 
Welcome to Cleveland Clinic's twenty seventh annual
Martin Luther King Junior day of celebration.
To begin our program from Baldwin Wallace University
the voices of Praise Gospel Choir.
[Music].
Our thanks to Baldwin Wallace University's
voices of Praise Gospel Choir.
And now the Reverend Dr.
Amy Green Director of Cleveland Clinic Center
for Spiritual Care [applause.]
Good morning.
Good morning.
Welcome to this important day in the life of our community.
We hope you found your way to a seat and that you've
by now met some new friends.
This is our first year without assigned seating
so thanks for being flexible,
as we all settle in.
This is the twenty-seventh year that the clinic
has celebrated the life and mission of the Reverend Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr..
In every one of the years leading up to today
there was a prayer service,
which preceded the breakfast and keynote speech.
The tradition started when the Reverend
A. Charles Bowie of East Mt.
Zion Baptist Church,
yeah.
They're here of course,
just across the street.
At the corner of 100th and Euclid led
his congregation in a service of prayer
on thanksgiving for King's life and legacy.
Several clinic employees including CEOs and other
leaders would join that celebration
in march together over to the clinic for the breakfast.
A few years later the prayer service was moved
to the Intercontinental Hotel auditorium.
This year for the first time,
we're bringing a few elements of that prayer
service into the bigger event,
so that everyone,
whether religious or not may experience some
of the joy and spirituality that was and is at
the root of Dr.
King's life and work.
It's important to remember that the man
and the movement we celebrate today were a product
of the African-American religious experience.
It was a spiritual movement,
deeply rooted in the black church tradition,
which held and still holds both the pain and the joy
of struggling for justice and dignity
and wholeness for everyone.
We're thrilled this morning about the voices
of Praise Choir and let's giving them another hand.
[applause]
I don't know about you,
but I don't know about you but I look forward
to the day when these young people are in charge
of the world.
[appaluse] We’ll end
the morning by singing,
We Shall Overcome,
which is an anthem of the civil rights movement
and a favorite of Reverend Lewis.
We always ended the prayer service with him singing
it and leading us in song.
So today, even though he can't be with us,
we'll sing it partly in his honor.
We also sing it as an anthem for everyone.
Though some may feel the song is limited to a certain
group and a certain time,
we sing it this morning as a community because there
is plenty still to overcome.
Injustice,
bigotry,
sickness and suffering in many forms.
Lots of things.
Whatever challenges you are facing personally
and on behalf of others, your community
and the world, we hope you'll find the joy and spirit
in singing will boost you to continue.
Also, today we'll hear from our Fairfax neighbor
and colleague in ministry,
Reverend Dr.
David Cobb Jr.
the pastor of Emmanuel Baptist Church,
just a few blocks away.
Reverend Cobb, also a Baptist preacher colleague
of mine from Atlanta, is a familiar face
to many of us at the clinic and we appreciate
his bringing a word this morning.
And so, it is my honor to offer an invocation for us today,
to invoke,
is to call.
And so, I call on behalf of all of us the religious,
the spiritual,
the spiritual,but not religious,
the none of the above.
I call upon all of us on all our collective highest powers,
both human and divine to enhance our time together
and to create of us a community renewed
for the work and of hope and wholeness for all.
We ask a special blessing as we always do on those
who prepare the food and serve it and clean up
after us when we're gone.
Every great religion or philosophical
tradition, deistic or non-deistic,
mystical or materialist, requires at its best the same
thing of its followers,
to treat one's fellow beings as one would hope
to be treated and to embody mercy and compassion
to the world.
And so, I call upon all of us this morning to recommit
ourselves to this great goal,
amen.
Reverend Cobb.
Good morning.
I am the Reverend Dr.
David A. Cobb Jr.
pastor of the Emmanuel Baptist Church at the corner
of 79th and Quincy.
Just call us the neighbors.
It has been my privilege and pleasure to celebrate
Martin Luther King Day with the Cleveland
Clinic since I arrived in Cleveland from Atlanta,
Georgia the birthplace of Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr..
