Prepare, Pursue and Perform by Congressman Kweisi Mfume

Congressman Kweisi Mfume - Former Congressman, Candidate for US Senate, Former NAACP President and CEO

Don’t be stymied by the agony of failure or deceived by the ecstasy of success because both can be illusions that vanish with the setting of the sun. Instead, let your failures become springboards toward greater achievement and let your successes render you sober so they can sustain you through the torment of howling winds, winds that chill us with the cold reminders of the societal challenges that we must face.

Never let your place be with the timid. Never lose the spirit that fired your first desire to learn. Never fear to risk your political or professional lives in the service of those causes that fate has sent you to champion and to win. Go forward today emboldened with courage, fired with idealism, and tempered by wisdom to do the work that God and the people of this nation have called on us as citizens to do. Let us all dare to move forward with new directions into a world and into a future where men and women shall have learned to live by freedom and not by compulsion.

The promise of America is real. This land is your land. Prepare, pursue, perform, and you will prevail.