 John Seigenthaler, let me tell you. I have known him 
 from the early days of the civil rights involvement, when I became 
 involved in civil rights back in 1961. 
 It is quite fortunate that we had the eyes, the ears, 
 and the mind and the guidance and the advice from people in the office 
 of the Attorney General of the United States. John Seigenthaler was one those 
 and you'll hear more about that in just a little bit. but I want you to know, had it not been for the support 
 of the Kennedy family then. The Kennedy family. I'm talking about Jack, the President and 
 Bobby, the Attorney General, we would not have been able to do the things that we did. 
 Notwithstanding the fact that there were people like John Seigenthaler 
 who were sitting there to say, "You crazy kids, you gotta stop doing what you're doing." 
 He carried the message back, well, you know, I can't tell those kids what to do. 
 They're on their own. They're on self-pilot. And that's what caught me up in 
 the movement itself. I did not go down to Albany, Georgia to become a civil rights activist. I couldn't even spell it, 
 I don't think, I had never heard of it. But it was the students. It was the students. 
 They were down there. Going to jail, demonstrating, trying to get people registered to vote, 
 that's what I mean. So John Seigenthaler 
 implanted himself right in the midst of the movement. Ya got me? He didn't stand on 
 the outside and criticize. He came on 
 the inside to criticize. (laughs) No, serious... 
 He came and joined in with the Freedom Riders. He came in... became 
 a part of them. That gave him a perspective that 
 you could not possibly get by just reading about it in the papers. You can't get it. 
 He got it. He talked to those who were getting on those buses, and 
 getting on those trains, subjected to be all kinds of terrible 
 treatment, he was there. He's a writer, 
 he's an author, he's a publisher, he's a teacher. 
 As a matter of fact, he's one of the few people living that I know of that 
 has a bridge named after him. (unintelligible). Well, he saved 
 a man from jumping to his death from a bridge. Didn't they name that bridge after... well, anyway... 
 He also is a humanitarian. And he does things, 
 out of love for people, his love for justice. 
 Now he is an editor. He has been identified with 
 USA Today, The Tennessean. He was a 
 part of the society of newspaper editors. He's been at Vanderbilt. 
 If you ever go to Nashville, Tennessee, make sure you go by Vanderbilt University 
 where you will find a building with his name on it. 
 It's dedicated to the man for what he did 
 for civil rights. That's what makes me proud 
 to identify him as a friend of mine. And I'm 
 certainly proud to be able to present him to you. So without saying anything further, let me 
 present to you, John Seigenthaler. (applause) 
  
  
  
 Well, that's some introduction. Um... 
 I deeply appreciate you, my friend. 
 You know, I'm  
 so happy to be... dean, I've had a great day. 
 I have seen a place I've never  
 visited before, and I mean, I have 
 seen all of it. (laughter) And I've loved it. 
 
 I've been treated so kindly,  
 so hospitably, so warmly.  
 
 And my coming here  
 is something that I'll take home with me 
 to Nashville, and remember.  
 My friend Bill mentioned the fact that they've named a bridge for me. 
 The mayor told me that a couple 
 weeks ago. I have a grand-  
 son who's 15 years old.  
 Jack Seigenthalar. He lives in Connecticut 
 with my son, a television anchor, 
 and a few nights ago, Jack...  
 he calls periodically to check on my conduct. 
 
