And I want to thank my good friend Ron Dellums for his kind and generous introduction. Ron and I go back many years together. During my military days, as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Ron was the Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. He made life absolutely miserable for me. (Laughter.) No, seriously -- no, no. You have to tell it the way it is. I would go up to a hearing -- (laughter) -- Ron's sitting up there, and I'd say, "Hey, brother." (Laughter.) And he gives you a bunch of stuff -- I'm from Oakland; I don't believe in any of that, you know? (Laughter.) We had a lot of fun.

And I'll never forget the fact that Ron is a proud member of the United States Marine Corps. (Applause.) And at the end of the day, he would always make sure that the men and women of the Armed Forces were taken care of, and I will always be grateful to Ron for that.

Ladies and gentlemen, my sisters and brothers, Alma and I are really, really delighted to be with you, to join you to honor once again Bishop Walker, a great humanitarian, to celebrate Africare, a great organization, to applaud my friend, who is a great educator and public servant, Lou Sullivan and his wife Ginger, and to support a great cause in which we all believe and which draws us all here this evening. That cause is the future of Africa.

For those of us here present this evening who are African American, it is understandable that we should feel such a special kinship to each other and to Africa. We need no convincing that our past, our present and our future are intertwined with Africa. In all that we are, in all that we do, we draw deeply from the wells of strength, courage and faith of those who went before us.

We who gather here tonight, in all of our finery, know on whose shoulders we so proudly stand: our parents and grandparents, the relatives that we know through families, stories passed down through the generations, and the countless souls known but to God, whose time on earth is recorded in plantation ledgers or as nameless, numbered cargo on ship manifests.

We feel always and must always feel deep gratitude toward the generations who preceded us, and gratitude for the deep link that still exists to the African lands from whence they came. But I know that each and every one of us here tonight also feels profound love and patriotism for this wonderful country of our birth or choice, the world's champion of freedom, a country blessed with a perfectible system of government, which permits its flaws to be mended over time through liberty and through law. We are proud to be Americans, we are proud to join with others from around the world who are here this evening, and to celebrate not only American's strength, but the strength of free people from around the world, who come together to think about perfectible systems of law, to think about democracy and to think about the future.

I'm proud of my country, and I know all of you here are proud of America in this time of crisis. I like the term "perfectible system" because all of us here know that it took many years to arrive at a time in our country where I could stand before you. I am old enough to represent several generations. I am old enough to remember what it was like, and I will never forget what it was like when I first started out in public life, just as a young second lieutenant, and people wondered how far one might go as a young black second lieutenant. I became Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

But even then, just 10 or 12 years ago, people would still say -- still say -- that's Colin Powell. He's the black Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. (Laughter and applause.) And I would always stop and blink and say, "There must be a white Chairman somewhere." (Laughter and applause.) But there wasn't. And that's the beauty of our country. The beauty of our country is, we went through those periods, and we are where we are because we never forgot where we came from, we never forgot those who went before us, we never forgot our heritage. And we have come here tonight for many reasons, but to celebrate that heritage, to celebrate the sacrifice. There are so many here this evening who made it possible for me and all of us to achieve, and we celebrate all of them who are here this evening.

I think it is especially fitting that this dinner should be held at this particular time, this time of anxiety, this time of crisis, some say. Because of the events of the 11th of September, it is a time of trial for all Americans and for all of the world. It is a time, as we fight this battle, to focus on the values that unite our community, unite our country, and make us strong, the values that are reflected in the sanctity of human life, in tolerance and justice, in freedom, the values that men and women all over the world hold dear, the values to which Bishop Walker dedicated his life, the values which have long animated Africare's lifesaving, empowering work.

Last week, I met with the Foreign Minister of Kenya, Mr. Chris Obure. He began our discussion by saying that Kenya viewed the terrorist assaults of 11 September as barbaric acts, as attacks not just against the United States, but against the whole civilized world. And he reminded me, although I needed no reminding, that Usama bin Laden is currently under indictment for blowing up the American Embassies in Kenya, and the American Embassy in Tanzania in 1998. In those attacks, 12 Americans died, 11 Tanzanians and 246 Kenyans. Hundreds more were injured.

Usama bin Laden went after America in the form of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, but he did not care a whit; he did not care the slightest about the hundreds of Africans he killed, maimed and injured in the process.

