Washington National Cathedral

Dean Lloyd: Good morning and welcome to the Sunday Forum, our weekly conversation at the intersection of faith and public life. Everyone knows this is quite an exciting moment in America’s life and the next three days are very big days for our country and in some ways for the world.

We are delighted to have with us two people to talk about the meaning and some different meanings for what the inauguration is all about. We have with us former Washington Post columnist William Raspberry and Stafford Foundation President Earl Stafford to join us today.

Bill Raspberry is known to many of you for his insightful columns in the Washington Post over four decades and was winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1994.

Earl Stafford is the one throwing the party which you may have heard about, the People’s Inauguration. Through his family’s foundation he has given a million dollars to host a three-day inaugural for the poor and disadvantage—the People’s Inaugural Project.

Bill and Earl, it is wonderful to have both of you here. (applause)

Well, Bill, let’s start with you. What is the significance, do you think, of a presidential inauguration? Is it supposed to convey something or perform something for the sake of the nation?

William Raspberry: The presidential inauguration is one of those traditional things that takes on or sheds meaning depending on the circumstance surrounding it. This one is special among inaugurations, certainly in my memory, but it represents such an amalgam of change and opportunity and growth for America that it has taken on really, really special meaning. I was thinking back to the first Reagan inaugural and it is the last time I have seen this town so excited about an inauguration. But there was in that one, at least as I saw it, an air of victory of them against us. National Airport was clogged with private jets and all of that. It was like there was a victory in a class war.

This time it seems to be the people’s inaugural and the people’s victory, not against one another but against its own history and in favor of its own ideals. I was struck by one thing, and then I will shut up. (laughter)

I saw a number a couple of days ago: that the number of Americans who support Obama, who think he is doing a great job, all the positives, is twenty percentage points higher than those who voted for him. So even for those who didn’t help to elect him think it is a good thing that he was elected. That is unusual, and I think very significant.

Lloyd: There is something about this inaugural event. It is our public ritual. It’s sort of our sacred ritual as power is handed on from one president to another and in the inaugurations you have seen have there been any absolutely riveting moments when you saw something happen there? I want to talk a lot about this particular one; but as you look back and the ones since you have been in Washington, have there been some that stand out as particularly powerful, sort of ritualized moments when something important is happening for America?

Raspberry: I don’t think of anything that begins to approach this one. There were a few moments in the JFK inaugural that were kind of memorable. There was this awful moment when the Iranians decided to wait until the swearing in of President Carter’s successor before they agreed to release the hostages. I mean, that was an awful moment. But—

Lloyd: Nothing compares.

Raspberry: Nothing compares. I don’t think of anything that compares to this one.

Lloyd: Yeah, yeah. If you were to write your Washington Post column so you only had a couple or three hundred, four hundred words to say why this moment matters so much. I know we have all heard pieces of it everywhere, but how would you say why this moment is so extraordinarily powerful?

Raspberry: I think it is the alignment of the stars that have given us a leader who is smart, who is capable, who inspires us with hope, and who makes us think that good things are very likely to flow from this.

It doesn’t mean that he is going to get a purchase on all the problems facing America. You would be an idiot to think he is going to solve this particular smorgasbord of problems all at once or in one term or two. But there is something about the hopefulness this particular inauguration ushers in that makes us think that America has taken, and is taking, a giant step in the direction of becoming what it has in its heart of hearts wanted to be since its inception. We lurch forward toward that goal in fits and starts and sometimes we have slipped backward. But this is a major step forward, and what makes it so major that so many Americans believe that it is a major step forward.

Lloyd: Earl Stafford, you have done something unprecedented as far as we know. You are putting on a three-day inaugural celebration, inviting the very people who cannot afford to come to an event like this. Tell us about this People’s Inaugural Project, how it came to you and what your vision for it is.

Earl Stafford: Well, wish I could really take claim for all this, but it started back in March, when I was inspired. It was an inspiration. I was led that we need to do something for the people during this great and historic event. Not knowing that Barack Obama would have been the president. But we wanted to do something for the people. As a matter of fact—

Lloyd: So regardless of who was elected, you began thinking about…

Stafford: —the decisions that we made were made of… I rented the presidential suite… I was able to finagle the presidential suite at the Hay-Adams Hotel, where President Obama happened to be staying.

