Transcript: Mayor Adams Delivers Remarks at Office of Faith-Based and Community Partnerships' National Day of Prayer

May 4, 2023

Pastor A.R. Bernard: … Continue to cling to it and use it to transcend the realities that we face on a daily basis. So today, commendation to our mayor who boldly proclaims his faith and says, "I'm calling the city to pray." That's the kind of leadership we need. That's the kind of leadership we want. That's the kind of leadership we have. Let us welcome the mayor of New York City, Eric Adams.

Mayor Eric Adams: Boy, Pastor Bernard brought me to tears with that one. You talking about just laying out what prayer means and we just want to give you this proclamation to the church and to all of us. Today, I, Eric Adams, the mayor after Mayor Dinkins of the City of New York, do hereby proclaim Thursday, May 4th, 2023, New York City Day of Prayer.

We'll take a photo.

Pastor Bernard: Thank you, Mr. Mayor.

Mayor Adams: Thank you. I want to thank the CCC family and my colleagues in government. My amazing friend, our chief law enforcement officer, and please be seated. I'm sorry. Our chief law enforcement officer, affectionately we call Tish, Leticia James; our amazing district attorney, Eric Gonzalez; a praying woman, Farrah Louis. I know I saw her, Councilwoman Louis. And a real leader, a pioneer, one of the first Indian women to be elected in the state of New York, Assemblywoman Jenifer Rajkumar — all for joining us. In my brevity, I want to just talk about two things. One, just the power of prayer. The power of prayer. I have been extremely transparent about who I am because I wanted people to know the power of prayer.

32 years ago, God placed on my heart that January 1st, 2022, I would be the mayor of the City of New York. But God said, "Do not be silent, because if you are silent, then when you get there, people are going to believe you stumble there." And everyone I saw, everyone that I knew, those who knew me back then, Attorney General James probably thought, back then, "Eric must be on medication." Everywhere I traveled to as a lieutenant and captain, I said, "I'm going to be mayor January 1st, 2022." God wanted me to allow people to watch. If you just pray, and prayer is not so much verbal as what you feel inside. And I was very clear, and I believe that the reason he placed that on my heart, because he wanted to show us all, a perfectly imperfect person can rise to the highest political power in a city, in the most powerful country.

When you think about all of my failures, for those of you who are old enough to remember when illegal numbers were around, I was the number one number runner in South Jamaica, Queens. People who knew me back then said, "I don't know how the heck you became mayor." When you look at the fact that sitting in school and being bullied, didn't want to stand up to read because I was undiagnosed dyslexic. When you look at the fact my brother and I went on the wrong side of the law and we were arrested. When you look at the fact that we were rejected, how do you go from being arrested, dyslexic, rejected and now you elected to be the mayor of the city of New York? That's prayer. That's prayer.

And I remember the day like it was yesterday when God said, "January 1st, 2022, you are going to be the mayor." I said, "What?" And you may not have noticed, but the last few months, as pastor laid out, I have been talking about the need of God being back in our lives. And it's because the same voice I heard 32 years ago spoke to me a few months ago and said, "Talk about God, Eric. Talk about God." We have been so ashamed of God.

There was a time when you were on your job and people can look at you and say, "There's something different about you." You didn't only expose your god-like qualities on Sunday, you exposed them every day of the week and people can see it in your midst and they can see it in your walk. They can see it how you speak. You will be in the midst of doing something in your office space and people would say, "There's something different about you."

I'll never forget, and I'll talk about this often. When I was growing up as a young man, I used to take boxing lessons and I was so good in the gym, but when I got in the ring, I would get knocked out all the time. My trainers say, "You leave your best fight in the gym."

This is the gym. Right here in our houses of worship. These places are the gym. When Pastor Bernard give you the words of training, it's because he wants you to go into the ring and fight the fight. It is not good to be just a good worshiper, we have to be a good executor. Doctors don't go to medical school to learn how to read the philosophies of medicine, they go to execute the healing process. Lawyers don't go to law school just to learn the principles of law, they go to execute the law. We cannot be merely good worshipers, we have to be good practitioners.