And just last Friday, President Obasanjo of Nigeria came to see President Bush, leader of the African country with the largest Muslim population. And he told the President that terrorism must be fought to a standstill, that the attacks of September 11th were attacks on innocent people of all faiths, of all creeds, of all races of the world. And that is why he, Kenya, and all the nations of Africa, all the nations of Asia, of the Persian Gulf, of the Western Hemisphere, of Europe -- all the nations of the world have come together in this grand coalition, to say that we must respond to this kind of evil, to this kind of terror that has been afflicted upon the civilized world.

We will prevail. The President is determined, the international community is determined. We will prevail. We will prevail because we will never forget the 5,000 people who were lost at the World Trade Center, the people who were lost at the Pentagon, the people who were lost in a field in Pennsylvania, innocent people who meant no one any harm those days. People from 80 countries in the World Trade Center, 500 Muslims were among those who were killed, innocent people going about their daily lives.

But Usama bin Laden, the al-Qaida organization made a mistake. They failed to reckon with the strength, the determination, the will of the American people. (Applause.) They may have destroyed our buildings, but they have not destroyed our spirit, and we will lead this grand international coalition, this coalition that respects all peoples of the world, but that does not respect evil people, such as Usama bin Laden.

So this is a time for solidarity, and you show that tonight. Look at this room full, full. At a time when people might have said, well, let's not go out. Your presence here tonight is a reflection of the solidarity that exists within this country and within the international community.

We need to resolve that out of this evil will come good. We are determined that through our tears, America will see and seize opportunities to make the world better. And, yes, it is very much the time to press ahead with our efforts to ensure a freer, more peaceful and more prosperous future for the men, women and children of Africa.

The Bush Administration and a bipartisan majority in Congress were pursuing an active agenda with the countries of Africa before September 11th. And I am here to tell you now we are even more determined to do so after the 11th of September. (Applause.) President Bush believes, as all of you do, that by history and by choice, Africa matters deeply to America. He has made Africa a priority.

Our President may be leading a global war against terrorism, but just last week he opened the first meeting of the United States Africa Trade and Economic Forum, to underscore just how high a priority Africa is for the United States.

President Bush gave the assembled foreign finance and trade ministers, who came in from all over Africa -- 35 nations -- he gave them his commitment to move forward with the countries of Africa in a new spirit of partnership, a partnership based on shared commitment to freedom, free peoples and free markets.

The President believes, I believe and I know you all believe that over the next 20 years or so, democratic and economic freedoms can combine with advances in technology to lift tens of millions of Africans out of poverty, and on to the path of sustainable development.

The power of the global marketplace is the world's biggest bootstrap up. Successful integration into the global economy is Africa's best hope for economic growth and poverty reduction. Africa's own new partnership for Africa's development, this new initiative, recognizes this clearly and sets forth a blueprint for African-led change.

African countries increasingly know that they must grow their way to a better future. There is no other alternative. Growth rates in excess of seven percent a year. Other countries, some countries will need even more than seven percent a year. These kinds of growth rates will be required if they are to escape from poverty.

I know that Jim Harmon, your dinner national chairman, who has done such a great job, former president of the EXIM Bank, who worked hard to promote US-African business links, will agree that for such growth -- for such growth rates to be achieved, enormous amounts of private capital will be needed, both from foreign investment and from the savings and investments of Africans themselves. Private capital will be needed on a scale many times larger than could ever be available from official development assistance.

That's why I am so pleased to see so many corporate leaders here tonight, leaders who recognize the potential of investing in Africa, and of investing in its people. But let's not kid ourselves. And the following little sermonette that I give to all leaders who come to my office: If you want that kind of growth, if you want investment in your country, you need to understand something very, very simply. Business is business, and capital money is a coward. It is drawn to places which have the rule of law, places where there is a the accountability of government, educated healthy work forces, secure working conditions. Capital will flee -- money will flee from corruption, bad policies. It will flee from conflict. It will flee from sickness. It will flee from the unpredictability of a governmental system. Capital is a coward. Capital can go quickly to any other part of the world these days, because of the power of technology, the power of the Internet. It doesn't have to stay and be at risk if it can go somewhere else. And so democracy, the rule of law, accountability, the end of corruption -- all of these are necessary for the kind of growth that will be required, and to make capital welcome.

That is why all of us who care so deeply about Africa and want to see her people thrive must also do whatever we can to ensure the success of political and economic reform, why we must work to bring peace to war-torn regions and countries, why we all must join the fight against HIV/AIDS and the other infectious diseases that are decimating Africa's most precious resource, her beautiful people. We don't Africans to lose the unprecedented opportunities of this globalizing world for trade, for growth, for development.

