Mayor Eric Adams: Thank you, Rev. And thank you, NAN. And I say over and over again, I know we were at the Dr. King celebration and we have to be extremely careful about not properly acknowledging the success of this organization. When people say marching doesn't matter, advocating doesn't matter, never produces anything, that is just really factually inaccurate. As we cut the ribbon today to acknowledge NAN's opening of this important time, and we're going to reflect on what we need to do to move forward, we should not ignore what we've done in the past.
NAN planted a seed years ago as we sat down, the five, and decided to look at this vision of which many of you thought of, and as you came up the stairs, some of the volunteers that have been here for so long, just stop, acknowledge them, see their presence. Thank them. They have been the foot soldiers for so long.
But you cannot separate my mayoralty from the fact of my relationship with NAN. You just do the reflection on your own. From all of these different battles, from all of these different conversations, it was planted in the moment. And Rev would talk about it all the time, we sit down and say, "Listen, as you move forward to City Hall, this is what you have to do." People think we just woke up last year and said, "We want to run for mayor." No. Others woke up last year and said they wanted to run for mayor. We have been here for 30 years. 30 years. Very clear. Moving towards City Hall. And so I did not march those 30 years to get there and not do what we fought for on the trail. We are consistent. Consistent to do this.
Thank you, NAN. We have a lot to do, so much to do. And I want to look at some of the panels that we're going to be talking about. It's an accumulation of some real good panels and I'm hoping people come out and attend, those who are across the country. It's not by accident that we are facing the same crises in every city that we are in. And NAN has said, "Let's come together and come up with the solutions that we can implement." So thank you, NAN. I am the mayor of the City of New York and I'm one of the founding members of NAN, so the mayor is a NAN member. People need to always know that.
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