 And called a few  
 nights ago and said, "Grand, I hear they're naming 
 a bridge for us." (laughter)  
 And I said, "That's right, Jack." 
 And you know, uh, called last night on my 
 cell phone and said "where are you?" and I told him I was here in Lansing, 
 Michigan. And he said, "Well, what are you gonna do tomorrow?" And I said, "Well, 
 tomorrow, I'm gonna spend the day 
 talking about civil rights. I'll be with my friend Bill Anderson. 
 And there's a wonderful audience I'm gonna address, 
 late in the afternoon, early evening. And he said, "Grand, 
 tell me. What is the first thing you're gonna say to 
 that... that audience?" And I said, "Well, Jack, of course, 
 I'll tell them I'm so happy to be with them." And Jack says, 
 "Grand, you are 86 years old. You're happy to be 
 anywhere." (laughter)  
 And you know, Jack's right.  
 But I'm particularly honored and 
 happy and pleased to be part of this lecture series 
 here at Michigan State. Pleased to have been 
 asked by my friend Bill.  
 As you must know, if you know anything about him, 
 it is so fitting that this lecture series is to be 
 named for him.  
 His presence reminds us that journey from slavery 
 to freedom is not complete.  
 He was, in an earlier life, the leader in what was called 
 as know, probably, the Albany Movement. 
 He suffered persecution.  
 Prosecution. Condemnation.  
 Castigation, professionally and personally. 
 He was described as an insurrectionist. 
 'Cuz he headed that initiative designed to change the intolerance 
 and violence, part of the character and culture 
 of his native region and mine.  
 We were both born and reared  
 into this culture.  
 You've heard briefly,  
 in that generous introduction,  
 words identifying my own involvement in the civil rights 
 struggle, largely during my time 
 as assistant... administrative assistant, to Attorney General Robert Kennedy. 
 But I want you to understand  
 as I discuss my own relationship 
 to this historic journey from slavery to freedom 
 that I am a white, native  
 son of the racist south.  
 Reared in that culture, witness to the hatred that 
 haunted our Jim Crow lynch law society. 
 Childhood and young adulthood of my generation were smothered by the blatant lie 
 of white superiority.  
 Virtually suffocated by the falsehood 
 that black people were inherently, somehow, 
 by nature, inferior. And therefore, 
 undeserving of equal treatment under the law. 
 I say that, and you say how could we ever 
 have believed it? How could I and my 
 white childhood classmates and friends, not have been 
 infected and negatively affected during 
 much of my youth and young adulthood, by the virus of invidious discrimination that was part of 
 that region's systematic rejection of any concept  
 of equal... of equality or of equal justice under the law. 
 It was... it was part of the region's 
 system of white education, both public and private. 
 You know, memories fade and we're prone to forget...  
 memories that are uncomfortable or unpleasant. 
 And I apologize if I look back and  
 address some of those memories  
 from a personal perspective tonight. 
 I was a witness. I was a witness 
 to the Nashville Movement as a journalist. 
 You know, today, I think too often we 
 seek to put the past behind us, to bury it. 
 To say, we must protect those... 
 particularly those who are young, from exposure to that 
 senseless time of tragic racism. But those 
 who lived it and suffered from it, and yes, those 
 who survived the apex of it 50 years ago, 
 know if they think seriously about it, that we forget harsh 
 facts of that second American Revolution 
 called the Civil Rights Movement. We forget it at our peril. 
 The challenge I have since  
 relaters is to help those who did not live it come 
 to an understanding. So, as I say, I hope 
 you will forgive me if these remarks seem to dwell 
 on my own personal journey.  
 And that journey, for me, for you, for the nation, 
 is not complete. And we delude ourselves if we think it is. 
 It is far too simple to say,  
 far too naive to believe, that because Barack and 
 Michelle Obama and their two beautiful daughters, sleep tonight 
 at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., in our nation's capitol, 
 that we have buried the past, put it behind us 
 forever, and for the better. The chief reason that 
 months ago, I immediately accepted the invitation by Bill, 
 to come here today, is because  
 this forum offers once more,  
 the opportunity to revisit that time, when 
 the laws of my native region and his were grounded 
 in racial intolerance that actually encouraged 
 tolerated, venomous violence  
 visited on those who were black. It's wrong to turn our backs on that 
 elongated, ruthless period on the theory that it's 
 a piece of the ugly past best forgotten. Wrong, I think, not to welcome 
 every opportunity to revisit the heroism 
 of those many of them children, students who marched and 
 demonstrated and confronted insult, assault... 
 jail. Often threats to their lives. 
 And some who lost their lives to 
 change the vulgar, vicious system that ruled their lives. Indeed, all 
 of our lives in the south. Wrong to think 
 best not to ruminate on the murder of Martin 
 in Memphis. Best not to ruminate on the murder of Medgar in Mississippi. 
 Best not to dwell on the 40 members of the movement who gave their lives 
 to end that reign of racist reality. 
 So let me tonight ask each of you 
 in your own mind's eye,  
 to reflect on a time in my city, 
 Nashville, Tennessee. Very  
 much like every city of the south. 
 Reflect in your own mind's  
 eye and consider if you were black, 
 a time where anywhere you needed to go 
 or wanted to go,  
 a hospital, a hotel, a motel... 
 if you're driving. A restaurant... 
 a lunch counter. You could not go. 
