What Humphrey Day Means to Me

03/07/2008

Dear Editor,


With the Humphrey Day Dinner fast approaching — on Saturday the 15th — let me share with you what Humphrey Day means to me.

I grew up in the 1970s in Florida — not the touristy, sun-and-surf part, but in a trailer park in a national forest. I started reading the newspaper in Spring 1972, when the big story was the close race for the Democratic nomination. The candidate that I liked best was Hubert Humphrey, because he talked about quality public education, and about opportunity. Humphrey’s words hit home with me because he understood the need for a government that created opportunities for families and towns like mine.

My family wasn’t rich. But my parents both worked in public education, and taught me the value of hard work and good grades. And because of the Great Society that Hubert Humphrey championed, because of federally funded student loans, I could choose almost any college in the country. My future wasn’t limited by my family’s finances; instead, it was shaped by my educational opportunities.

And as my Central Florida town was desegregating, I attended an integrated school, which would have been impossible just a few years earlier. But I was lucky, because Hubert H. Humphrey — who called on America to “walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights” — helped make it possible.

Now I live in Minnesota and have the honor of asking you to join me at the Humphrey Day Dinner on Saturday the 15th.

Hubert H. Humphrey helped make the Democratic Party one of the greatest engines for positive social change in American history.

As we look forward to a new era of positive social change, please join me on Saturday, March 15 in honoring a great Minnesotan and great American, Hubert H. Humphrey, who helped make so much possible — for all of us.

Sincerely,


Brian Melendez
Chair
Minnesota DFL Party