House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asks graduates to hold on to hope
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — House Speaker Nancy Pelosi asked Brown University graduates Sunday to “hold on to your hope,” even when faced with darkness in the world right now.
“Amid the darkness, it would be easy to descend into apathy or despair. But we can’t. We can’t,” Pelosi said at the Ivy League school in Providence.
The California Democrat referenced the “senseless” shootings at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and a supermarket in Buffalo, New York — as well as the COVID-19 pandemic, the war in Ukraine, the looming U.S. Supreme Court ruling on abortion rights, the Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection and voter suppression.
“You’re graduating into a vastly different world,” she said, and congratulated the students on their bravery and resilience.
Referencing President Abraham Lincoln’s efforts to unite the country during “one of America’s darkest hours,” Pelosi called on the graduates “to help summon the better angels of our nature to help heal America’s fractured soul.”
“Hope remains democracy’s most powerful weapon against oppression, against cynicism, against hatred,” she said.
Pelosi was the principal speaker for the Class of 2022 commencement ceremony and one of nine people to receive an honorary degree during the three-day commencement weekend. Recording artist Shaggy was also honored Saturday for his work as a musician and a philanthropist.