 You could not go simply because of the coloration 
 of your skin, and there were ordinances and statutes 
 and a Federal Supreme Court decision, 
 Plessy vs. Ferguson, that said you could be 
 prosecuted and jailed or fine, if you 
 did go. And beyond that, there were the damnable signs, everywhere. 
 Everywhere that told you where you could not go. 
 Where you shouldn't go. Try to put yourself 
 in the place of one of those young, black 
 college students in my hometown at 
 Fisk, or Tennessee State, or  
 American Baptist Seminary.  
 In class, you hear from the lectern, and read from the textbooks 
 the words of Jefferson, about all of us being equal.  
 The words of Madison about equal justice under law. 
 And then you look around in that southern city, 
 and you see no semblance of equality. 
 Or evenhanded justice. On weekends, 
 you and perhaps a couple of classmates, go downtown the look around 
 the town where your school is located, 
 perhaps to a movie, perhaps to  
 do a little shopping, have lunch, take a bus ride back to the campus. You purchase 
 your ticket for the movie. The only entrance is down 
 an alley and up two narrow flights of stairs 
 to a second balcony, where you're forced to  
 stay during the course of that movie. 
 Afterward, you were to visit a department store, 
 where you're allowed to purchase anything you have the money to buy, except 
 you may not sit at the lunch counter or in to that restaurant 
 for lunch or a sandwich.  
 And on the bus ride back to campus, 
 you pay your fare, but then you must 
 seat yourself in the back of the bus, in the back of the trolley, 
 as those damnable signs direct. 
  It was this experience  
 for those young black students I observed 
 as a journalist in my hometown that created 
 something called the Nashville Movement, which produced 
 there and elsewhere, the non-violent sit-ins. 
 Again, in your mind's eye, put yourself in the place of one of those students. 
 And one day, you hear that  
 at a nearby church, Clark Memorial, just off the Fisk campus, 
 there is a black ministerial student. A student at Vanderbilt, 
 one of two who have been admitted to 
 the divinity school. And he has started a series of weekly lectures.  
 His name is Jim Lawson.  
 And these workshops are focusing on the power of 
 non-violence as a method of bringing about social change. Jim Lawson, 
 you learn, you hear from your friends, you ask about him... 
 he had worked in India. He was a student 
 of Ghandi and non-violence.  
 That Ghandi of non-violence  
 that had transformed a colonial 
 country. You learned that this James Lawson has spent 
 a year in prison as a conscientious objector; refusing to serve in the military 
 in the early days of the Vietnam War, because he's a committed pacifist. 
 There are rumors that these workshops 
 are to lead to direct action, to challenge the policy of segregation 
 that so dominate life throughout the city, 
 throughout the south. And from these workshops, 
 you decide to attend, flow the Nashville sit-ins 
 that result in massive arrest, your own included. 
 Incarceration of you, hundreds of 
 other black students.  
 You know, it's soon  
 that similar actions and one in Greensboro had occurred 
 just before your own sit-in movement began. 
 But soon, there are similar actions in 
 other cities across the south. I think back on the times 
 I witnessed as a young journalist , and today I still marvel 
 and wonder where it came from, that courage of those 
 young people, who sat in and were willing to confront... 
 were willing to confront vicious threats, 
 willing to defy convention, defy the law, 
 defy hostile police, defy  
 the wrath of a visible Klu Klux Klan in that town, 
 the courage to defy the dislike of most in the discomforted 
 white community. These students joined the Nashville Movement 
 led by Jim Lawson, knowing,  
 because he made it clear, that violence 
 and incarceration would be what they would face. 
 But they joined despite the strong objections 
 of some of their teachers, and virtually all of their parents. 
 Parents who love them,  
 who worried that their arrests, 
 their incarceration, would be indelible marks on their 
 records, that would turn employers against 
 them for decades. If there were arrest 
 records, never, their parents warned, never would they be able to be teachers, 
 or lawyers, or doctors, or preachers. These arrest records would haunt their 
 searches for jobs throughout their careers, their parents feared. 
 And still, they found  
 the courage and I wonder today where it came from 
 to join that movement.  
 They believed Jim Lawson. They believed non-violence 
 could change the social order.  
 Now think for a moment about the town at large. White 
 business leadership, never had it been challenged 
 in just this way before.  
 There was no way to reach or influence these students. 
 Well, there was one way...  
 they could go for the mentor. And they went for 
 Jim Lawson. And they had him expelled from Vanderbilt 
 Divinity School, because he was the mentor 
 of that movement.  
 He was close to Martin King, and Doctor King 
 arranged that same year for him to be 
 enrolled in Boston... at Boston University, and 
 he graduated, received his Divinity degree 
 that year.  
 Think for a minute about that leadership. That white business leadership 
 never before so challenged.  
 "You know," they're thinking, "if we can just 
 sweat this out. If we just put up with 
 this, we can't stop it.  
 Lawson's expelled, but he's still here. And they're still here, 
 and we can't stop it. But you know, if we can just sweat it out 
 'til May, school's out,  
 they'll all go home...  
 the momentum will be gone, they'll never start this 
 movement again. If we can just outlast 
 this threat to a pacific community life." 
  