Well, we had the room the next night. (laughter) And we are putting some people in there that aren’t at the presidential level, but did we did this in August of this year, and the event at the J.W. Marriott, we made a decision to do that in October, before the election.

The focus has to be on the people, though. We are overjoyed that President-elect Barack Obama will be the next president as Mr. Raspberry has said. You know there is a sense of hope and optimism in the nation. And I think what we are attempting to do parallels all that. But we can’t forget that in the midst of this the focus has to be on the people—those who are still hurting in America.

Lloyd: How did this come to you? Were you just talking one day and it popped into your mind that… this wild notion that this could be everybody’s inaugural? That even the people who were least likely to come to be part of it were going to be treated like royalty?

Stafford: Well, again, someone said, “If God be your partner make your plans large.” When I started, my intent was to get the presidential suite at the Hay-Adams Hotel, a very nice hotel. It’s on the parade route across from the White House. I was going to invite some of the homeless, some of the underserved if you will to come. We would have it catered and look at the parade and we would go on our own way.

But things have evolved, and they are continuing to evolve to the point where, in October, I saw in the Washington Post, actually my brother-in-law saw it and he was in my kitchen reading the newspaper after church and he said, “Can you imagine someone is going to pay a million dollars for a package at the Marriott for 300 rooms?” And I went over and peeked over his shoulder and I looked at it, and it was at that moment that I knew that that was what the Lord would have me to do.

The next morning we were at the J.W. Marriott.

Lloyd: You are the son of a preacher.

Stafford: I am.

Lloyd: One of twelve children, is that right?

Stafford: I am.

Lloyd: Did the story of the wedding banquet ever occur to you, the story Jesus tells about going out to the highways and byways and inviting the poorest and the most left out to come to the party?

Stafford: I am familiar with that parable of Jesus and Luke. But I can’t say that was in my mind in the beginning.

Lloyd: And you certainly have brought it to life. I understand you are getting a lot of response to it. People are interested in being a part of this. Tell us about some of the contacts that have been made.

Stafford: We have gotten, I know of over eight thousand responses that we have gotten. We have gotten thousands of responses from individuals who want to contribute, who have sent in a hundred dollars; they want to be a part of this. We have gotten hundreds of requests from people around the country who just want to volunteer. They don’t want a room, they don’t want to attend, but they just want to do good. And of course we have gotten, as I said, thousands of requests from individuals who want to come in and this is almost heartbreaking when you hear some of the stories and some of the situations and the issues that people have. But we were only able to bring in approximately four hundred to the hotel and to participate.

Lloyd: I understand that you are providing tuxedos, beauticians, so people will even look like royalty when they come in. Is that right?

Stafford: Being a guy, my intent was to bring them in, and you know, feed them and do this. (laughter) My wife and my daughter were in the living room one evening, and they said wait a minute, if we are going to bring the ladies in, we want this to be elegant and they came up with the idea of providing gowns and shoes and make-up artists. And they knew these professionals that we could have come in and do this, and it just went off the scale.

And that is what we are doing. We put the call out and we work through some of our coalition partners and we put the call out to see if there were any ladies that would donate a gown or two, so that we could have that. You’ll see it. There is a boutique set up off the lobby of the J.W. Marriott Hotel. I saw it for the first time last evening. And there are just hundreds of gowns, it looks like Nieman Marcus, and shoes, and accessories and the guys, yes, we have a hundred tuxedos for the guys. We have tailors and other people that will fit them. It should be pretty nice.

Lloyd: Tell us who some of your coalition partners are. I know a lot of people are helping you do this.

Stafford: What we decided to do, knowing that we couldn’t undertake this task by ourselves—we were a small family foundation—we sought the help of other socially responsible organizations, such as the National Urban League. We are teamed and have a relationship with the Boys and Girls Club of America and the Joint Center and other philanthropic organizations. Actually there are 37 organizations that have teamed with us to make this possible.