Every year we come together to renew our minds refresh our
spirits and reignite our fire to heal the sick and suffering.
Every year we come together because of the Reverend Dr.
Martin Luther King.
As a minister of the gospel,
I’m always honored to join other community
and interfaith leaders in prayer around
the fellowship breakfasts and inspirational speakers.
Has always been one of my favorite days of the year
and I pray that we would always take time
to remember the faith that the dark past
taught us and the hope that the present has brought us.
I want us,
also as I think about today as a proud student
of the Atlanta Public School system.
I was always exposed to the words of Dr. King.
Dr. King's words left an impact on so many of my
peers as well as myself.
Even today so many people like mentors in ministry,
Dr. Otis Moss, Dr. Larry Macon, Dr. C.J. Matthews, Dr. Stephen Rowan,
and of course I can't forget the Reverend Dr.
Charles A. Bowie,
still keeping that flame alive.
I saw it then I see it now.
Dr. King was there to remind us, "if it's not worth dying
for it's not worth living for."
Even in the relatively short time that I've served as pastor
of the Emmanuel Baptist Church,
I have seen great challenges and changes in this community.
However,
I am very excited about the future through the 12
years of laboring as a community partner
with Fairfax and the Cleveland Clinic.
Our mutual mission has been to serve and to heal
the community around us.
And I believe we can continue to accomplish
this work by working in unity for the greater good of every
individual regardless of age, race, gender, or religion.
Dr. King always reminded us that anyone can serve
and we know that each one of us is needed
if we are to heal our broken world.
No one can afford to sit idly by and leave the work
of justice, wholeness, and peace to other people.
We must all do our part faithfully inspired
by a vision bigger than any one of us or any institution.
We have to make a personal commitment to the cause
through our attitudes and actions.
There is much division in our land,
but we know that hope is stronger than despair
and love is stronger than hate.
If we commit ourselves I believe the best is yet to come.
We can change the world.
So my brothers and sisters hold on and hold on to hope.
As I close,
I want you to really listen to the words of Dr.
King very intensively when he said,
“If you can't fly then run,
if you can't run, then walk,
if you can't walk then crawl,
whatever you have to do keep moving forward.”
So I challenge you today,
let us keep moving forward.
Thank you.
[applause]
Please welcome Cleveland Clinic CEO
and President Dr.
Tom Mihaljevic.
[applause]
Good morning.
Good morning and warm welcome to Cleveland Clinic
2019 Martin Luther King Jr.
Day of Celebration.
Now thank you Reverend Cobb for your powerful words
and I, just like those before me, would like to give
a special thanks to Reverend Bowie who was not
able to join us today.
We cherish your long friendship with Cleveland Clinic and your
support for this annual event.
Now Cleveland Clinic has hosted this celebration now every
year for the past quarter century.
We are proud to recall achievements of Dr.
King and his quest for justice and equality.
We are inspired by his legacy as a serving leader and Dr.
King said, “No work is insignificant.
All work that uplifts humanity has dignity and importance.”
And these words resonate so powerfully for us
caregivers here at Cleveland Clinic.
As you all know we're non for profit organization
and our purpose and our reason for existence is to help people.
Because we deeply care for our patients,
we care for each other,
we care for our community and we care for our
organization.
And therefore in health care there is no such
job that is insignificant.
Every contact that we have with a patient or fellow
caregiver or a member of the community
is the opportunity to follow Dr.
King's example and uplift humanity.
As a CEO this is actually a special event for me
because last year this was the first
public event in which I spoke.
So I give my full support to our community initiatives and I'm
aware that we can always do more.
This year I would just like to mention a few
initiatives that we have accomplished and things
that we're planning to do.
We will see the first class of high school students
graduate from our Louis Stokes internship program [applause].
Now for those who were here three years ago,
we welcome one hundred incoming freshmen to prepare
for careers in health care.
Another program,
which is very dear to our heart is our
caregiver Pathways program,
which partners with local organizations
and schools including, Martin Luther King High School,
to increase our local hiring efforts.
Because one of the really important missions of Cleveland
Clinic is to create jobs.
