i can't even imagine what it must've have been like for doug wilder, first black governor of maryland. 1989. or fergie read, first black person elected to the general assembly since reconstruction. for george delmer who was elected during the construction to the general assembly, a black man from portsmouth. and he was a republican. every time i look around this room, i do see this. i see the ghosts of those people who worked here. those black folks who were enslaved here. whose dignity and humanity was discounted right here in this room. i see those people and i know we, not just i, we carry their hopes and dreams and their posterity. i carry it in my heart. i think about all the people who never got their rights heard by people sitting in this chamber. thank god the, what has turned the page. thank god -- thank god the commonwealth has turned the page. thank god. [applause] i can imagine how proud they would be to see all the people who are now serving in this chamber looking back at me. from different backgrounds, different faith traditions, different races and ethnicities. and so

let me recount an amazing story that i heard from doug wilder, former governor, he was drafted into the military in the korean war. the military, like society at that time, was with a lot of racial prej deist, a, doug is a guy to stand up for himself. he had a commanding officer that said i want everyone to be treated fairly and he believed as others in his unit in the middle of really difficult battle circumstances the african americans in the unit was not being treated well. they all agreed they were going to talk to their co and pass that on and when they all stood up to do it they all just said to doug, okay, you do it. so, he laid it out, his concerns about the way that they were being treated and his commanding officer said, you have done what i asked you to do, now you all go back to work and let me do what i need to do. and things did not change for three to four weeks and all of a sudden one day, everything changed. because, he did what he was supposed to do, he stood up and he said there is not right and we are a unit and if we make changes things can be better. and so i would