“ You remember the Defiant Ones, the two convicts shackled to one another escape and fall into a ditch of dirty water, and one of them almost made it to the top, but can’t because his mate is still down there, and he’s shackled to him, and he slithers down. The only way they can ever make it is up, up, up and out together. We are bound to one another. We can be human only together. We can be free only together. We can be safe only together. We can be prosperous only together. And God cries out to you wonderful people in this incredible land, God says, “Please help me; please help me realize my dream that my children will wake up one day and know that they are family. And then, and then, and then we may see the fulfillment of the vision of wherever I looked I saw a vast throng which no one could count from all races and tribes and nations and languages, standing before the throne and the Lamb; they were robed in white and had branches in their hands, and they shouted aloud, “Victory to a God who sits on a throne and to the Lamb.”
Archbishop Desmond M. Tutu
The Washington National Cathedral
September 11, 2002