We want to create a greater opportunity for graduates
in northeast Ohio, in particularly greater
opportunities for their employment here at
Cleveland Clinic.
I always continue to be impressed by the work
that is done at Stephanie Tubbs Jones Health Center
in East Cleveland,
where we strive every single day to do more and more
for our patients in need.
And Cleveland Clinic is committed to our community
by also enrolling the youngest of us
to take an active role in the community at the very
beginning of their careers,
at the beginning of their education.
So we've introduced our students from Lerner College
of Medicine to help our neighbors and address
their health issues.
Now there is another initiative that I am
proud to announce,
an initiative that will have positive effects
on thousands of families and thousands
of members of our community.
In 2019 Cleveland Clinic has decided to increase our
minimum wage to fourteen dollars an hour and [appaluse].
And next year,
next year 2020 we will increase it to 15
dollars an hour.
[applause]
This commitment of our organization will
improve lives of more than three thousand of our
caregivers and our communities.
And I believe that this,
these initiatives truly reflect our commitment
that Cleveland Clinic has to the community
in which we reside.
The combined effects of these efforts and the spirit
of service,
which is at the heart of Dr.
Martin Luther King and the meaning of this great
national holiday.
So I would like to extend many thanks to each
of you who give yourselves to the good of our community.
Thank you very much.
[applause]
Now another great part of my job here today is to introduce
our speaker and our keynote speaker today is an exceptional,
exceptional lady and exceptional person,
Miss. Gina Abercrombie-Winstaley.
A distinguished diplomat,
foreign policy advisor and consultant.
She's an expert in Middle East affairs,
counterterrorism and cybersecurity.
So we all better pay attention.
[laugh] She represented President Barack Obama
as ambassador to the Republic of Malta from 2012 to 2016,
serving longer than anyone else in that role.
Ambassador Abercrombie-Winstaley is our own.
She was born here in Cleveland Heights,
attended Cleveland Heights High School
[applause] but then she went on with her educational
journey to Israel,
graduated from George Washington University
and earned her master's degree at
Johns Hopkins University.
Now if that is not enough then she joins
the Diplomatic Corps in 1985 and she was posted in Iraq,
Indonesia,
Egypt and Israel.
In Washington she served as a special assistant
to Secretary of State on a staff of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee,
Director of Legislative Affairs at the US
National Security Council and Director for the Arabian
Peninsula.
She was also the first woman to lead a mission
in the kingdom of Saudi Arabia.
There she was even cited for acts of courage during
a deadly terrorist attack on the consulate in Jeddah.
Most recently she has been foreign policy adviser
to the US Cyber Security Command and in all her roles
she has been a passionate defender of diversity in race,
gender and sexual orientation.
And on a personal note,
my first opportunity to meet the ambassador was during
a recent event here in Cleveland where
we discovered that we share a common passion
for Middle East,
for that part of the world that is deeply challenged,
very diverse and very much in need of help in tolerance.
We're honored to have her joining us today,
so please welcome Ambassador Gina Abercrombie-Winstaley.
[applause] 
Good morning.
So the first thing I want to do is say thank you very much Dr.
Mihaljevic and to everyone who put
together this amazing program.
I am delighted to be here because it's an important way
for the clinic to connect with the community
that it serves, us.
So let's give them all the warm round of applause.
[applause]
I'm grateful for this opportunity
to be with you here today on this day of renewal.
This day, remember and honor the legacy and service
of the great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr..
His work and that of all the unsung heroes
of our civil rights movement changed our nation.
We know from their example that all effort
great or small can have impact.
Martin Luther King Jr.
personified the term servant leader,
that is to put others well-being before
your own quest for power.
His sacrifices and accomplishments
and those of America's early activist were great,
but there's more for us to do.
The mantle is ours now and I am gratified to be among so many
who are both leaders and servants,
caregivers in our community.
In pursuing the ideals of servant leadership,
I have had the privilege to work my way up in the U.S.
Diplomatic Corps and as Dr.
Mihaljevic mentioned serve as President
Obama's personal representative.
I'm privileged and proud to have begun
that journey here in Ohio.