And so America is working with African governments and international and local NGOs to promote and strengthen civil societies, independent media, free media, human rights, the rule of law, and democratic development. And we are vigorously pursuing instruments of trade and investment like the African Growth and Opportunity Act, AGOA, which reward good governance with trade benefits.

And I am pleased so many members of Congress and others are here tonight, who played such an instrumental role in seeing that this legislation was passed. Because AGOA provides a powerful incentive to reform duty-free access to the vast American market. And in the few short months since President Bush signed it into law, in Lesotho alone, over 10,000 jobs have been created. Kenya, Tanzania, and Mauritius are all reporting jumps in job creation. South Africa tells us that thousands of jobs in the textile and related industries are being created every month thanks to AGOA. Jobs, jobs that put money in someone's pocket, jobs that give people hope, jobs that bring pride into a home, jobs that allow people to start moving up that ladder of wealth.

Africans are enjoying the jobs and profits that come from burgeoning commerce, and Americans in turn are enjoying superb products that they can buy duty-free from Africa. And proven success draws more investment, more joint ventures, and so on. It builds upon itself; it grows. And we are just at the beginning of what AGOA can do. There is so much more to realize, and we are committed to doing everything to make AGOA work.

Beyond our support for good governance and free enterprise, Americans are helping to free the enormous potential of the 800 million men and women of Africa through scores of education programs throughout the continent. These terrific programs are sponsored by all sorts of federal agencies, such as the United States Agency for International Development, the Peace Corps, and my own State Department has a number of programs that I am very, very proud of. Marvelous work is being done by foundations, by American colleges, including our historically black colleges and universities, and of course by organizations such as Africare.

On my trip to Africa last May, I visited Africare's digital village in Soweto. This remarkable program, which Alma and I visited and watched these youngsters hard at work, provides community-based access to the Internet to teach young Africans, and quite a few non-young Africans who were in there, all about the Internet and what the potential of the Internet is to learn, to teach, to pass information, to pass knowledge, to pass capital.

And that is what Africare is all about: these kinds of grassroots program. Africare: special people who go into the villages and the townships making the human connections and building the trust, the trust that is needed one person at a time. And it is also the dedicated emissaries of Africare who just as effectively go up to Capitol Hill, over to the White House, or come to my State Department and other federal agencies and pound on our door and make the case for Africa and for Africans. Africare is busy making the human connections, building the trust one person, one agency at a time.

Yet none of this -- none of this development, none of this progress is of any use or will be successful where wars and bloody conflicts continue to rage. The United States is also working hard to bring peace to war-ravaged countries throughout Africa. Sudan is a case in point, and I would like to just briefly touch on the approach we are taking to problems of this nature.

The killing, the starvation, the slavery that we have seen in the Sudan all are possible because the civil war in the Sudan continues unabated. If we want to end the abominations which we see, we must end the civil war. So we are addressing this appalling situation in two ways. We are helping the Sudanese meet humanitarian needs. The effort is led by the Administrator for USAID, Andrew Natsios, working with all the many worthy private humanitarian organizations in the Sudan. And President Bush has appointed Senator Jack Danforth as his Special Envoy to help all the Sudanese people come together and reach a just and lasting peace. And Senator Danforth will be traveling to the region in just the next few weeks.

So there is much to be done, much to be done to end these conflicts throughout Africa, and we are doing all that we can. But even more important than these sort of conventional conflicts is another challenge that is facing Africa, more deadly than all of them combined. It is the deadly challenge that we all know so well posed by HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases.

This pandemic and the spread of tuberculosis and malaria threaten to reverse everything, threaten to tear up all the progress that has been made, threaten to reverse economic development and social progress of all kinds, and with it, so much of the work accomplished by Africare and the other fine organizations represented here tonight.

It was C. Payne Lucas, who was among the earliest voices, years ago, to warn us that AIDS could kill the continent. And since 1988, Africare has been a leader and a pioneer in the fight against the pandemic. The rest of the world is just catching up to what Africare knew so many years ago.

And as C. Payne has said, already there are parts of the continent where going to funerals has become an almost full-time occupation. Some 6,000 men and women in sub-Saharan Africa die of AIDS each day. Africa now has 12 million AIDS orphans.

