Killer Mike keynote address at the 2023 FIRE Gala in New York City

Watch Killer Mike's speech on FIRE's YouTube channel

How are you guys doing? Now, this sounds like a fucking rap concert. 

I got asked earlier. So you're going to rap tonight? I was like, You guys give me a quarter million dollars, I call my fucking rap partner, we’ll rap for you tonight. 

Mr. Shapiro, wherever you're out there, I'd just like to let you know I'm stereotypical: my lawyer is not Eric. He's my friend, he's a professor. My lawyer is actually a Jewish guy named Elliot. He's absolutely amazing. Shalom to the tribe. I believe in your people. 

I'm here tonight because I believe in America.

Now, before we go all willy-nilly and crazy, I got some criticisms for this motherfucker too. A republic started by a people who wished to no longer live under a monarchy. A republic that formed a Bill of Rights and a United States Constitution where the first priority was freedom of speech. 

So with that, let me first acknowledge the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, FIRE -  one of the greatest organizations on earth. And I'm very proud to be here tonight. Thank you.

I'd like to acknowledge my friend Eric Nielsen and Andrea L Dennis of UGA for the Rap on Trial book, which they allowed me to write the foreword for and I deeply believe in the work. Eric is right over there. Stand up, please.

I come from a history of organizing and for every Martin King, you must have an Andy Young. You must have a Hosea Williams. You must have a Joe Lowery. You must have a Ralph Abernathy. You must have a Bayard Rustin. You must have a team of people that believe in the shit that you're pushing in. Eric on a daily basis is pushing. Andrea on a daily basis is pushing. They’re going to court with kids who can't afford lawyers. They’re telling judges you can not use this kid’s lyrics against them. They are making sure that all of our rights are respected on a daily basis. So for the people who are in the trenches, thank you. For the people who are currently locked in jail, now awaiting trial where their lyrics may be used against you, I say free Thug, I say free Thug, I say free Thug. And I say that because I heard some dumb-ass lawyer clumsily recite his lyrics in front of a court and try to say shit that he made up while stoned and high should get him 20, 30, 40 years in jail. And I start with that - I'm going to table that because he's a black man, prosecuted in a black city, by a prosecutor that I support and supported, think she was a great prosecutor. So all measures are fair there. We're going to come back to that.

I thank two other people before we start. The first person is my grandfather who was barely literate because he had to drop out of school in the third grade to support his sisters, who married my grandmother, who was a nurse and educated and came from a family that owned land in Tuskegee. But he knew a few things and he knew that those things are fair and just. He knew that the US Constitution promised him a certain amount of inalienable rights and he deserves them. 

I remember saying to my grandfather in an uproar late eighties, early nineties, ranting against racism, the Confederacy, the oppression of the white man. “Man them crackers shouldn't be able to say nigger.” Interestingly enough, crackers and niggers were named by the same people. The rich planter class of the south, the rich class of the Brits, who saw poor white people and Africans as disposable. And my grandfather looked at me and he said, “Shit, I like to know my enemies when I walk in a room.” And that helped put me on a pathway to understanding why, simply because I didn't like it, was not enough to shut people up.

Simply because it made me uncomfortable, was not enough to shut people up. And it was always wrong to use government. And he incited a man at some point named George Wallace. George Wallace says segregation now, segregation tomorrow. We'll talk about him later. 

Before I got to the understanding that freedom of speech is for those even who I don't agree with, I was taught to value freedom of speech by a woman who walked like this.

Y'all better be glad she dead. Her name was Mrs. Ellison. She taught ninth grade civics. My mother flunked her class. My mother was 16 when she had me so technically, I took Miss Ellison's class twice. I remember my first day in Miss Ellison's class. I was in the back acting dumb because that's where the cool boys and the cute girls were, and she leaned back, looked over her belly and her prosthetic leg sticking out. She said, “What's your name?” I said, “My name is Michael Render.” She said, “No, no, what's your mother's name?” I said, “My mother's name is Denise Clonts.” She said, “Go home and ask your mama about me”. I said, “I don't live with my mother, I live with my grandmother.” She said, “Well, call her if you can find her.” So I called my mom at night and I say, “Mama, mommy?” She said, “Yes.” I said, “Do you know a lady named Mrs. Ellison?” She said, “What?” I said, “Yeah, I got a class, I got civics.” She said, “Listen to me, shut the fuck up.” Now, I didn't come from a “shut the fuck up” household.

I came from a household where we as children could run around there and as long as it was in proper context, you could say, “I don't give a damn, to hell with you.” You can say any number of words because there was a certain freedom in my household, but my mother helped me understand that I was probably going to not have that freedom in Mrs. Ellison's class.