 Well, Lawson and the leaders of the movement in Nashville, 
 with the support of Dr. King,  
 were thinking too, and so it was, in the spring 
 as Easter approached, that the Nashville 
 Movement initiated a boycott on all downtown 
 business. By this time,  
 the total black community  
 and small segments of the white community had begun to 
 rally behind the student movement. And this 
 pre-Easter boycott was so highly effective. 
 I think back... I think back  
 on the movement, I'm reminded how 
 often those who resorted to violence, in fact 
 triggered a result that propelled the movement forward, and there came a time 
 in my community, when the white community was looking 
 for a way to end this disruption 
 that the sit-ins had caused.  
 And there was a bomb planted at the home 
 of a great black lawyer,  
 a member of the city council, Z. Alexander Looby. 
 They blew his house off its foundation. He and his wife 
 were hospitalized, but not seriously injured. 
 I remember reporting on it. By dawn, the students, 
 again imagine yourself one of them, 
 by dawn they had planned a massive, 
 what they called "silent march" downtown to 
 city hall, where they confronted Mayor Ben West. 
 You know, it was a day before cell phones, 
 and they sent the mayor a telegram to tell him he was coming. 
 And, and he came out to meet them, 
 and you know, they were so well planned, 
 and the demonstrations were so well orchestrated, 
 and C.T. Vivian, now a distinguished 
 minister in Atlanta. 
 Cordy Vivian challenged mayor Ben West. 
 He said, "During these sit-ins, your police force has been brutal. 
 Your administration has been insensitive..." 
 West, I mean I was standing there that day and 
 watched the anger slowly rise. And he was 
 very self-defensive, and he said, "You know, 
 I don't own these stores. And, you know, the lunch 
 counter at the airport, that's where the only place I have any influence... 
 and we've desegregated that." And Vivian said, 
 "No, no, no mayor. Don't misrepresent. You know, first of all, 
 if we're gonna go to the airport, we're gonna fly, we don't go out there for lunch." 
 But they desegregated the airport because the Federal government made them do it. 
 There came a moment in this tense confrontation between Cordy Vivian and Ben West, 
 in which a beautiful young Fisk junior named Diane Nash. 
 Bill has brought her here.  
 She stepped forward,  
 soft voice,  
 not challenging him, but confronting him with a direct 
 question, "Mr. Mayor, is it really 
 morally right, do you think it's morally right, 
 for the owners of these stores that welcome 
 us, to sell us anything money can buy, but a hamburger?" 
 Is it morally right?  
 There is a video in which she and Ben West reenact 
 this confrontation, and you can see on 
 the mayor's face, first consternation, he's still angry 
 from those challenges that had come from Reverend Vivian 
 but now he's confronting this beautiful young world... young girl... 
 who has hit him hard  
 with a question that challenged morality. 
 And he answered with an honest question, 
 "No, it's not morally right."  
 He said, "You know, I don't own the stores and can't control them, but I 
 can tell you I know it's not morally right." And that statement 
 served to move our community's power structure 
 toward the inevitable. And within weeks, desegregation was 
 reality, and the city was transformed for the first 
 time, and partially. The following year, the students 
 launched a series of stand-ins at those 
 downtown movie houses, and in short order, 
 the segregated second balconies were history. 
 And then within a few weeks,  
 as this same phenomenon of sit-ins 
 spread across the south. Then within a few weeks 
 there was word that James Farmer and 
 the Congress of Racial Equality had set out on something 
 called the "Freedom Rides." The plan was for 
 core members to integrate Greyhounds and Trailways buses 
 originating in Baltimore and Washington, and to travel throughout the south 
 at each terminal testing segregation policies at lunch counters and restrooms. 
 The rides had New Orleans as their 
 final destination. They proceeded with several 
 stops, resulting in threats and attacks. And I know, much of this 
 history is familiar to you, to many of you who've read about the movement. 
  