Lloyd: Tomorrow I know you are hosting a Martin Luther King Day lunch. I would like to ask this question of both of you. Clearly the figure looming in the midst and over so much of what is happening in this inauguration is Martin Luther King, Jr. It is one of those beautiful grace notes of history that Martin Luther King Day happens to be the day before the nation’s inaugural. Say something about what you sense the legacy of Martin Luther King is that undergirds and surrounds this extraordinary next few days.

Raspberry: If I may start, there has been in the African-American community, I think in the last several years, maybe a decade or longer, a sense of pessimism of… I was teaching during that period and I gathered from my students a sense of the limits on things getting better, on the limits on their future, and so on and so on. In effect when we talked about the King dream they thought that this guy was just dreaming. You know, America is never going to be what he glimpsed in that famous dream of his. And we don’t even talk about that dream until around this time of the year.

So I think that’s one of those things that makes this time so special, because the dream and the big chunk of the reality intersect. I mean, this makes sort of a guiding star for us, that this is what it was about. And a lot us, including me, doubted that we would see a day like this in our lifetime. We didn’t doubt that such a day would come, but we didn’t think we would be lucky enough to experience it. And it is quite extraordinary really to be here.

Stafford: I think it is a great moment. I think what we are experiencing and what we are witnessing is the continuation of the realization of a dream. I just would caution us that we haven’t arrived yet. I think it is great that Mr. Obama is going to be installed as a next president and I look at him and I encourage my family to look at him not as the first black president—I think there is too much focus on that—I think we want to look at him as a very qualified, outstanding person, a man who is qualified to be president and oh by the way, he happens to be black. I don’t think his race should be always at the forefront. But his capabilities and his qualifications, that he is qualified to be president, needs to be at the forefront.

Now, out of this experience, I think we are moving towards what America should be. I think we are moving towards our greatness that we have the capability of achieving, and we are making great strides in the racial area, but there is also gender equalization and other aspects of our society that we have to address. We’re headed that way.

Raspberry: Let me share Earl’s caution that this is the beginning of change and not the culmination of it. I tend to think of America’s progress in terms of racial healing and social class healing and all these things as… in the way that I think of global warming: you are pretty sure it is happening, that the process is underway. But it doesn’t mean that you can know for sure that a year from today the temperature will be a little warmer than it is today. You don’t know anything about what the weather will be a year from today. You just know that in general you are moving in a direction.

I believe in my heart that we are moving in a direction of reconciliation, of rapprochement, of peace, of human dignity of America being America. But it is a lurching kind of movement and it is very uneven. Sometimes we make great strides, sometimes we make tiny incremental strides and sometimes we slip backwards.

But overall I believe this is going forward. And we are mistaken if we expect the sun to break out tomorrow morning and all the problems melt in its light. It ain’t going to happen.

Lloyd: In fact we had with us several weeks ago Tavis Smiley, who wanted to say very vigorously that, number one, this is not a post racial moment, and it certainly isn’t a post racial injustice moment; that the problems will stand the day after the inauguration as they stand now.

But something will be different, won’t it, in spite of that?

Stafford: I started off watching how reluctant African Americans, at least at the leadership levels, were to believe that this moment would be possible. But I also found myself fascinated watching white America start to get its mind around the possibility of a black president. At first it was difficult. Then I could sense from the polls that ran from conversations and from the general ambiance that it was considered conceivable and then it was done and now American thinks it was, overwhelming, thinks it was the right thing to have done.

This growth in that mind expansion of considering what is possible. There are so many things we are reluctant to start because we told ourselves it ain’t going to happen, people aren’t ready. You don’t know what the people are ready for until somebody comes on the scene and says let’s try it.

Lloyd: Earl, do you think that this whole moment actually not only symbolizes something significant in the midst of a reality that remains but can actually propel some progress forward?

Stafford: Most definitely. I think what is happening even through the election and certainly now is encouraging us as a people to focus less on that which divides us and to focus more on that which we have in common. I think that that is happening.

The other thing that is happening on this I find myself speaking to young people. I think the election of Barack Obama eradicates especially for those young people and those of us in the African American community, it eradicates all the excuses. There is no more excuse now why you can’t achieve. Okay, it is going to be difficult. Certainly there are still going to be biases there. But yes, yes you can. You know those excuses because I can’t, because I am black are being washed away.

