Occasionally in life, there are moments so stark -- they divide all that came before from everything after.

They stop the clocks.

They rip away the trivial from the essential.

They force us to confront difficult truths -- about our institutions, about our society, about ourselves.

10:22 am -- September 15,1963 -- was such a moment.

Even at a time defined by racial hatred…even in a city then described as the most “thoroughly segregated” in the United States…the assassination of 4 joyful and innocent young girls preparing for Sunday school pierced us.

Addie Mae, Cynthia, Carole, and Denise.

Their murders -- laid bare the lie that any child could be free in America while oppression’s long shadow darkened our cities and fear ruled our countryside.

Even 56 years later -- it’s tragic.

And, more than five decades after we lost those four innocent girls we must acknowledge that there can be no realization of the American dream -- without grappling with the original sin of slavery.

And as we all now realize, this violence does not live in the past.

The same poisonous ideology that lit the fuse at 16th Street pulled the trigger in Mother Emanuel, unleashed the anti-Semitic massacre in Pittsburgh and Poway, and saw a white supremacist gun down innocent Latino immigrants in an El Paso parking lot with military-grade weapons.

We have not relegated racism and white supremacy to the pages of history.

But the greatness of this nation is that we still strive to.

“We hold these truths to be self-evident…”

We’ve never lived up to it -- but we’ve never walked away from it. It’s what unites us -- the American creed.

It’s one of the most powerful ideas in the history of the world. And it lives in each and every one of us.

It’s in the wake of these before and after moments -- when the choice between evil and good is starkest -- when the pain pierces the heart the deepest -- when what’s at stake matters the most -- that we decide who we are -- and maybe more importantly -- who we want to be.

That’s when as people, and as a nation, we are defined.

Charlottesville. When I saw the torches -- when I heard the chants -- when I saw hate on the march -- I knew it was a defining moment. For me. For this nation.

Silence would be complicity.

After Charlottesville, I said that I believed we were in a battle for the soul of this nation.

And I say it again today.

We are in a battle for the soul of this nation.

It’s a battle we have fought again and again. It’s a battle that has claimed countless lives.

But we also should realize -- that revulsion to hate at its ugliest -- can summon the very best in us.

The coddling of white supremacists so heinous it cannot be ignored by any decent American -- presents an opportunity to continue to make progress against systemic prejudice.

It is only with persistent effort…it is only with fortitude in our actions…it is only with faith in ourselves and the future that may yet be…that change comes -- sometimes slowly, sometimes all at once -- and progress continues.

We know we’re not there yet -- the work is not done.

But we are almost 330 million Americans -- and I know there is nothing we cannot accomplish if we stand together.

Stand against hate. Stand up for what -- at our best -- our nation believes.

Honesty. Decency. Treating everyone with dignity and respect. Giving everyone a fair shot. Leaving no one behind. Giving hate no safe harbor. Demonizing no one -- not the poor, the powerless, the immigrant, the other. Standing as a beacon to the world. Being part of something bigger than ourselves.

That’s who we are.

And that’s why I believe so passionately that we have got to work to bring this country together again.

That is the work demanded for rebirth and renewal.

We must choose forgiveness. Again and again. And that takes incredible strength.

So my prayer for all of us is that in this moment, when our nation must once again decide who we are -- and what we stand for -- we will remember the strength of this community.

We’ll remember the moment time stopped. And then we’ll remember everything that came after.

And we will choose once more to fight for our shared American dream.

Together, we can do this.

- Joe