 It's vital to understand and to remember 
 if you knew, there came a Sunday afternoon 
 when one of the buses  
 was confronted by  
 a Klan roadblock in Anniston, Alabama. 
 The Freedom Riders were mauled, 
 beaten, brutally, some knocked unconscious. 
 This bus was bombed and burned. 
 Some had trouble escaping,  
 suffered smoke inhalation.  
 The next day those Freedom Riders, that first wave, some still hospitalized, 
 from wounds & smoke inhalation, voted among themselves 
 in the Freedom Rides.  
 They were dead. It was over.  
 It had ended,  
 the white community thought.  
 The following night,  
 the Nashville students met  
 at downtown First Baptist Church, 
 and decided they could not let violence in Alabama 
 overcome non-violence.  
 And they voted among themselves to travel to Birmingham, take up the rides 
 from Montgomery... from Birmingham to Montgomery, 
 and Jackson, to New Orleans. Well this time, 
 I had left journalism and was working as Robert Kennedy's administrative assistant, 
 in the justice department.  
 Word came to us  
 of the brutality that had confronted 
 those... that first wave of Freedom Riders. 
 They were trapped.  
 They had voted not to continue the rides. 
 They determined that the only way to get to their 
 destination in New Orleans was by air. 
 And that morning, there were two bomb threats at the airport 
 where they gathered. And calls came to 
 the justice department and Attorney General 
 asked me to join him. And we went to the White House, and met with 
 the President. And we decided that 
 I would fly to Birmingham  
 and meet with the officials  
 of Eastern and Delta Airlines,  
 and get those Freedom Riders, by air, 
 to their destination. And that was 
 pretty simple. By nightfall, we were there. 
 I went to sleep, thinking I  
 had done what the President and the Attorney General wanted. 
 Really thought that I was, you know, 
 sort of the unsung hero of the Kennedy Administration at that point. 
  