Raspberry: It is easy to forget how in recent years our politics have become so predicated on conquer by division. It is about beating somebody, about overcoming people, about folks against folks. And one of the things about this time around, quite apart from the race and the youth and the smarts, is that we have got a person who is talking and behaving as though he really does want us to come together to solve our common problems and not spend all the time making the problem the other guy’s fault.

The reaching out—which sort of flabbergasts some of us sometimes—but the reaching out across all kinds of lines that used to be very clearly drawn, will have some payoff I suspect, down the road, in goodwill and the ability for people to work together to solve some really, really difficult problems, rather than be content to tell the world it is the other party that is responsible for this problem not being addressed. That is really huge and may make them take some lessons from all of us in our daily lives and work.

Lloyd: That may be one way that even as we come up to the inaugural with all of the post election pre-inaugural activities of the president-elect. We are seeing some behavior that looks fresh and different. As you all look at the full flow of the inaugural events, are there signs even in them that some things are being done differently, or there is a different kind of tone even being said in the inaugural itself?

Stafford: I think not only in Washington, I think across the nation, there is a sense of unity, if you will, that we are coming together. There is, as I was trying to say before, there is a sense of commonality now that we are looking to each other, and there is a sense of pride that we are Americans and that we are focusing on that which brings us together, and not in the blames that you are red or blue or Republican or Democrat, conservative or liberal, mean less than it did before.

Lloyd: Earl, let’s go back one more step in your story—and in a moment we are going to turn things over to questions from the audience. I asked you about your childhood, one of twelve children, a son of a minister. Clearly, in what you have been describing to us today, you are describing a vision of life that is still deeply shaped by your faith. Your faith is still absolutely central to who you are.

How have you sustained that faith through the years? And what have been the powerful shaping forces that keep you living in that faith so compellingly—not just believing it, but being so clear about it that you have to make a difference in the lives of the people around you? What do you attribute that clarity and that passion about your faith to?

Stafford: You know, I think it comes from my parents, my mother and my father, and the way they used us and exposed us, and encouraged us to accept Christ as our Savior. We are still a work in progress. But certainly I went through my periods as a teenager and afterwards, and then came back, but I think that has been instilled in us to focus on Christ.

We try to instill that in our children and it is almost ironical that sometimes, when I become discouraged, my children and my wife, they encourage me, and our entire family is focused around that. Our faith is at the center of all it is we attempt to do. Not being perfect, making many mistakes. But that is the core value of our family.

Lloyd: And Bill, an Episcopalian, right here. Say something about how that has shaped your life.

Raspberry: Well, I must, like Earl, go back to my parents in very large measure. My parents are both teachers and sort of leaders in our community when I was growing up. And my recollection and my experience at the time was they didn’t use this to elevate themselves at all.

But they really truly, without any pretensions, saw themselves in a peculiarly strong position to be of service. They lived their lives serving their community. The way we were brought up and seeing that that was the thing to do. And not to think of it in terms of sacrificing, but of opportunity. You’ve got some things to share. Now obviously these were… I think they had their source in my parents’ religious faith, and they were reinforced by our church attendance and by the teachings we got, you know, during our growing up. But these became such a central part of who we are, as families and as adults, that it seems only natural that we try to pass these on to our children. So I think—I can’t overemphasize the power my parents exerted over me and my siblings when we were growing up.

Lloyd: One final question before we go to the audience. This inauguration is obviously the celebration of a remarkable moment of achievement: an achievement for Barack Obama and achievement for the African American community, but for our country.

My question is what’s next. If you were to imagine that this time of celebration will generate both pride and commitment and energy for a way forward, what would you hope might begin to come out of this galvanizing moment for our country when it seems that everyone is thrilled about what is happening?

Stafford: What I hope, and I think the hope and optimism that many of the people in America have, is that the walls, again, that separate us that divide us start crumbling. I think, hopefully, there will be a better understanding and a willingness to accommodate, to seek others and to understand others as this country comes together.

I think that by pulling together… I often say that we look, and there is a lot of hurting, there is a lot of unemployment, people losing their homes, people losing their jobs. There is a lot of hurt in the land. And I am hoping that through this experience that no one is really bailing out the people, I hope that we begin to bail out ourselves by doing good to our neighbors and reaching out across lines like that. Then hopefully that America will move towards its potential greatness and service and example for the world.