Mrs. Ellison taught us about the three levels of government. Mrs. Ellison taught us to love the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, and she did so in a totalitarian-like way. She helped us to understand that the opposite of this republic was dictatorship, and she made a hell of a despot. Her firm hand made me understand that even in the bowels of slavery, Dred Scott understood that freedom of speech was a necessity. Her firm hand helped me understand that even in the bowels of slavery, Harriet Tubman's freedom of speech, Sojourner Truth’s freedom of speech, and Frederick Douglass’ freedom of speech, was a right that we were not given by a government. We were given by the Creator that put us here as human beings and the government simply recognized what God had already done.

I attended Frederick Douglass High School, and every day you walked into that school, there was a banner that read, “Without struggle, there is no progress.” 

So I need us here to know tonight that there is no grand final winning of freedom of speech. There's no end of the race where we all hold up trophies. It is a constant and protracted struggle to make sure the rights to become a more perfect union are always striven for.

On the one year anniversary of a great - he's actually the only white man hanging on my wall in my house, and that's no diss to white folks because this white Jesus, I grew up with him in my grandmother's house - but his name is John Brown. On the one year anniversary of his death, Frederick Douglass attempted to have an anti-slavery, abolitionist rally in Boston. It didn't go well. Who the fuck could figure, Boston. Get the fuck out of here.

A mob came. And the government did nothing to stop them from breaking that up. Now, had the government, the sheriffs, the local law enforcement, the mayor at that time been smart, they would have let the abolitionist movement go. They would have let them talk. Got out of there, wasn't very many people, but they didn’t. So Frederick came back and he said this and this greatly affected me. Read this recently, “To suppress free speech is a double wrong. It violates the rights of the hearer and as well as those of the speaker.” 

I'd always been taught free speech from a very selfish standpoint. I have the right to say whatever the fuck I want to. But what I understood is that when I would ride the train to go to Five Points, to watch people debate religion or politics or something, that I wasn't going to speak, I was going to hear. And what I heard greatly affected me. And it helped me understand that oftentimes the person across the street from me or the person across the table from me or the person across from the idea that I think is right, has something to offer if I'm willing to hear them. All of us become impacted when we cannot hear.

George Wallace grew up in Alabama, terribly segregated, terribly racist, terribly poor, terribly downtrodden. So it's no surprise that on the other side of that, you get a governor that is pro separation, pro segregation, and does not understand that the poor and the downtrodden included the black cotton pickers and sharecroppers and not just the white downtrodden. He thought he was being fair. He thought that separate but equal made sense. He had not heard, and he didn't hear until shot and paralyzed. He didn’t hear until forced into [inaudible], until forced into seeing that the world is not easy. He didn't hear until after the assassination of King. He didn't hear.

But hope remained among King's circle, Andy, Joe, Hosea. Well, maybe not Hosea, because he was like, “Fuck the white folks - give us our King holiday or we’re walking out.” He didn't hear until he was made to suffer, just like Paul of the Bible, who once was Saul, who was a Christian killer, did not understand until he heard Christ and he became something better. So I maintain hope that if we allow ourselves to express to one another our deepest and sometimes our darkest thinkings, that we will eventually hear one another, burn off the fat of prejudice, of racial injustice, of misogyny, of phobias. And we will get to a place where we make a better, a more perfect union. But that never happens if we're not allowed to speak, because if not allowed to speak, we will not be allowed to hear one another.

The government has no right to limit your freedom of speech, your freedom of religion, your freedom to assemble. The government has no right to limit your freedom of speech, your freedom of religion, your freedom to assemble.

So I want to talk to the good guys for a second, you know, the good guys - “I'm a black activist. I'm working on behalf of women. I'm doing this for immigrants, gays and lesbians alike.” We've often allied, we've often helped each other. We've often fought the same masters for basic rights. But be warned that once you become in power, to use government as a bludgeon is as evil as the masters before you.

Eugene Debs, he was a guy that Bernie Sanders likes, he was a socialist guy from the early 1900s.

He said a quote that I like to read often. He says, “I must be careful, prudent to say what I say and even more careful and prudent as to how I say it. I may not be able to say all I think, but I'm not going to say anything I do not think, and I would rather a thousand times be a free soul in jail than a sycophant or coward on the streets.”

A lot of people support free speech until it becomes offensive. As a 12 year old, I supported free speech until I heard “nigger” and my grandfather helped me understand it goes across the board. It doesn't end because your feelings are hurt.

Mrs. Ellison helped me understand that, although a dictator, she was like Fidel Ellison Castro - “You're going to walk out of my class having such an appreciation for this Bill of Rights that you will never in your life again be afraid or be quiet while the rights of others are being taken.”

George Wallace, the man that was pro segregationist, ended up shot, ended up crippled, ended up governor of Alabama again, ended up hiring and appointing over 160 blacks, having more blacks in his cabinet and appointments than any other Alabama governor before or after him. He was allowed to be redeemed by Joseph Lowery, by Andy Young, and by others, because finally, he shut the fuck up and heard.

