Mayor Zohran Kwame Mamdani: Good morning, everyone. It is always a good morning when I get to say it from this pulpit. It is a pleasure to be back here, the first church that ever gave me an opportunity to speak to a congregation. I remember being there and thinking, "One day, I'll get up here."
I want to begin by recognizing a great leader and someone I am proud to call a friend: Reverend Rashad Raymond Moore. You know, the story begins even before the reverend said [it]. The story begins when the reverend was a speaker at the State of the State in Albany. I saw him there from the crowd. I was a little-known Assembly member - up, up, up in the auditorium. As soon as the ceremony finished, I ran down. I ran down to grab him. I said, "Please, just give me a meeting."
And I say this because I have looked to him for wisdom. I have looked to him for guidance. And if there is anyone here or watching who doubts his generosity of spirit, let the fact that he spoke to an Assembly member polling at less than one percent [serve] as proof of that generosity and as proof of that wisdom. He says I was known in Queens; I wasn't even known in Queens. My own friends asked me, "What's an Assembly member?" I said, "I'll get back to you."
But most of all, I want to thank all of you for making me feel welcome in this space. Because I know that, for some of you here this morning, spending Sundays at First Baptist is what you have always done, just like your parents have done and your parents before them. Perhaps your family has been worshipping here ever since here was Bessie Herbert's home on Reid Avenue.
And I know that, for many of you swaying in these aisles, listening to these sermons, it's as natural in breathing oxygen or cheering for the Knicks - we're coming up again.
And others here this morning have walked through these doors seeking community and belonging. And I know that you have found nothing less in this congregation, because it is a gift to look around and find kindred spirits, to know that you are embraced by love.
And others still have arrived here with problems that need solving, with worries that need assuaging, with a mighty Lord whose mercy you need to call upon. And I will not pretend to know what afflicts each one of you in this room, nor would I ever presume to guess the contents of your prayers. Those belong to you, to you alone.
But over the past years, first as a candidate and now as the mayor of our great city, I have been accorded the great honor of listening to thousands and thousands of New Yorkers.
Listening to New Yorkers as they told me of buses that took too long to come, if they ever came at all. Listening to New Yorkers as they explained how hard they worked to buy a home and turn it into something they were proud of, only for then that home to be a threat by the scourge of deed theft.
Listening to New Yorkers as they shared the names of those they loved who were then stolen away by the senseless cruelty of gun violence. Listening to New Yorkers as they wondered out loud to me: What was the point of City government if they never saw or felt it in their lives? If the pothole on their street was not filled? If the 311 call was never resolved? If the flickering light in the NYCHA hallway never shined?
And I listened to New Yorkers as they told me how they could not afford to call our city home any longer. They were reminded of how far away a dignified life was every first of the month, when rent was due. Every time they were at the grocery store with a basket that had fewer items and yet it cost more. When they sought to send their children to childcare and found that it would cost them more than $25,000 a year.
What challenges we face. What adversity lies before us. And I will confide in you: There have been moments when these obstacles feel as if they are too vast to overcome. When the mountaintops seem too high, the sea too rough, the going too tough.
And in those moments of doubt, and we all know how doubt can blot out the sun and erase all hope, I would turn to Hebrews 10:39 to find the path forward. It issues us a command: "We do not belong to those who shrink back and are destroyed, but to those who have faith and are saved."
My friends, that work, that work of refusing to shrink, no matter what lies before us, does not only unify us as New Yorkers. It defines us as New Yorkers.
No matter what may divide us, where we may disagree, we share this in common that our city never shrinks, that we do not even know how. And over these past months, it has been an honor to lead a City government that refuses to shrink, either.
Whether it be in the face of the most intense winter storms we've seen in recent years, or from campaign promises to provide universal childcare, to lower the price of groceries, to make buses faster, to preserve and build hundreds of thousands of affordable homes.
We have not only set up the first Office to Prevent Deed Theft. We have not only delivered murders and shootings to historic lows. We have also said it is our responsibility to deliver the most capital dollars to NYCHA in recent history: $5.6 billion over the next five years.
And I know that if we are ever to speak of public safety or to speak of crime, then we must know that the most effective tool at preventing crime is to put a job in someone's hands. And so, I'm proud to be here today as well with our commissioner of Small Business Services, Kenny Minaya. If you'd please stand up for a moment.
We have offered a new vision of what government can be, and we know that this is a vision that has to be sustained by a faith of its people that sees that vision at work every day. And now, there were some words spoken earlier this month that I have thought about lately.
The wise man said, "You don't know what a house is made of until the wind blows. Storms come, not just to make us stronger, but to see what we are really made of." That man, of course, was the Reverend Rashad Raymond Moore. And he was right. He was right.
Year after year, the storms have come, and year after year, New Yorkers have shown what we are made of: compassion, selflessness, resilience and unwavering devotion to one another.
And today, we possess that rarest of opportunities to show what our city could look like with clear skies overhead, to see just how much we could build when the wind dies down, to stand steadfast alongside one another in a city we both love and afford.
So that we don't have to travel the country to find other New Yorkers. We can still find them right here. And I just want to say two more things before I close.
The first is that I have spoken about the importance of listening in leadership. And so, I would like to invite this congregation specifically to a listening session that we are organizing for New Yorkers to hear from them about how they have been impacted by the affordability crisis. The next one is going to be at 6 p.m. on Nov. 12 at BKLYN Commons, at 495 Flatbush Avenue.
I would love for everyone here - deacons, trustees, the reverend, everyone worshipping, everyone watching - to be a part of that, because the city can only be great when it learns from what makes it great, and those are the people who call it home.
And the second thing I want to say is just a deep and sincere thank you. Because as much as the reverend says, "You know, [inaudible]," what I recall from that day was feeling as if I was home. And even amid the skepticism - that was rightful skepticism - to hear a man say that things could be better after all that you have endured, I do not begrudge any doubt.
But I know that, on that day, I left this church feeling as if there could be a way. And it is a joy to return to you having found that way together.
Thank you very much.