When we traveled this past May to Mali, Kenya, Uganda and South Africa, Alma and I witnessed firsthand the courage of men, women and children living with HIV/AIDS. All of you have had similar experiences. We were deeply, deeply moved. We turned through pages of memory books, memory books created by HIV-positive mothers who feared or knew they would not live to see their children grow up. The memory books would be tangible keepsakes of a mother's love for the orphans left behind.

Alma visited with a grandmother who had lost all of her children to AIDS, and who now struggles to raise 20 grandchildren on her own. When I held the hand of a beautiful 8-year-old girl, suffering from AIDS, who summoned all of her strength to join in a poignant song about AIDS prevention. Think of what Alma saw: all of the children of a mother gone, and the mother raising the grandchildren. An entire generation removed. It is a catastrophe, it is a disaster, it is a pandemic of the worst kind.

The very generations that must build Africa's future are at deadly risk. And that is why President Bush has put the full force of his Cabinet, his government, his Administration behind the US response to the HIV/AIDS crisis. He has named the Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tommy Thompson, and myself, to serve as co-chairs of a special task force to ensure our domestic and international efforts are comprehensive and that they are coordinated.

I work very closely and President Bush works very closely with Secretary General Kofi Annan to establish the new global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Since President Bush announced the first $200 million in seed money, we have raised more so that it is now up to $1.4 billion in pledges from donors all over the world, including $100 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. (Applause.)

And last week, when President Bush spoke to the forum, he announced that he is ready to do more. Two hundred million was just a beginning. We all know it is not enough. And I have a commitment from the President that in future years, we will add to that and add to that and add to that until we get on top of this disease. (Applause.)

We have got to work together. We can stem the tide if we adopt an integrated approach, an approach that emphasizes prevention, prevention and prevention; an approach that also must include treatment of the sick and care for AIDS orphans, measures to stop mother-to-child transmission of the virus, affordable drugs, effective delivery systems, training of medical professionals, and of course, our approach must include research into vaccines and the search for a cure.

Opinion leaders at all levels of society must step forward and acknowledge the problem. We cannot hide behind culture and traditions any longer. Leaders must use their authority to send lifesaving messages about people taking responsibility for their own behavior. And leaders must step forward and say that we have to stop stigmatizing those who are infected. They are our fellow brothers and sisters and must not be stigmatized because they are ill. (Applause.) All of us -- all of us must take responsibility and contribute to this global effort against HIV/AIDS and these other infectious diseases.

As I traveled throughout Africa this past May, I asked young Africans about their hopes for the future. I was also privileged to have the opportunity to speak at Wits University in South Africa to a large group of students. And I asked them to imagine their world and their continent 20 years from now. I asked them to imagine an Africa of vibrant democracies, from the Sahel to the Cape, from the western rainforests to the eastern savanna, and every place in between. I asked them to imagine an Africa of economies thriving in global markets that stretch from Pretoria to Paris, from Nairobi to New York, from Timbuktu to Tokyo. I asked these young people to imagine a continent where people have access to decent schools and medical facilities, to safe drinking water, the good roads and railways, to electricity and to the Internet. I asked them to imagine a continent of nations at peace within their borders and with their neighbors.

The 20-year-olds I spoke to could be living in such an Africa in 20 years time. It is possible. But the actions we all take now will go far in determining whether this new generation will ever see such a future, will ever see such an Africa. The United States Government, America, is and must be committed to helping the people of Africa build such a future, and we are fortunate, indeed, that all of you in this audience tonight are equally committed to achieving that future for the 20-year-olds I spoke to. That's why you're here. Because you believe in Africa. (Applause.)

What Africare does, what Bishop Walker did, what my good friend Lou Sullivan did in all those years as a public servant and community leader, and continues to do, they all see this potential. And they make it real in their daily work and in their daily activities, and that's why you honor Lou Sullivan tonight. To see promise, and to make it a thing of the present.

Every single day, Africare is helping to put tools in people's hands, bread on their tables, and above all, hope in their hearts. The 21st century is already here. The future is swiftly unfolding. And we must all help the people of Africa become a thriving part of it.

And so I thank you for coming here tonight. I thank you for your commitment to Africare. I thank you for your commitment to Africa and to Africans. And I thank you for showing by your presence here tonight that we are not afraid of the future, we are not afraid of those evildoers, we are not afraid of those who might try to divert us from our path into this bright future. I thank you, and I wish you God's blessings.

Thank you.   (Applause.)

9:40 p.m. EDT