"This is our promise to you. There is no other way."

I need not tell you that we live in a deeply divided America. We all knew that even before November 5th. But November 5th was a change election, and the Americans who voted voted primarily for change. And those who voted for change seem to have transcended gender, ethnicity, race, educational attainment, income and geographic differences.

The president-elect has a national mandate to lead and carry out his agenda with the aid of a Republican-controlled Congress. Many, if not most of these political, social, economic changes will be generational; they extend well beyond his term of office.

Yet, I would like to remind you that we have been here before.

In fact, our recent social and political battles are almost as old as the nation itself, most notably symbolized by a 19^th-century civil war that took the lives of roughly 2% of the U.S. population. Certainly, the decades-long fight for women’s rights, particularly the right to vote and for biologic control of their own bodies; the 20^th-century civil rights movement beginning with the desegregatin of our public schools in 1954 and the Great Society in the 1960’s; the bloody ongoing struggles in the ‘60’s and ‘70’s not only at home but abroad in places called Vietnam and Cambodia; the political and economic revolution of Ronald Reagan and Morning in America. Black Lives Matter, Blue Lives Matter and the nation’s century-old grappling with immigration represent a series of disruptions, battles and conflicts over our aspirations and hopes for our future. In some respects, our nation’s history has always been a tale of two nations, as one or another belief system seeks ascendancy over the other – clashes between “what was,” what is,” and “what might be.”

Let us also remember that the opposition to justice and equity has always existed, and when those who oppose it get louder and push harder against what we know is right, we must not only hold our ground, but we must also be prepared to push back, and we must be prepared to do more.

The Boston Foundation’s imperative to improve lives and strengthen communities rests on the remarkable power and provenance of our unmatched civic leadership role in greater Boston and beyond. Our defining ambition is to achieve equity, which is, first, to acknowledge and then seek to eliminate the structural and underlying causes of outcome disparities for historically marginalized communities.

I think we all know that racial, social and economic inequities are systemic; they have an accumulated history and have impacted many cultures, many races and many groups. And because these inequities are structural, commonplace and forged over decades—even centuries—it will require patience, generosity and time to disassemble them.

If we are to repair the wounds of the past and seek to achieve equity and a more just society—we must redouble the civic leadership role that the Boston Foundation has undertaken, as we are now called to strengthen our resolve on behalf of our beloved communities.

Our work is as important today as it was more than a hundred years ago. The expression of our common heritage is simple, but profound: where we see a wrong, we seek to right it; where we see a hurt, we seek to soothe it; and where we see a broken heart, we seek to mend it.

In his speech, “Citizenship in a Republic," which he delivered at the Sorbonne in Paris on April 23, 1910. Theodore Roosevelt, said:

“It is not the critic who counts; not the person who points out how the strong person stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the person who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends themselves in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement.”

So I want to say to all of you tonight, let us be in the arena. Let us be in the fight.

I want to assure you that just as TBF has been here in Boston for over a century as your community foundation, facing history’s most challenging moments and helping our city’s most vulnerable communities—we will always be here with you to support you, to partner with you and, as I just said, to be in the arena with you.

This is not a time to rest. It is a time to be restless – and relentless – in the pursuit of what is right and just.

Be assured that TBF will continue to move ahead with our ambitious goals to advance child well-being, economic opportunity, community wealth and community leadership.

We will continue to encourage and support the work of our equity funds – the Latino Equity Fund, the Equality Fund and the Asian Community Fund – and fight against hate.

We will continue through Boston Indicators and other research partners to uncover the data that helps us learn and informs our civic leadership and programmatic strategies– so we can close equity gaps, and work towards systems-level change and open pathways to opportunity, not just for a privileged few, but for all.

We will continue to convene leaders from across all sectors to unite efforts and share knowledge.

We will keep up the fight for policy changes and improved outcomes in workforce development, pre-K and post-secondary education, housing, wages, to protect the vulnerable, and so much more.

We will continue our work to close the racial wealth gap, through our efforts to broaden the pathways to success, through business equity, housing and the Greater Boston Partnership to Close the Racial Wealth Gap, which will soon see the launch of its first program, one that with our partners will begin the process of building generational wealth for those families who do not sit at the table of bounty.

And, you have my word that we will, within the next several months, launch a historic initiative to direct more philanthropy than ever into our communities to advance equity and make sure that no matter what else is happening across our country, the Greater Boston region will remain a shining example of what conviction and faith look like.

In the months and days leading up to the general election, there has been much talk about American democracy and the threats to its integrity. And while we all understand democracy as a system of constitutional government, we also understand democracy as a promise. A promise unfilled, but a promise nevertheless, constantly evolving and perfecting itself,  as Langston Hughes reminds us in his moving poem, Let America be America Again,

“O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—…”

“O, let my land be a land where Liberty
Is crowned with no false patriotic wreath,
But opportunity is real, and life is free,
Equality is in the air we breathe.”

At The Boston Foundation, we understand that the full embodiment of our civic leadership means seizing the moment, choosing to be innovative, choosing to be daring. And choosing to be bold.

This is our promise to you. There is no other way.

So, please, join me in raising your glasses in a joyful toast, to the work, to partnership, to social justice, to a beautifully diverse Boston community, to the promise and to a vision of equity that we know we can achieve together, that shines like a beacon through even the darkest of nights because we know that while “weeping may endure for a night, joy cometh in the morning."

And tomorrow, to paraphrase the novelist, we will, “run faster, stretch out our arms farther… And one fine morning — until we are borne ceaselessly into our own bright futures.”

Cheers.