And in these times where the allies of justice seem to be winning, it is important that we don't use the media, propaganda, as a bludgeon to quiet those who may disagree with us.

I have a hero. His name is Luther Campbell. Uncle Luke, “Don't stop, get it get it.” I remember being in high school, seeing him fight Broward County and the United States government because they chose to prosecute him for obscenity. And a woman who's now in our Supreme Court, shouts out Supreme Court Justice Kagan, I think she was working at Thurgood Marshall's office. She took up Luke's case, and they fought on the behalf of everyone in this room. For us to have the very freedom to say what we want. It was very interesting to me that when they got off the plane in Atlanta and they were filming them - they're telling me, I've got five minutes left, but I may take six - That he, Brother Marquis, held up a Playboy magazine and no one batted an eye, except the news reporter who’s trying to get out of the way. And I understood in that moment that Hugh Hefner had not only fought for, but achieved a status in which he was no longer attacked like Luke. Larry Flynt had fought for and had achieved a status. He was no longer like Luke.

And what I’ve come to realize over and over again is that the laws are enacted to use government as a political force to shut up those we disagree with, that oftentimes, the first and the worst cases are black people. Right now in this country, the book Rap on Trial explicitly lets you see, the trial of Thugger and others let you see, that your freedom of speech is at risk because the black voice, 500 of them since the nineties that have been brought up, some have been prosecuted. Many have went to jail. They just simply wrote bullshit Facebook posts. Those Facebook posts were allowed to be used against them in court. Their lyrics, their videos were allowed to be used against them in court. At the very same time, a white woman who killed the shit out of her husband wrote a gnarly article called “How to Kill Your Husband.” So not only did she give instructions - I'm sure my wife read that article, “Have some water. You first.” The judge did not allow that article to be used in her case.

All I ask is the litmus test be in this country and the task I give you leaving to find a case locally to advocate for. Find someone locally, an organization that you may not even agree with, to advocate for. Because the great many of people who don't look like me in this room hold power far greater than I have had or will ever have. And it is up to us as individuals to do our little bit so that no one person has to do a lot and get shot. It is up for us to do a little bit to make sure that even those we disagree with have the opportunity to express freely, that we may engage in dialogue that will push this country into a truly more perfect union.

That means we ain't perfect yet. Luther Campbell should be regarded as a patriot for what he did, and not just a naughty uncle who sings tunes that our mothers would blush about because they were actually at Freaknik. Larry Flynt, Hugh Hefner, current rappers and artists, period. Whether it's visual arts, should be held up in high esteem because oftentimes they come at the artists, the students, the intellectuals first.

And I say to the students in the audience and the intellectuals, don't let your college campuses become so one-sided that you become the masters that you despise.

How many minutes I got? I got one minute left. I have a lot more to say, but I'm going to say this, Chomsky says - he's one of my favorites, old white guy like Bernie, I like him too - Chomsky,= says if you do not believe in free speech for those you vehemently disagree with, you do not believe in it at all.

I thought about that this morning that someone tweeted a commissioner who had used the word “nigger” multiple times in describing why he wouldn't run for sheriff. And he said because he can't go down to Mud River and essentially hang a black person from a tree. I don't know when his next election is, but I'll be right there for his opponent fighting to get that motherfucker out of office. But he has every right to say that racist bullshit he said. I like to know who my enemies are when I walk in a room. So now I know who I'm going to donate my money to to get his ass out of office.

I'm going to go, to leave you with another Frederick Douglass quote that I read right before I came and it's very simple. I think it's a task for us all. Well, actually, I'll give you two. Frederick said “I leave where I begin.” Well, I'll leave you with where I began what he says, “Liberty is meaningless, where the right to utters one’s thoughts and opinions have ceased to exist.”

If we're in a country that does not allow thought and opinion, we are China. We are so many scary communist countries that we've saw movies like Red Dawn and Rocky IV about. It’s our goal not to be that. Eugene Debs said, “Years ago I recognized my kinship with all living things and I made up my mind that I was not one bit better than the meanest on earth. While there's a lower class, I am in it, while there is a criminal element, I am of it. And while there is a soul in prison, I am not free.”

We have to start seeing a kinship among one another. There are thousands of people sitting in jails right now for things they said. It is up to us to leave this room and advocate for them.

There are thousands and millions of people that you do not agree with that we must advocate for the rights of. And if we are not doing that, then we're not doing our job as Americans.

If we're not fighting vehemently for the people who disagree with us, then we definitely don't believe in the First Amendment of the United States of America.

My name is Michael Render. I'm the student of Mrs. Ellison, and I'm proud to have been here and spoken with you all tonight. Thank you and God bless you all. Thank you all so much.