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Protestants attacked Catholics during the 1844 Nativist riots in Philadelphia. Guess what that was about? Anti-immigrant sentiment. Back then, it was the influx of Irish Catholics into the city. Now, it's Donald Trump clinging to a bygone notion of Protestant ascendancy and nativist sentiments, when mainline Protestantism is on the wane in the U.S.
So [Donald ] Trump gave a speech on national security and military affairs to a military-themed audience in Philadelphia, and there was no vulgarity in it. There was no bombast. There wasn't any of the usual Trump braggadocio. It was a teleprompter speech, but it was serious, studious, and it represented a solid understanding of issues and of the status quo.
If you look at the well-informed Democratic Sanders activists - I don't know if you were in Philadelphia, but there was no secret about their enthusiasm for our campaign. But once you got more remote from the super activists in the Bernie [Sanders] camp, they don't know so much about our campaign. And the question is whether they are going to have a chance to be informed.
When you compare what people endured in the South in the 60s to try to get the right to vote for African Americans, and to compare what people were subjected to there to what happened in Philadelphia - which was inappropriate, certainly that . . . to describe it in those terms I think does a great disservice to people who put their lives on the line, who risked all, for my people.
It is true that the American colonials have "free elections," in which they have the absolute right to vote for one of two opposing candidates, both of whom have been handpicked and financed by the Rockefeller syndicate. This touching evidence of "democracy" serves to convince most Americana that we are indeed a free people. We even have a cracked Liberty Bell in Philadelphia to prove it.
It used to be said that, socially speaking, Philadelphia asked who a person is, New York how much is he worth, and Boston what does he know. Nationally it has now become generally recognized that Boston Society has long cared even more than Philadelphia about the first point and has refined the asking of who a person is to the point of demanding to know who he was. Philadelphia asks about a man's parents; Boston wants to know about his grandparents.
I grew up in the church, Resurrection Baptist Church in Philadelphia, and my grandmother was that grandmother at the church, the one always at the church, always putting on the events. It was deeply instilled in me that every action, everything I create, everything I say and do in the world is inexorably bound to the lives of everybody I come in contact with - and it's my responsibility to put things into the world that have a positive influence on humanity.
The cities of America are inexpressibly tedious. The Bostonians take their learning too sadly; culture with them is an accomplishment rather than an atmosphere; their Hub, as they call it, is the paradise of prigs. Chicago is a sort of monster-shop, full of bustles and bores. Political life at Washington is like political life in a suburban vestry. Baltimore is amusing for a week, but Philadelphia is dreadfully provincial; and though one can dine in New York one could not dwell there.
I went to a mosque in Philadelphia with [my wife] in December 24, 1999. And we we went to this mosque in Philly, and I just had such a strong reaction to the prayer. And I was really emotionally - I felt really grounded at that time. And so to be in this prayer and the imam is doing the prayer in Arabic and I don't understand a word of Arabic but I just remember these tears just coming down my face and it just really connecting to my spirit in a way that felt like I needed to pay attention to that.