Lloyd: What would be one example that those walls are beginning to fall for you?

Stafford: Well as Mr. Raspberry said, I don’t think there is going to be a quick fix or—

Lloyd: No

Stafford: —a quick result on this. But again, metrics, such as violence and things of this nature, of us helping each other and doing those types of things. I can’t think of a specific example but the sense of unity.

Lloyd: Bill.

Raspberry: My hope is that out of this will come something that is really tremendously needed. We have, among a segment of our young people, an incredible negative sense, and incredible sense of pessimism that results in some of the problems that we talk about including criminal activity and school failure and the rest. It comes out of a pervasive sense of pessimism, some of it supplied by well meaning adults like ourselves who say if we keep talking about how awful things are, maybe the society will come riding to the rescue.

But the kids don’t see the riding to the rescue. What they hear is the incessant drumbeat of how awful things are and how you don’t really have a chance.

What this moment does—could do—for such children is to start to remove the idea that there is a limit on their aspirations, to have them to start to believe that if they put their minds to it and work their level best at it, it can happen.

That’s the thing that perhaps middle-class children take for granted because their parents sort of drum it into their heads. But there are an awful lot of young people who don’t believe that their own grit and gumption and hard work will take them anywhere. This election and this inauguration and this presidency at least hold the hope of removing the idea of impenetrable ceilings.

Lloyd: Let’s go to questions, Deryl.

Deryl Davis: As we begin audience questions, let me ask the audience, if you are still writing a question, to please raise your hand and an usher will come by and collect that for us.

First question coming in online is for Mr. Raspberry, and it is related to your last answer. This person is writing from New York City and writing about a November 2008 Washington Post column that you wrote, in which you said that the election and the aftermath may allow our children to begin to see life as a series of problems and possibilities and not just a list of grievances. What challenges or possibilities do you think may arise from President-elect Obama’s success in America? Do you see the more challenging conversations shifting from race to class?

Raspberry: America has always found it hard to talk about class. We behave in class-conscious ways but we are more likely to acknowledge race than class, because we don’t know quite what to do with class.

A lot of our problems, though, I think do stem from class distinctions, many of them disguised as racial distinctions. And what we may find it possible to do is at least begin to talk about those distinctions.

See, gender and race are easy. They are obvious, and everybody’s got a position on them. When you talk about some of the subtler things that keep people apart and make people feel superior to one another by birth, by right, that is a lot tougher to get at.

We are going to have a lot of those conversations. I think we are going to begin to change the landscape on which we talk about a lot of issues—many in quite unpredictable ways. I don’t profess to be able to tell you how this will play out. But we are going to have some different conversations. I am sure of that.

Davis: Next question is for Mr. Stafford and this questioner would like to know more about the people who will be attending and participating in your People’s Inaugural Project and some of the major events in that three-day period.

Stafford: What we have attempted to do is to reach out and to bring in a cross-section of those who we believe are hurting in America, the real people. I shouldn’t say real people, but the people in America. So we are reaching out to those who are in homeless shelters, we are reaching out to those in battered women’s shelters; we are reaching out to the young, the elderly—elderly, those 85 and above. We have a lady coming in, 108 years old; another one 106 years old. I spoke to this 106-year-old lady and she is spry and I said, “Well, yes ma’am, I don’t get involved in the invitations but I wanted to call you and I am going to have a car sent for you to pick you up. She said, “Well, you tell me what time because I don’t want to be here waiting on you.” (laughter) So even this morning before I left to come here I said, “Make sure you are there for Mom Tucker, we are not going to be late there.”

We want to acknowledge and bring in our wounded soldiers and those who have served our country and made sacrifices, of our young children, and not only that but there are some young people in America who have really excelled that really contributed. They have excelled scholastically, they contribute, and we think we should really acknowledge them. And we have some of those individuals coming in.

We wanted to cut across racial lines, cultural lines, religions lines. Native Americans, African Americans, Hispanics or Latinos. We want it to be a hodgepodge of those coming in.

Davis: And some of the major events?