I cannot believe with all of the god-fearing people in this city that we are still dealing with the crime with our young people in this city. I cannot believe with all of the worshipers in this city that we have young people who are growing up in homeless shelters and no one is going there nurturing them, praying for them, being with them.

They just revealed, the other day, something I've been talking about for a long time. Loneliness is equivalent to smoking packs of cigarettes today. How many of us spend our time in our senior centers, knocking on our neighbor's doors, talking to them, uplifting them during this period where people are in a dark place, not only post-Covid, but pre-Covid? Executors are out there healing people every day. You got 60,000 migrants and asylum seekers in the city fleeing persecution in the countries that they came from. Good executors are going there, helping them learn English, helping them navigate the difficulties of the time of being here. All of us came from somewhere and we need to be there for those who are in need.

You go down the list. You look at the homelessness on these streets, mental health illness is at an epic proportion. This is a moment for executors. And you know there's a tribe, the Maasai tribe, Chancellor Banks always remind me of. He stated that when they go visit each other in the tribes in their village, they don't say hello, they say, "How are the children?" Based on that answer, they know how well the village is doing. So let me leave you with this question. How are the children? How are the children? And don't answer to your neighbor. Just think in your mind, how are the children?

Suicide rates among children have increased to an epic proportion. They are depressed more. Our 9 and 10-year-olds, our babies, are saying, "I'm feeling depressed." They start their day going to the corner bodega buying cannabis and fentanyl and sit in the classroom and try to learn. They look at TikTok that's teaching them how to steal cars. Young boy was burned 85 percent of his body because he did a TikTok challenge. The same TikTok that our children are seeing here in America, you cannot see it in China, where they created it. How are the children? How are the children?

Little girls want plastic surgery at 11 and 12-years-old because they don't like their images of how they look with their natural, ethnic beauty. How are the children? How are the children? Look in our classroom, 65 percent of Black and brown children don't meet proficiency. If you don't educate, you will incarcerate. How are the children?

Young Black boys are carving highways of death with nine millimeter bullets killing other young people. The level of young people who are dying from violence from other young people is rising at a level that is challenging across the country. How are the children? How are the children? And if the children are not fine, then we can't blame the children because we are flying fine because of our parents, so the breakdown is not in what the children are doing, the breakdown is what we are not doing.

So, I want some devoted worshipers, but I want devoted executors. We need to go out and execute. And let me end with the power of prayer. What did prayer produce? First, understand what New York City is. New York City and New York State is the most powerful state in the most powerful country on the globe. So what did prayer produce? Prayer produced a person of color to be the DA in Kings County, Manhattan, and the Bronx. Prayer produced the highest law enforcement official in the state in Letitia James. Prayer produced two of the three citywide electeds in Jumaane Williams and Eric Adams, person of color. Prayer produced Hakeem Jeffries, the first person of color to lead the Congress. Prayer produced the leader in the Senate, person of color, the leader in the Assembly, person of color, the leader in the City Council, person of color. 30 to 40 of the committee chairs are people of color.

Prayer produced us and now we are here. All of the marching, all of the prayer, all of the worshiping, all of the singing, all that we ever asked for, we have, and I hear people outside saying, "Fight the power." Negro, we are the power. Now what are we going to do with the power? Because if we took the power that prayer produced just to attack each other, then we are desecrating the graves of those who prayed for us to get here. Let's turn this prayer into recovering the people who have been denied so many years. This is the byproduct of all of that prayer — is right now. What are we going to do with it?

We need to uplift this moment. We need to capture what the prayers were for. Whoever believed prayer doesn't work, God gave us the example right here in New York City. He produced all those who have gone through the trials and tribulation to now be the leaders of the nation. Four of the top cities in America are being led by people of color. Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Houston. What more does he have to show? We are now all in the boat, in the midst of the storm, he's laying down the rest. A little wariness and we are shaking him and waking him up. All ye of little faith. He brought us here, now it's time for us to do something with what we have gotten. I'm ready to use what the power of prayer has brought me. I need all of us to join together and use what the power of prayer has brought us. Thank you church, thank you Pastor Monrose, and thank you for all worshiping together.

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