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Now, what did this 92 year-old black woman do that deserved such great honor? What did she do? Well, in 1955, the days of racial segregation, she had refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white man. She had refused. Her simple refusal to move to the back of the bus put into motion events that led to my country’s great civil rights movement. The small protest of a woman that maybe weighed less than 100 lbs. brought down a racist system. As you can see, the individual can make a difference.
这位92岁的黑人妇女到底做了什么竟能获得如此殊荣？她做过什么？1955年，美国那时还处于种族隔离时期，罗莎·帕克斯在公交车上拒绝把座位让给一个白人。没错，她拒绝让座给白人。她拒绝到公交车尾这一简单的举动推动了美国伟大的民权运动的进展。一位体重不足100磅的女人的一个小小的抗议竟瓦解了种族主义制度。由此你们可以看到，个人可以产生深远的影响。
Let me tell you about another individual, Ken Behring, a millionaire California businessman who found his passion in giving wheelchairs to poor and physically disabled people all around the globe, including China. He says that he has met people who have spent years in rooms with no window, just lying there and staring up at the ceiling, never seeing the outside world unless someone was willing to pick up that person and take them outside to show them the world. He says that it’s no wonder so many of those physically disabled people dream about being a bird. Mr. Behring says that most of us think that a wheelchair would be a confinement, but to millions of people it is not a confinement, it is freedom, freedom to move and to go to school, freedom to vote, freedom to get a job, and freedom for hope for the future. He has given freedom and wheelchairs to 400,000 people around the world. The individual can make a difference.
让我再给你们讲述一个人，这个人就是加利福利亚州的百万富翁肯·贝林，他是一位商人，他对援助轮椅情有独钟，曾向包括中国在内的全世界各个国家的贫困残疾人捐助轮椅。他说他曾见过一些残疾人连续数年待在没有窗户的屋子里面，只是躺在那儿盯着天花板看，看不到外面的世界，除非有人愿意扶起他们，带他们去看外面的世界。他说难怪那么多残疾人都梦想着自己能成为一只小鸟呢。贝林先生说，我们大多数人认为轮椅是一个禁锢，但对于无数残疾人而言，轮椅不是禁锢，而是迈向自由的工具。有了轮椅，他们可以自由行动，自由地去学校，自由地去投票，自由地得到一份工作，甚至自由地畅想未来。他给全世界40万残疾人提供了轮椅和自由。个人可以产生深远的影响。
