It's an honor to be here with you today. I just finished touring this church, and, like anyone who's been here, all I could think about were those four little girls.

All they were doing that day was going to church, dressed in their Sunday best for the 11 o'clock service. They weren't civil rights leaders. They weren't marching on Washington or over a bridge at Selma.

They didn't volunteer. They were chosen.

Denise McNair, Carole Robertson, Cynthia Wesley, and Addie Mae Collins were just children caught in the midst of a great struggle for their future -- a future that they would not live to see.

Those who took their lives sought to spread hatred in a place of love. But standing here today, surrounded by all of you, it's clear that they failed in their mission.

These girls' deaths were a wakeup call to this nation - a call that galvanized the civil rights movement and ultimately led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

It was just like Dr. Martin Luther King said: these girls "died nobly...as the martyred heroines of a holy crusade for freedom and human dignity."

Today, as far as we've come, that crusade is far from over.

In 2003, the African-American unemployment rate is 10.2 % -- nearly double the national average.

In 2003, 7 million African Americans don't have health insurance. The rate of African Americans without health insurance is a third higher than the national average.

In 2003, nearly a quarter of African Americans live in poverty -- twice the national average. And nearly 1 in 3 black children live in poverty - that's five million children.

And in 2003, as far as we've come, African Americans are still too often robbed of their most basic civil right: the right to vote.

That's what I want to talk about today.

In March 1965, now Congressman John Lewis led the famous voting rights march from Selma to Montgomery, right over the Edmund Pettus Bridge.

On Bloody Sunday, hundreds of peaceful marchers were attacked by police, and many lost their lives.

But their sacrifice brought Lyndon Johnson the support he needed to sign the Voting Rights Act.

That Spring, addressing a Joint Session of Congress, Johnson stated for all the world to hear, that it wasn't just African Americans, but all Americans, "who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice." And he promised the nation that "we shall overcome."

The sad truth is - we haven't.

In the year 2003, we are far from the fundamental ideal of "one person, one vote."

In America, your vote is your voice. That's what our democracy was built on. And our nation can't move forward if we silence the voices of any of our citizens.

We all know what happened in the 2000 election, when the only vote that George W. Bush won was the one that took place in the chambers of the United States Supreme Court.

It was an election marred by broken voting machines, outdated technology, and hanging chads.

It was an election where blacks and other minorities were disproportionately turned away from the polls, purged from the voting rolls, and intimidated when they showed up to vote.

And in the end, when it came to counting up the votes, the ballots cast by African Americans and other minorities were disproportionately undercounted. The victims of this debacle were people like Lavonna Lewis.

On Election Day 2000, Lavonna, an African American woman and first-time time voter, was told by a poll worker that the poll was closed.

As she turned to leave, that same poll worker allowed a white man to walk in and get in line to vote.

Sadly, Lavonna was just one of thousands of minorities who were shut out of the voting booth.

This is not what those four little girls gave their lives for.

And in many ways, the response to the election was as much of an injustice as the election itself.

After what happened in Florida, there was a whole lot of hand-wringing, but no real change.

People called for investigations, for election reform, for a complete overhaul of the voting system in America.

What did they get?

No serious investigation.

No election reform.

Nothing but a congressional bill that fewer than half the states have enforced.

Make no mistake about it, the Help America Vote Act is a good bill. It's the first time the federal government has set high standards for state election officials to follow, including guidelines for voting equipment and statewide voter registration databases. And it gives states the funds to comply with them.

I commend Chris Dodd for his leadership in getting this bill passed. But the bill still hasn't been fully funded, and many states are dragging their feet in implementing it.

The result is that today, it's only one person one vote if you live in the right county.

And if you vote at the right machine.

And if your name happens to be on the rolls.

Well, last I checked, there was no "if" in the 15th Amendment. One person one vote isn't just a slogan -- it's the highest law of this land.

We shouldn't have to wait for another Florida to fully fund election reform. Congress should get to work and put their money where their mouth is. And states need to buckle down now, and demand stiff penalties for election officials who turn away registered voters or purge them from the rolls.

As a candidate, I'm going to talk about this struggle every chance I get to make sure that in the 2004 election, we truly achieve one person one vote.

To do so, we're going to take the following three steps.

First, we're going to identify and bring attention to hot spots where there are recurrent voting problems, paying special attention to places where African-American and other minorities were illegally turned away from the polls on election day 2000.

Second, we're going to train campaign volunteers across the nation to work to ensure that voters are registered, can get to the polls, and are allowed to cast their votes.

Third, I want to put the Republican Party on notice: We're going to appoint a legal team to monitor the 2004 election carefully, and if anyone is intimidated, or turned away from the polls illegally, we will push to prosecute the perpetrators to the full extent of the law.

This is a very personal issue for me. I spent thirty-four years in the United States military defending this right - starting back in 1963, when I was a student at West Point. Back then, we were fighting to protect America from threats to our democracy abroad. And equally patriotic young people were fighting here on American soil to make sure we lived up to the ideals of that democracy.

We won our fight against communism. But the struggle against racial bigotry and ignorance is far from over.

Today, I want to promise you that as President, I will not rest until we win that struggle. Until every single American can cast their vote, and every single one of those votes is counted. We owe those four little girls nothing less.

Thank you.