I know that we have been inundated with tragedy these past several months. But I wanted to take a moment to address one particular tragedy, a grave injustice that claimed one life but that resonates in so many others across the thread of our history into the present day.
By now, many of us have seen the harrowing footage of Ahmaud Arbery out for a jog on a February day. Shot down in cold blood. Lynched before our very eyes, lynched so plainly, unmistakably and without mercy. He would have turned 26 years old today.
His family deserves justice and they deserve it now. They deserve a swift, full, and transparent investigation into his brutal murder. The two men responsible for his death have now been arrested, two-and-a-half months after committing the crime.
They were arrested only after Americans saw the footage and spoke out. That shouldn’t be what’s required to get justice in America. Those arrests are just the start of achieving justice, not only for Ahmaud’s family, but for our entire nation. America needs to reckon with this.
This vicious act calls to mind the darkest chapters of our history and more recently, the awful specter of white supremacists on the march in Charlottesville, of massacres in houses of worship, of a rising pandemic of hate. Ahmaud should be alive today, we have no recourse for the life he lost.
But we can make this promise that together, we will recommit America to equal justice and root out the racial inequities, the gender inequities, and the income-based inequities within our system.
African American mothers and fathers should feel confident that their children are safe walking on the streets of America. Until we get there the work remains urgent and unfinished.
That is the promise I make to all of you as President, I will work tirelessly to get us to that day.
Thank you — and God bless you.
