you are going so you may have to get in line. [laughter] sometimes out of the blue he would call me and just speak to me. So it is like now that you have turned 40. Course of elijah was 37. Whats it like we do turned 60 and of course he was 57. We used to call each other and announce sometimes on birthdays just to see birthday but we didnt do it regular because we wanted it to be different in surprising i would gives calls and enjoyed every one of them and surprised know all this year or four years later. And he would. Yesterday was my birthday. And i did not hear from my friend elijah. The ventilation in the spring of 1979, i was young talk show host a logic campaign to run for city council. Elijah was a young lawyer and precinct marshall working with the democratic, and by senator Clarence Mitchell in the third. Mike mitchell and soon to be state senator larry young and John Jeffries and delicate candy, the political godfather and mentor to both elijah and myself ready for nancy speak earlier, about the revered congressman aaron j mitchell. It was wealth, [applause] was both the mitchell, family and the mirthful family of the africanamerican newspaper, said really moved our communities along. They were nice and directed us on politics on inclusion. A fight for rights civil and political. So elijah we listened and we learned, and we began to get involved when all the way back to the campaign of Bert Humphrey when neither of us knew what we were doing except passing out bumper stickers that said vote for company. Elijah was being brought along and tutored is i said by the Mitchell Club and i was being brought along a tutor by the late state senator he was the first black woman in america ever to be elected to state senate. [applause] said despite those organizational allegiances, we became political buddies right away. We were both the yearly to try to strike out and to change the system that had maintained discriminatory practices and housing and education and employment in healthcare. Is were to deny political power. It was attracted to my Grassroots Campaign and 79 to run for the city council with no her name at all. And i knew and he knew even though he didnt see it and we didnt discuss at that time that one day elijah in the nottoodistant future would be running for himself. I would go on later that year to get elected to a city council and winning by three boats. Elijah who met my grandmother, that it was funny they came to me and said now, when they see is long is you know black, which meant the rest of my live, you are just remember those three boats were the father the son and the holy ghost. And you cant go wrong. [laughter] now off of it would be chronologically correct to suggest that thats how elijah got started it would be a gross understatement of where he really began. At shaving, and the beginning started in the home of robert and ruth cummings. Where young elijah learned the basics of live. [applause]. He was taught to work hard and applied by the rules and love your country and to cherish your faith and respect your elders. It was what they poured into him began to shine through him for the rest of his live. It was uncomfortable compromising understanding of who he was and whose he would forever be. I dont know that in the monday years we have known each other than elijah ever gave a speech around me. Conversation with me or he did not mention his mother or his father and the lessons of humility that gave him strength. I remember kneeling beside him at his mother his funeral service. Elijah was in a wheelchair and i kneel down and touch the back of his hand and he grabbed my hand is he was gripping also on the edge of the wheelchair, just a few feet from his mother his coffin. Off of you could look in his eyes, and see the enormous sense of loss. Its always says that at that moment, and her spirit and entered into him. And he squeezed my hand and he just pointed to her through his tears and through smiles. Throughout our years together, when i started in the congress and then later when he served in the congress, we would often see and remind each other this its not a perfect nation we are not perfect people. But god calls all of us in america, to a perfect mission. Elijah believe it and he loved it. He was the 20th century manifestation of races of people who had suffered and endured and survived. Three centuries of slavery and oppression deprivation, depredation, [applause], denial and disk privilege. [applause] from his mother his womb, in the middle of an evolving civil rights movement. And movement of black renaissance, unlike monday of us, revolutionary talent, of that date. The last poet, nikki giovanni, senator john says since only others. [applause] ranalli realized the road less traveled was impact one less certain that someone he knew anyway. Every day logic saw his paper on him. It was is mr. Used to tell me, already. You can explain through the usual methodology science. Weather it is the instinctive notice of the bumblebee, or the orderliness of the cosmos, i have to have the faith to believe in what others staying is being impossible. And he would repeat that. He would repeat the poet see i shall not show my faith. Three times eloquent on the part of why its trees in the glistening sauna. Attached are the stars, his power is never spent. The hills are mute. And yet, they speak of god. So i believe and i respectfully submit to you that we use this occasion this passage to another place on. To recommit ourselves to sharing elijah dream also the dream of Martin Luther king and sammy new hamer, the dream of the boys in washington and tubman in douglas. The dream of all of those nameless and faceless sharecroppers of his fathers generations. [applause] who were laid their bodies down on plantations all over this country so that young elijah could run across them and get to the promised land. It could not always speak the king his english, then have college degrees. The head of seo ways to pray. But they never believed they would never give up. Her waiver on his trust and belief they had in their children. They grow up, they become leaders. They are who we celebrate. The sacrifices and achievements, remind us students and frizzell was right, when he said that no hearing is fatal. The maximum wood was always we go to the maximum danger. But doctor king was right elijah, when he said for the true believers, the darkness would be live enough. So how do we celebrate him today. How do we honor him is we get ready to resubmit his soul spirit back to god. Now my trinkets are false praise or ceremony restoration, is things never meant anything to elijah. We honor him instead by holding onto his example of movement to god. By making a real in our own lives. It was an odd my opinion. Un seduced by flattery. Un dismayed by disaster. He confronted live with the courage of his convictions and then confronted death the courage of his faith. He taught us all and hope and how to smile, laugh, and how to cry. He taught us how to live. And with grace, and dignity, he is now taught us, how to die. So what shall we see of him long after that last pebble on his tossed to seal his grave. Let us see that elijah was a shakespeare once said, a faux that hate. A friend that went out treachery. A victor that went out oppression. In the victim sometimes. That went out murmuring. But above all to those who knew and loved him, he was simply a im going man with a im going heart. [applause] one final thing, my preference would be for elijah to be standing here right now, talking and speaking about me. May said, you know, there its not a rank nor station nor prerogative, in the republic of a grave. And yet i know a few minutes, we prepared to send a big timber of a man to the grave. Through the simple eloquence of his example divide the limits of others expectations but come on elijah, about and tell them what you told me the last time we spoke. He said, when peace like a river attend death my way, when sorr sorrow, what ever that house taught me to see, it is well it is well with my soul. [applause] his words are these. I think i know. You will not see me stopping here. Those woods in the lovely dark and deep, but i have promises to keep and miles to go before i sleep. And miles to go before i sleep. [applause] former congressman a tremendous hand. [background sounds] i knew this day would come but i never thought it would be so soon. My dad and i had a special