And like many of you,
as Dr. Mihaljevic mentioned,
I'm a home girl from Cleveland. [appaluse]
I studied under great educators from Shaker Heights,
Cleveland Heights and Cleveland Public schools.
And I owe my accomplishments to some of the finest public
servants in this community.
I had parents, teachers,
and mentors like you, who opened my eyes to the wider world
and helped me understand that I might
have a meaningful role in it.
I had mentors, parents,
and teachers like you who believed
in my abilities and taught me to believe in myself.
And I had teachers, mentors,
and parents like you from east and west of the city
who advocated volunteerism and who practiced
what they preached.
Many of these people had no idea of their impact
on me and through me on others.
Once it was an honorary aunt,
I suspect paid by my mother,
who really pressed me on what I was going to do
with my life and made me think about it really clearly.
Once it was a neighbor who had an art gallery
and introduced me to his love of African and Asian art.
He never knew it but he ignited my passion
for travel and my interest in turning
strangers into friends.
And once it was me overhearing a friend's mother
cautioning her from spending too much time with me
because she didn't think I'd amount to much.
[laugh] I remember that one very well [laugh].
All of these people and more instilled in me
a commitment to service,
a commitment to what we call paying it forward.
That commitment started my world travels
and brought me home again.
The inspiring legacy of Dr.
King is a solid reminder that we may never know the full
impact of the work that we do.
Even as we are simply trying to do our best,
we may never know how much some gesture,
some action or word from us healed a wound
or sparked a fire in someone else.
So today as I share my journey I ask that you reflect
on your own journey of service and as we continue
to fight for Dr. King's vision of what we and our nation,
indeed the world can be.
It's important that we mark our struggles,
those times when we feared that our efforts were unhelpful,
went unnoticed or unappreciated.
It's important that we recognize our successes,
those times when the fruits of our labor
paid off in the benefit of someone else or a group of people.
And finally we are here today to celebrate the joy
of service itself and to renew our spirit
for the challenges ahead.
Because people,
this work is hard.
Whether in our personal lives or in our workplaces
or standing up to be counted for the larger
battles that are facing us today.
It is so much easier to keep quiet,
to stay home,
but we know there is no denying that we have
more work to do.
It's why we honor the quote that we have before us today.
As Dr. King said,
“no work is insignificant.
All labor that uplifts humanity,
has dignity and importance and should be undertaken
with painstaking excellence.”
I hear my mother and father in my ears with that.
None of us would be here today if we did not understand
the full importance of that statement.
Like you in my personal journey,
I have strived to be judged on the content of my character.
I have been tested many times in many ways, large and small
and I have tried to do my best,
but I have not always emerged victorious.
As a young diplomat,
a Midwestern girl from modest means,
I strive to be equated with excellence.
I came to understand that my contributions
from my background and experiences broaden
the array of options that might lead to success.
But I had to learn to make my voice heard.
Sometimes I had to overcome the resistance,
curiosity of foreigners who weren't expecting
me when they made an appointment with a U.S. diplomat.
[laugh] Sometimes I had to overcome resistance
from my own colleagues who questioned my
suitability for my chosen profession.
I was frustrated by colleagues and bosses at times
who underestimated my ability to contribute
to solutions and I didn't always handle that frustration well.
But I had to learn to trust that those who sent
me out in the world to succeed knew what they were doing.
I had to bring my perspectives to the table with confidence,
you know what I mean.
It's something that all of us face from time to time
and have to master.
Shortly after I arrived at my first overseas
assignment one of my most difficult in war torn Iraq,
a colleague told me that the senior staff
from the embassy had met and that one of them
had announced my arrival as the new Head of Consular Affairs.
That's a person who handles visa, immigration issues,
and American Citizen Services.
And then he cautioned them that I was a woman…
and black.
And I was told that there were groans around
the table because they were about
to be burdened with what must be substandard me.
That's the kind of knowledge that breeds and feeds self-doubt.
That's the kind of information that can get
you defeated before you even begin.
And yet, and yet I was there to
serve and to be part of the solution.
