You can't really move forward if you don't heal the past and identify and address the fact that you had a problem and in some cases still have issues. That has to be dealt with.
Marty WalshThe majority of people who come to America come for a better life, just like the Italians, the Jews, the Irish, and the Polish did in generations before. A lot of the Irish came here back in the turn of the 19th to the 20th century because there were no opportunities and no options at home for them. There were no jobs and there was extreme poverty. They came here to be able to send money back home.
Marty WalshClearly, I think that there have been racial problems in America for a long time. I still think that, particularly during the second half of the Obama presidency, there has been a lot of emotion, a lot of feeling stirred up.
Marty WalshEven though we all might have differences, there's commonality in the sense [that] people are hard-working, people want to raise a family, people want to put a roof over their head, people want to put food on their table, people want good things for their children.
Marty WalshWhen you go to urban America and you look at cities around America. People are moving back into the cities at record numbers. In the 1980s it was a flight to the suburbs. And now in 2017, it's a flight back into the cities.
Marty WalshEducation is the lifeline of the city of Boston in a lot of ways, as far as preparing and educating young people for the future. So when we think about that - I would love to have the $25 million dollar investment we made up to close the gap on charter schools. I'd love to make that investment in a different part of the school system if we could. The money that we're trying to adjust on transportation, I would love to, if we can save money in transportation - that's not going to be a savings, that's going to come into the general fund, that's going to be reinvested in the school.
Marty Walsh