February 8, 2005
Thank you, Provost Hahs. Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. I am honored to have been selected as the guest speaker today, and to be part of the tradition of assembling the University community each year at this luncheon to commemorate the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Our theme this year, Living the Dream: Persistence, Integrity, and Hope, is especially appropriate. For one thing, it accurately expresses the achievements and legacy of Dr. King that we come together today to celebrate. For another, in light of the continuing need for economic and social equality, as well as recent legal developments related to higher education, the theme challenges us to rededicate ourselves to overcoming obstacles in the fulfillment of Dr. King's dream.
In considering his persistence, legacy and hope, I want to focus first on the magnitude of what Martin Luther King helped to achieve within his short lifetime. When I was a boy, significant areas of the United States, the “land of the free,” were still legally and rigidly segregated. Water fountains and public restrooms bore prominent inscriptions, “White Only” and “Colored Only.” Notwithstanding the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, in many places, African-American children were not allowed in the same schools, nor in places open to me, such as swimming pools and movie theaters. Passengers entering buses saw signs that read, “Colored occupy rear seats first.” And, in places where racial discrimination was not explicit, it took the form of more subtle, but nevertheless effective means of elimination of African-Americans from their opportunity to realize the American Dream.
Dr. King acknowledged that his view of that society was necessarily filtered through the corrosive, destructive effects of segregation and discrimination that distorted the souls of African-Americans. This distortion consisted of what Dr. King termed, “outer fears and inner resentments.” He wrote movingly of police repression, of 20 million African-Americans “smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent society.” He spoke of the painful necessity of explaining to his six-year-old daughter why she could not “go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television,” and of seeing her “beginning to distort her personality by developing an unconscious bitterness toward white people.”
It is always easier for people to go along to get along; to be passively conditioned by the forces of social persuasion, rather than to have the conviction to work against those forces. Martin Luther King, like Rosa Parks, was one of the few courageous enough to stand up and say “No” and to explain, to use the title of one of Dr. King’s books, Why We Can't Wait.
Dr. King's “No” took the form of non-violent social protests, preaching, and writing about the injustices of segregation. In the tradition of Thoreau and Gandhi, whom he admired, he also committed acts of non-violent civil disobedience and went to jail for them. It was during one of these incarcerations that he wrote his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail” in which—like Thoreau and Gandhi—he strongly defended following his own conscience in not obeying unjust laws. As he saw it, it was not a question of injustice only in Birmingham or Atlanta. Politics may always be local, but injustice never is. Thus he wrote, “I am cognizant of the interrelatedness of all communities and states . . . . Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere . . . . Whatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”
Dr. King knew the value of hope, as well as the faith, courage, and persistence necessary to sustain it. On the one hand, his hopes were fueled by the landmark U.S. Supreme Court case of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, the 50th anniversary of which we observed last year. In Brown, the Court ruled unanimously that “separate but equal” racially segregated public schools, which the Court had upheld in Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, were unconstitutional. But Dr. King knew that Brown was not just about education, and that the decision was not just about integration. The Brown v. Board of Education decision affected every area of American society because it primarily concerned equal opportunity without regard to race. The case was thus about the very fabric of citizenship and democracy.
On the other hand, Dr. King also recognized that remedies for injustice demand substantial changes in enduring social structures, such as the educational system, and that there are no instant solutions for such changes. Quoting the 20th-century theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, King wrote, “groups tend to be more immoral than individuals. We know through painful experience that freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor; it must be demanded by the oppressed.” Dr. King voluntarily put himself in the position of representing the oppressed. In addition to frequent imprisonments, Dr. King’s painful experiences included the violent repression of freedom marches in Selma, Birmingham, and elsewhere, bombings of his home, and threats on his and his family’s lives. Through all this, Martin Luther King continued to cling to hope—the hope for a better world for his children and for us all, a world in which, he said, “the interrelatedness of all communities and states” was more prized than the racial, religious, and other differences that divide us.
There is no better expression of this hope for interrelatedness than the conclusion of his famous “I have a Dream” speech delivered on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., on August 28, 1963: “When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, ‘Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last!’ ”
Dr. King described this freedom in his acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize on December 10, 1964, when he said, “I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality. I have the audacity to believe that peoples everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, equality, and freedom for their spirits.”
Martin Luther King spoke eloquently and passionately about moral integrity. That is why, even after all these years; it is still exhilarating—even spine-tingling—to listen to his speeches. As Cornell West wrote in his book about Dr. King and other civil rights leaders, their most striking characteristic was that “they were almost always visibly upset about the condition of black America. When one saw them speak or heard their voices, they projected on a gut level that the black situation was urgent, in need of immediate attention . . . . [They] were angry about the state of black America, and this anger fueled their boldness and defiance.”
In the honest passion of Dr. King’s speeches, we hear the clear, clarion call to conscience in an unjust society. Martin Luther King had no need for legions of “spin doctors.” He had no need for public relations (PR) professionals. He would not establish positions based on polls rather than on moral principle. His voice would not be muted by the fear of being unpopular or unloved. For Dr. King, the truth about the evil of segregation was objective and demonstrable. He did not hesitate to proclaim it clearly and distinctly, whatever his audiences’ reactions might be. This is why he is, as Henry Louis Gates, Jr. has said: “the prophet of the [20th] century and the spoken voice of the civil rights movement . . . . Martin Luther King, Jr. was a hero who did more to end segregation than any single person. He embodied and articulated a complex moral vision that made the struggle of the African-American universal.”