So as a U.S. consul,
though I was young and newly trained,
I was empowered to negotiate a treaty
with the Iraqis to ease travel hurdles
for Americans and Iraqis living under
Saddam Hussein's rule, if I could.
And though it was clear to me that I was not expected
to succeed I used the example of Dr.
King and combined it with the training, patience,
and tenacity that I came with and respect for my
partners to get the work done.
And we achieved an agreement that significantly
eased lives in Iraq.
This Cleveland girl focused on maintaining Dr.
King's noted painstaking excellence in her career.
And I spoke to Indonesian students about American
ideals regarding rights and democracy in Indonesia.
I monitored national elections and exchange
views on the importance of voting with Egyptians in Arabic.
I sat with refugees and those who kept them
that way in the Gaza Strip and in Malta
and I made clear that American values
meant that they would not be forgotten or forsaken.
And in different parts of the world I heeded
Martin Luther King's words,
“That no work is insignificant.”
As a U.S. diplomat abroad,
I was proud to advocate for environmental
protections and also join my embassy colleagues
with gloves and trash bags and the local staff
and we cleaned up parks and we cleaned up beaches.
American diplomats are showcasing American
values around the world by advocating
for universal education and we are also tutoring
students one on one in our off hours.
As Dr. King said,
“All work that uplifts humanity has dignity.”
In what was to become the most difficult
assignment of my career, indeed my life,
I was sent as the first woman to lead a diplomatic
mission in Saudi Arabia the most conservative nation
in the world with regard to women.
And while I was there I traveled the country widely.
When I was not meeting with government officials,
I was visiting hospitals and factories and schools,
many, many schools.
And I spoke often there about not letting others’
expectations for you or of you, hold you back.
I spoke for myself and I spoke for others who needed
encouragement to break down barriers.
And during my travels I was often greeted warmly
and humbled by that welcome.
Young Saudi women were especially inspiring.
They shared with me how encouraged they were to see me,
an African-American woman in a position of leadership
and their excitement about the possibilities
of their futures, was palpable.
And I was proud to be that example of what we say
in this country we stand for and to help ensure
that those who represent America around
the world look like America.
But over time I grew also to understand
that our American advocacy for those human rights that Dr.
King demanded for us all, civil rights,
women's rights, open education,
and equality in opportunity and in the receipt
of justice that,
that advocacy angered people in the country as well.
To some of these extremist as a leader
of this diplomatic mission I represented something ugly,
something frightening, and wrong.
The rights and privileges that they accepted as their
birthright were not for people,
were not for others, not for women,
not for people of different faiths.
And we know from our own history and indeed our
present that those who are intent upon
keeping the status quo,
those who want to keep wrongs unrighted,
those people are willing to use violence to do so.
Around the world we saw it in Paris, in Quebec,
and in Beirut too many times.
And here at home we've seen it in Charleston
and Charlottesville and Orlando and in Pittsburgh.
Sometimes the victims were the wrong color
or the wrong sexual orientation or the wrong gender,
the wrong religion.
Sometimes they were just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Good people, good people standing up for what's right,
sometimes good people just trying to live their lives.
So we faced extremists in Saudi Arabia
because we had a job to do.
And life became difficult for everyone at our mission.
Our diplomatic staff labored under constant threats
to carry out our duties and some may question
if we as Americans had the right to challenge conditions
outside of our own country.
But as Dr. King said in his
breathtaking letter from a Birmingham jail,
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.
And we are caught in an inescapable
network of mutuality.”
But while we were advocating for universal
rights and freedoms,
extremists were calling for our expulsion and death.
For safety reasons we were ordered to evacuate
all non-essential personnel from the mission and every
parent who remained at post had to do so without their
children and without their spouse.
My own children at the time,
hope I don't cry,
my own children at the time were 3, sorry 6
and 9 and like every other family member
ordered to evacuate.
My husband was given three days to quit his job,
pack up their belongings,
pull them from school and put them on a plane
with him, out of the country.
So while serving our nation we spent 18 months
apart and it took years for us to recover as a family,
but this is part of service.
