Remarks of
Eva Teig Hardy
Senior Vice President, Dominion
at the Virginia Holocaust Museum Dedication
Richmond, Va., September 11, 2002
It's a privilege to be part of today's dedication ceremony…
and to join my colleagues of different faiths and races as we remember those
who perished at the hands of terrorists on this day last year.
It is appropriate that we have gathered at the Virginia Holocaust
Museum… a place of remembrance… a place that provides a powerful reminder
of man's inhumanity to man… a place that strives to teach the value of
tolerance.
It is tolerance of diversity that underlies the dream of
this great nation - a nation envisioned by the Founding Fathers as the home
of equality, freedom and peaceful liberty.
I like to think of tolerance as a never-ending gift…
a gift we give each other out of mutual respect. We are a people rich in cultural
diversity, contrasting values and human potentialities. We are a nation whose
social fabric is strengthened by its many diverse and unique human gifts.
How vastly different America would be - in terms of artistic
creation, scientific discovery and the various forms of social interaction we
enjoy - if ours was a nation that suppressed individual deviations from conventional
patterns and attitudes.
It certainly would not be the America that you and I know
and love … because America was founded as a refuge for tolerance.
As September 11, 2001 taught us, there are those in the world
who do not share our values… who advocate violence… and who wield
the ax of cruelty, destruction and hatred to achieve their goals.
Theirs is the path of darkness and intolerance. It cannot
succeed in the fullness of time.
If we have learned anything this past year, it is that America's
will is strong. Our commitment is firm. And our cause is just.
We also have learned, as the proverb says, that "Human
blood is all of one color."
The tragedy of September 11 united us through loss and grief.
It also brought about a change in focus and a shift in awareness - an awareness
that life is fleeting and time is limited.
As we honor those who died - in New York, Pennsylvania and
Washington, D.C. - let us, in the words of Martin Luther King, "…use
time creatively, in the knowledge that the time is always ripe to do right."
Let us join together in renewing our commitment to light,
love and tolerance - the never-ending gift we can give to each other.
September 11 is and will be a day to mourn. We remember,
but we also look ahead. Stronger for where we have been… and fortified
by community and shared traditions.
May we be ever mindful, as American novelist Katherine Anne
Porter once said, that "Love must be learned, and learned again and again:
there is no end to it."
