My family is no different from yours. We may be different from the geography that we come from. Some of you all may pray differently than I do, some of you all may be from a different ethnicity, but we all have the same story.

When I was just a twenty-something, I came to Newark, and I found a connection to the city in a spiritual way. I found a connection here and people here that reminded me so much of my roots and my own family.

I think Newark has been in the crosshairs in every generation of the fight to achieve America. And I think Newark is a city that's at that crossroads still.

I am the descendant of slaves, of people that were born from a slave and a slave master.

Let your critics make you humble, and your enemies make you wise. Learn from every stumble but let nothing keep you down, for you were born to rise!

The drug war has been a war where the direct casualties have primarily been America's poor; America's minorities; and often, unfortunately, America's vulnerable, in terms of people with disease and addiction and mental health.