Too few know that this has become
a typical story for American diplomats
for civilian representatives overseas.
And although it never occurred to any of us to make
a different choice, as all of us here know,
when one family member serves,
the entire family serves at whatever level that you're
working in and the family sacrifices
and we shouldn't forget that.
So during these difficult times and others
we often and before us,
the example of Dr.
Martin Luther King and I drew on his wisdom
and spirit as I led my staff.
The example of the heroes and sheros that he led
in the face of indifference and opposition
helped us stay resolute.
When people rejected our message and threatened
us with violence, we hung in there.
And the reality was that from the chief of mission
to the waiters in our snack bar,
we were all in the same danger once we walked
through those front doors.
And when the terrorist attacked us in 2004,
they didn't ask about beliefs or background
or nationality before they killed.
And their hate left fifteen of our
colleagues dead or injured and,
and devastated their friends,
their colleagues, and loved ones.
And as we consoled each other and honored our
dead and put our lives together to get back to work, no one quit.
Not an American staff member,
not a local employee and like colleagues from in too
many places places like Kenya,
just this week. Tanzania, Yemen, Libya,
we knew why we were there,
we knew what we stood for and we refused to be cowed.
We understood that in our own small way, like you,
we were part of the effort that Dr.
King spoke about uplifting humanity.
Afterwards there was considerable
international attention,
words of condolence, awards,
but those small gestures had also took
place at that time, so important.
And one that I remember to this day came from a very
kind Saudi gentleman who didn't know anyone at
the mission and he sent over a huge box of toiletries
for our Marines.
Those brave young men lost everything
they had when the terrorists burned down their
quarters during the attack.
Our Marines lost big ticket items that insurance
eventually replaced,
but also small personal items that could never be replaced.
But if you could have seen the grins on their faces
when they open that box and in the midst
of undershirts and soap,
and they pulled out toothbrushes.
A small gesture easily overlooked,
but someone thought of it,
someone remembered and when they saw them
and recognized the gesture behind
it they were re-energized and uplifted.
Now today we are assaulted by horrendous acts
and petty unkindnesses and as a nation we have done
better and we can do better.
Each of us must seize an opportunity both in word
and deed to uplift humanity through the work that we do.
The foundation of today's quote really is respect
and dignity for the other, that's it.
And with those watchwords we can renew
our commitment to service,
to carry out acts that we know will have
impact and for that alone it's worth doing.
Again, “No work is insignificant.
All labor that uplifts humanity has dignity
and importance and should be undertaken
with pain staking excellence.”
Dr. King, we can do this.
Thank you.
[applause]
I think I can speak on behalf of all of us,
thank you so much for your kind and uplifting words [applause]
And thank you much more so for the service
to our country.
You have handled it with grace,
every single obstacle from the big ones over there
to the small ones over here with the grace and elegance.
So thank you very much. [applause]
And I would also like to extend my thanks
to all of you for coming today and making
this a wonderful morning for all of us.
Now I would like to invite the voices of Praise
Gospel Choir to lead us in song.
Thank you.
 
During this,
sing along with this timeless anthem
of the civil rights movement.
We shall overcome.
 
♪ We shall overcome X3 ♪
♪ someday. ♪
♪ Oh, ♪
♪ deep in my heart. ♪
♪ I do believe. ♪
♪ I do believe. ♪
♪ That we shall overcome. ♪
♪ We shall overcome, some day. ♪
♪ Say we’ll walk hand in hand. ♪
 
♪ We’ll walk hand in hand. ♪
Take the hand of the person to your right and to your left. 
♪ We’ll walk hand in hand x2. ♪
♪ Today. ♪
♪ Oh, deep in my heart. ♪
♪ I do believe. ♪
We will walk hand in hand today. 
♪ We will walk hand in hand today. ♪
I ask everyone to lift their voice and sing loud sing,
we shall overcome.
♪ We shall overcome X3 ♪
♪ some day. ♪
♪ Oh. ♪
♪ Deep in my heart, ♪
♪ I do believe. ♪
♪ All together. ♪
♪ We shall overcome, some day. ♪
God bless you.
[appaluse].
