These kids are ready for Hillary.
Several kids introduced Hillary Clinton using words like activist, mother, first lady, senator, secretary of state, and grandmother in a video that was released widely on International Women’s Day.
“If we do not continue the campaign for women’s rights and opportunities, the world we want to live, the country we all love and cherish, will not be what it should be,” they said in turn.
The video, produced by SKDKnickerbocker for Emily’s List, and which first aired last week to honor Clinton, the recipient of the group’s We Are EMILY award on its 30th anniversary, celebrates Clinton empowering women through the years.
Aside from the fresh-faced students, former President Bill Clinton, former U.S. Ambassador Norman Eisen, Facebook CEO Sheryl Sandberg, former Assistant Secretary of State Johnnie Carson, and others, shared their view of the potential 2016 presidential candidate.
“That’s just who she is. If she says, ‘I’ll help ya,’ she just does it and if … no matter what frustrations there are she just does it day in and day out, all the time, until the job is done,” Bill Clinton said.
Carson added: “It’s not just in the economic realm, it’s also the enormous work she did in helping to press governments to improve human rights, civil liberties, and respect for women.”
Sandberg, who made waves with her 2013 book “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead,” talked about the influence Hillary Clinton had on her. “I had just graduated from business school when I heard those words and it inspired me to help find my voice and she’s been inspiring me ever since,” she said in response to the famous line from Clinton’s 1995 speech at the UN where she said: “let it be that human rights are women’s rights and women’s rights are human rights once and for all. “
While presenting the award to Clinton at the Emily’s List gala, the group’s president Stephanie Schriock said “we admire Hillary Clinton because she has successfully fought to expand opportunity here at home and freedom all around the world … Because without her, we’d still be talking about universal healthcare as if it were some sort of pipe dream. And yes, because she did put 18 million cracks in that glass ceiling.”
At the end of the video, which throughout features Hillary Clinton at all stages of her career — and with many different hairstyles — the kids took turns reciting the following lines:
Every moment wasted looking back keeps us from moving forward. We must go forward together or not at all. Always aim high, Work hard and care deeplyAbout what you believe in When you stumble, keep faith, When you’re knocked down, Get right back up, And never listen to anyone who says you can’t or shouldn’t go on.
Because when women succeed, families succeedAnd when families succeed, our country succeeds.
This is the great, unfinished business of the 21st Century.
Anna Brand