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Floor Speech
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Mr. BOOKER. First of all, I am going to come out to the aisle because this is ``doing the Sherrod,'' when you get far away from your desk. I literally think, if the leash were long enough, he would have opened the door and taken a couple steps out and come running in and down the aisle.
(Laughter.)
I stand today with a similar start because there was this moment in the cloakroom when I was a new guy in the Senate, and I talked about Tester saying to me very loudly in the cloakroom: I didn't think I was going to like you when I first got here.
Then Sherrod chimed in right away--and you will remember this, Sherrod--and said: I didn't think I would like you either.
Now, I didn't care about Jon Tester because I don't like Jon Tester.
(Laughter.)
But I really cared that Sherrod Brown would say that, at one point, he didn't like me. But I knew he liked me when he said it, because when I came to the Senate, he surprised me. He did something I never expected. I had great experiences when I first came here--friendships, colleagues stepping up--I see my chairman here--putting me under their arm, but Sherrod did it in a way that really surprised me.
He said: Hey, Cory. I want to work with you on something really important.
And I thought of all of these big issues in the Senate. Is it Social Security? Is it lowering prescription drug prices? I thought: What are we going to do for America?
Sherrod Brown blew me away.
He said: I want to fight for fair wages for the cafeteria workers who work in the basement of the buildings we work in.
Immediately, it floored me.
I started working in this place in 2013--and I will never forget--it was the least diverse place I had ever worked. I came here, and on one of the first nights I worked past 10 p.m., I left out of the employees' entrance. I saw the line of employees walking in, and they were mostly Black and Brown people. When I went to the basement to get something to eat in the cafeteria, the cafeteria workers were mostly Black and Brown folks. They didn't have a Senator living in Washington, DC, but Sherrod was someone who stood up for their dignity.
Sherrod, I have been struggling all week because I feel emotional, like losing you. I had this poem that kept coming up over and over again--it is really short, and I know you know it--but I did not understand why this was the poem, and I want to try to explain it to you. It is a poem by Langston Hughes. It is entitled ``I, too, sing America.''
I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong. [Because] tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes. [And] nobody'll dare
Say to me, ``Eat in the kitchen,''
Then.
Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--
I, too, [sing] America.
Sherrod, I have served with you for 11 years, and the thing I love the most about you is you see people. You see the folks who others walk past and don't even affirm their humanity. And you just don't see people; what you have shown me time and time again from my first week as a U.S. Senator is that you see the folks who are the most important to the very idea of America--the idea that people have sweat for and cried for and bled for. To me, that is the definition of what it means to represent people, all the people.
So I end with this, and it is a moment from American history because I know you are such a nerd.
(Laughter.)
You, frankly, just never fit my image of what I thought a Senator would look like. You are frumpy, and you are disheveled--and the only person who has messier hair than you is Bernie, for crying out loud.
(Laughter.)
But there are five words I think I want to say to you in my final farewell to you in an official capacity, standing in the aisle that you so defined. And it is a simple story from history after Lincoln gave his second inaugural address: Malice towards none and charity towards all--the ideal that you live that there is no us and them. It is just us.
Lincoln retired to a reception afterward, and it was crowded. And people were pulling at him and trying to get his attention, and he was pushing through the crowds, looking for one person who almost didn't get into the reception. This guy had to be recognized by someone because he was Black and was pulled in to be allowed to be at this incredible reception. The President pushes by him. The historians say it was the Governor of Rhode Island who was trying to talk to him, but he kept pushing towards this man.
And he said to this man: My friend, what did you think of my speech?
This man, regal in stature, humble in spirit, looked at him and said: Mr. President, you should attend to your guests.
And President Lincoln is said to have waved him off and said: No. I want to know what you thought of my speech. I need to know, my friend, what you thought of my speech.
This would be the last time in American history that these two men would ever speak because Lincoln would soon be assassinated. These were the last words that they exchanged. And if you allow me these five words, I just want to say to you, in my last farewell to you after your farewell speech, as Frederick Douglass looked at Abraham Lincoln and simply said:
It was a sacred effort. It was a sacred effort.
Your 18-year career here was a sacred effort to see everyone in our great country as an American, to affirm their humanity, to affirm their dignity, and to elevate our highest virtues.
Thank you, my friend.
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