Stafford: Well what we have decided to do, tomorrow morning at 7:30 we are holding a one-thousand-person prayer breakfast. It is an ecumenical effort that we have, although Christian-based, but we are inviting in those of different religious Jewish background, those of the Muslim background, and those of the Mormon background, Buddhist. We want people to come together—those of means and those not of means.

Those who will be attending, some will have millions in their bank accounts and others only pennies in their pocket. And we want to come together and we want to pray. We want to pray for the people, we want to pray for our country, and we want to pray for the world. And that will happen tomorrow morning.

After that we are having a one-thousand-person Martin Luther King luncheon celebration and Martin Luther King III has graciously accepted our invitation be the main speaker. There will be other notables there, but we want our young people, our older people in a mixture of America celebrating that.

The next day we have the venue at the twelfth-floor terrace of the J.W. Marriott Hotel. We are fortunate enough to have that overlooking Pennsylvania Avenue and we will have our outreach people, those that we are bringing in—we call those our Platinum Guests. Our Platinum Guests will have the opportunity to watch the parade in style—red carpet, chandeliers, catered. It’s in a glassed environment and glass tent. Then that evening… (laughter)

Lloyd: How can we sign up? (laughter)

Stafford: You’re funny. Then that evening, we are holding an inaugural ball where we will celebrate the inauguration and the presidency there but I felt uncomfortable having our younger people celebrating with adults and we decided to have a two part Youth Inaugural Ball.

We will have in total over five hundred young people celebrating on the terrace. The first, the preteens, those below twelve years of age, and from six o’clock to eight-thirty we will have educational music, I think some of the stars will be coming by, some of the singers and entertainers. Then at nine o’clock, the teenagers, those up to eighteen, thirteen to eighteen, will come in and do their thing, whatever that is. (laughter) But it will be supervised, and they will have an opportunity to celebrate this historic occasion, also. (applause) Thank you.

Davis: I have one question here, a different question, which is about whether you have invited the president-elect and his family.

Stafford: Boy, that is a tough question. Yes, we have. We have been in contact with the transition and the presidential inauguration committee. They have been very supportive behind the scenes and doing that. Mr. Obama has quite a few invitations out. (laughter) We are just hopeful he will stop by.

Davis: This could be addressed to either of you, I think. What do you expect to hear in Barack Obama’s inauguration speech, and what do you expect the themes to be; and do you think his main inspiration will be Abraham Lincoln’s two inaugural addresses?

Raspberry: Every speech he has made has been better than I could have suggested to him. (laughter) And I am content to sit back and wait to be edified by what he has to say to us. (laughter)

Davis: This question is about how you account for the excitement that so much of the rest of the world is experiencing around this election.

Stafford: I just think the message of hope and optimism of this new president coming in is not only contained here to America. Hope knows no geographical or political boundaries; I think it is just spreading throughout the world.

I happen to have been in Europe this summer and I will tell you, if they were allowed to vote, I think it would have been a much greater landslide than it was. But I think people are tuning in to the hope, the optimism they are hoping the president will bring. Again I would warn you, as Mr. Raspberry has, is that although we are hopeful of the new administration, it won’t be a panacea. It won’t be an end-all to all of our situations. But it is engendering a sense of hope that things will get better.

Raspberry: Because of our peculiar history here, it is easy to see this as primarily the election of the first African-American president. The world may have somewhat a better perspective on what we are doing than we ourselves have.

I think what they see is the election of an extraordinary human being. They are not unaware of the racial by-play here, but they by no means think that is all there is to it or even that that is predominantly what’s there. They see us as having had the good sense or the good luck to bring forth a leader who is smart, who is capable, who has a vision of the world that is inclusive rather than exclusive; that is willing and eager to move us away from the combative attitudes we have had in terms of how we solve problems, both domestic and international, that you have to beat the other guy up rather than figure out what you can both live with.

I mean, I think the world… and he also is seen as someone who is respectful of differences. Respectful of those who are not like European-descended Americans. So much of the world is hanging its hope on this person being able to make us all stand a little taller or behave a little more openly and more fairly. And I frankly share that hope. I think we mustn’t miss the boat and think that the entire significance is his race. That is a little piece of it. (applause)

Davis: This questioner is asking, with all the problems in the world and all the problems that currently face America, how can the president-elect assure the underclass in the U.S. that they too have a role in America today?