The life and values of Dr. King clearly demonstrate Persistence, Integrity, and Hope. And, at events such as these, when we celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, it is reasonable to ask: What can the University do to persist in the quest for equality? Institutionally, the values of dignity, equality, and freedom are central to SIUE’s long-term goal of a “Harmonious Campus Climate.” Specifically, our goal is to “Foster a harmonious student-centered campus characterized by integrity, cooperation, open dialogue, and mutual respect among individuals with different backgrounds, cultures, and perspectives.” Dr. King’s values are also embedded in the University’s values of Citizenship, Integrity, and Openness.
Citizenship mandates “Social, civic, and political responsibility, globally, nationally, locally, and within the University,” along with “a climate of collaboration and cooperation among faculty, staff, students, and the larger community.” Our value of Integrity signifies “Accountability to those we serve and from whom we receive support,” and “Honesty in our communications and in our actions.” Openness means “Inclusion of the rich diversity of humankind in all aspects of university life,” “Respect for individual differences,” “Intellectual freedom and diversity of thought,” and “Access for all who can benefit from our programs.” And it’s remarkable that we hold these values strongly enough to hang them from a banner in the Morris University Center to remind us daily of our commitment.
Martin Luther King’s own integrity also exemplifies in another way our values of “Honesty in our communications and in our actions.” Integrity comes from the Latin word integer, which means whole. Moral integrity means honesty and sincerity—a wholeness of character that is not fractured by contradictions between the truth and what one actually says or between what one says and what one does.
So, the theme of this luncheon, Living the Dream: Persistence, Integrity, and Hope, applies just as much to us today as it did to Dr. King and the American society in which Dr. King lived forty or fifty years ago. Interracial cooperation, cultural pluralism, tolerance, and equal opportunity, are all central to the values that guide the University community day in and day out. Nevertheless, the national debate for change spurred by the Brown v. Board of Education decision continues to play out, and our society and the world as a whole have changed substantially in the last half-century. So, too, have our universities. One of the most important changes is that we include gender, ethnicity, and sexual orientation, in addition to race in our considerations, because we recognize the conflicts in cultural dynamics that stem from group identification. For example, the Bureau of the Census uses the term "Hispanic" to denote an ethnic group rather than a race. Hispanics comprise a mix of different races including those traditionally identified as European Whites, African Blacks, and Native Americans. Thus, it is possible to be both ethnically Hispanic and racially self-identify as Black or White. These considerations pose additional challenges for developing strategies and programs for achieving interracial cooperation, cultural pluralism, and equal opportunity.
One key element in this debate is reflected in the recent U.S. Supreme Court decisions on affirmative action policies at the University of Michigan. In those cases, the Supreme Court recognized that enrolling a diverse student body was a compelling interest under equal protection analysis and held that race could be a factor in admissions decisions if it is necessary to achieve diversity. Since then, as documented in a recent edition of the Chronicle of Higher Education, some individuals and groups have tried to intimidate university administrators into compromising what the Court said could legally be employed to increase diversity on their campuses. Despite obstacles to achieving and celebrating diversity, I believe that the institutional goals and values of SIUE are consistent with those defended by the University of Michigan. It is my view that educational excellence can best be achieved in a diverse learning environment. When a wide range of perspectives is present in the classroom and across the campus, we are challenged to think more broadly and become better prepared to resolve the issues we face in our increasingly diverse society. Thus, the Supreme Court decisions are consistent with the kind of learning environment that is central to SIUE’s mission. Moreover, although the Michigan cases were about admissions policies, the Supreme Court’s decisions have important implications for hiring decisions as well. In that context, our institutional values have been upheld by our own faculty, staff, and administration, and ably supported by Rudy Wilson, Assistant Provost for Cultural and Social Diversity; Paul Pitts, Assistant to the Chancellor for Equal Opportunity Programs; and by Liz Tarpey, who recently retired as Assistant to the Provost. I encourage Rudy and Paul to persist in their good work.
Persistence, however, is necessary for us all, both within and outside the University. There is still a substantially disproportional representation of African Americans and other minorities among those who are unemployed, on welfare, and living in poverty. The 93rd Illinois General Assembly recognized this fact, and implicitly endorsed SIUE’s goals and values when it adopted the following joint resolution in November 2003: “Quality education is essential to an informed citizenry, the foundation of our democratic society . . . . Access to quality education is the gateway to opportunity, our nation’s promise to all . . . . Quality education for every citizen regardless of race, religion, ethnic background, or economic circumstance is a fundamental goal under our form of government."
Winston Churchill once observed that, “The United States always does the right thing—after exhausting all the other possibilities.” Let us preserve our own integrity and persist in doing the right thing—for the University, for the citizens of Illinois, and for our society as a whole.
Let me conclude by reminding us once again that Dr. King sought to channel his great passion for justice into an effective politics of non-violent action. When his life was taken from us by an assassin on April 4, 1968, his death created an imperative for us to pursue his vision and to work to make his hopes for a better society come true.
So let us continue the dream of Martin Luther King, and let us hope and work for a more just society rather than fall into cynicism. As Dr. King said in a speech in Selma, Alabama, on January 25, 1965, “[O]ur job now is much bigger than integrating a lunch counter. The civil rights movement must move into the realm of political action, and we’ve got to get political power in order to bring about the kind of political reforms that will make for change all over the South and all over the nation.”
There are challenges still before us that call for our persistence to achieve equal opportunity for all. Those who seek fairness, justice, and equality for all must never rest. We must remember that, as Dr. King knew well in his time, even today race does matter. But, it is not all about race. Cornell West said Dr. King’s “vision and practice were international in scope.” His objectives were transracial …. King never confined himself to being solely the leader of black America.”
In my view, Cornell West’s description of Dr. King’s character is why we should, and always will, celebrate Martin Luther King Jr.’s life of Persistence, Integrity, and Hope.
Thank you.