Raspberry: By my lights, that is one of those truly important things about what Earl Stafford is doing. You know, this doesn’t transform America and its social class structure or anything. But it sends a signal that the least of these are entitled and invited to the banquet. That’s incredibly important, even for those who won’t be near the banquet, to know that somebody like them is there and invited and is celebrating.

We are in for some economic tough times, so to talk about what poor people will have to go through at a time when people who are rich consider themselves suffering. That is not going to happen easily.

What can happen is that people at all levels start to believe that they can, through their own concerted effort, get the help of some of the rest of us and make a step or two or a half-dozen forward. That will do more than anything I can think of, any program, to start to undo this poverty thing; because it will lead people to get trained, to get educated, to learn to care, and to cooperate.

Lloyd: Let me follow up and ask Earl, do you see further steps after this extraordinary thing you are putting on? Will the People’s Inaugural Project have some other initiatives beyond this?

Stafford: Certainly, you know, we talk about this inside the family that the publicity is given to the party, if you will, to people coming in and celebrating. But our real job really begins on January 21st, when the people return.

What we want to do—and it would be a sin to bring people who are hurting into festivities to celebrate and have them return home in their same condition. So we are making… As feeble as it may be, we are making an attempt to enable them. We are holding seminars on Monday afternoon, a life skills type of training. We are bringing in doctors, we are bringing in counselors.

A lot of time people who are hurting, they just want to talk. They need someone to listen, they just need some guidance. And so we have counselors coming in that will sit down in rooms with these individuals that want to talk. We have doctors talking about health issues; we have dieticians coming in; we have financial planners that will talk on how to manage that which you have even better—how to be better stewards. And then after these people leave, it is our commitment that we will stay in touch with them and we will try to assist them as much as we can for at least a year after they return to their communities, to try to match them up with the right resources in their community, to encourage them, to provide any type of assistance that we are able to do. And then encourage them to go out and to help others.

One of the things that we want to bring across in this is that, even though your life is not perfect, even though there is stress in your life and you might be going through issues, there is always someone around you who is worse off than you are. So, even in your distressed situation, we want to encourage these individuals to go out and to do good, to extend a helping hand to their brothers who are worse off than they are.

We find sometimes that our biggest burden is really someone else’s biggest blessings. So that is what we want to do. (applause)

Lloyd: Final question.

Davis: At least two people have responding here, commending you and asking, do you still need any volunteers?

Stafford: No, but thank you for asking.

Davis: Last question in here is… What impact this election has on the city of Washington, D.C., a majority African American city which has not been fully represented in Congress?

Raspberry: You mean aside from the traffic? (laughter) I don’t know yet. I honestly don’t. I think there is some hope now that the new president will use his good offices to help us toward full representation in the Congress. Look, he has quite a lot on his plate, and I am not sure whether that is going to be real high among his priorities. I think for the first year, we will simply be sharing the celebration. I don’t want to put that burden on him as well.

Lloyd: Earl, a final word from you? Any hope for what can happen in Washington, D.C., or any other hope for you coming out of this moment?

Stafford: But I hope for not only Washington, D.C., but across the nation and indeed across the world. Our prayer is—and my family and I, we had a devotional this morning, and we are talking and praying that this would be the beginning of healing in the land, this administration, this pivotal time in history right now would be the beginning of us reaching out and seeking truly to become our brother’s keeper: that you might not put on an inaugural ball, but there is something good that you can do for your neighbor. We hope as this happens and multiplies, and we will see the fruits of our efforts.

Lloyd: Thank you. This has been wonderful conversation. We hope you will come back next week to be with us when we are going to take a break from having a guest with us and do something just with all of us gathered here. Talking about what it means to stay spiritually alive and having some peace in the middle of a global storm. We are going to take a look at Paul’s amazing letter to the Philippians and have a conversation with each other about it.

For now, though, we hope you will linger. There is coffee in the back of the church for those who would like to stop by and have a cup of coffee. I think, Earl, you are going to be able to stop by for just a moment; and by all means join us at 11:15 for our service which will be a service in honor and thanksgiving for the life of Martin Luther King.

Please join me in thanking our wonderful guests. (applause)