 And I went to bed at the motel, hotel, motel, at the hotel 
 at the... or the motel at the airport. 
 Five o'clock the call came  
 and it's Bobby, "Who the hell is 
 Diane Nash?" And I said, "Well  
 Bob, she's a young student.  
 I think a junior at Fisk University, and she was active in the sit-ins." 
 "I thought you would know her, because she's from your hometown. 
 Please call her. Tell her what  
 you have seen. Tell her how  
 this first wave of Freedom Riders almost lost their lives. 
 How brutalized they were. Tell her not 
 to send another wave of Freedom Riders 
 into Alabama, en route to New Orleans." 
 And so I called her.  
 Some of you may have seen the documentary 
 done on the Freedom Riders. And if you have, 
 you've heard me recount  
 my conversations on the telephone that morning with Diane Nash. 
 I think back on it, and  
 the thing I most remember is how 
 calm and collected and committed she was. 
 
 And how her calmness  
 moved me.  
 
 Well, over the next ten minutes - I can remember that conversation 
 
 I think about it, and I can my hear my voice go up 
 a decibel, and up a decibel, and up a decibel, and up a decibel, and finally, I am 
 saying at the top of my voice, "Young woman, do you not understand 
 you're gonna get somebody killed if these kids come down here." 
 Her voice is not raised  
 a decibel. She said, "Sir, you don't understand. 
 They all signed their last wills last night. 
 You tell me someone may die?  
 We know someone may die. but they're on the way." 
 And by the time I got back to Birmingham, 
 Bull Connor had them incarcerated in jail. 
 Um, you know I think back  
 I think back on that time,  
 those young people in the Nashville Movement, 
 and those in other movements including the Albany Movement 
  
 I wonder where that courage came from. 
 The courage to risk life  
 non-violently committed not to fight back 
 in order to change the society. 
 You know, here we are  
 a half-century later or more, wondering whether the journey 
 from slavery to freedom has been completed, you must know, it has not. 
 
 And let me tell you why I make that assertion. 
 It was only a couple of years ago, 
 that petitions were filed in my state 
 with what's called the Board of Regents. 
 And the Board of Regents was asked by 
 petition to grant honorary degrees to 14 Freedom Riders 
 
 who were expelled from Tennessee State University 
 after their arrest and conviction 
 for disturbing the peace in Jackson, Mississippi. 
 They had not disturbed the free... peace. 
 They simply had bought tickets and rode the bus 
 and sat where they pleased.  
 When they crossed into the Mississippi... crossed the Mississippi line 
 the bus was stopped,  
 they were arrested, convicted, sent to 
 Parchman prison, the hellhole of American prisons. 
 And as I say, the 14 from Tennessee State 
 were expelled. And a couple of years ago, 
 the Board of Regents was asked to give them honorary degrees, and 
 the board at first, by a vote of 11 to 4, 
 refused. Refused without  
 explanation except to say it might 
 demean the quality of the honorary degree. 
 
 Thankfully, massive protests  
 followed, most from the school's alumni, 
 but others from all over the country. 
 And soon, there was a telephone 
 vote, a second vote, by which the Board of Regents 
 reversed themselves and voted unanimously to grant those 
 honorary degrees. But can you imagine that 
 almost 50 years, after those students risked their lives, 
 risked jail, suffered incarceration 
 in that hellhole Parchman prison, 
 
 a board in an enlightened state would take 
 that position against them, and only 
 under duress would revert... would reverse itself 
 to grant those honorary degrees? 
 It's hard thinking back on it.  
 How those students endured what they did. 
 And more difficult still, to think how 
 a body of politicians  
 could all those years later  
 turn their back on them.  
 I'll just make one more point  
 visiting the past. I make... tell, I relate one 
 more event from the past to make the point 
 that the journey is not... is not complete. 
 And most of you know this story, or know about it. 
 It involves a young  
 boy, 14 years old, 
 he lives in Chicago with his mother, 
 his name is Emmett Till.  
 His mother is Mamie Till Mobley. 
 Summertime, she sends Emmett  
 south to Money, Mississippi to visit 
 his uncle. You know,  
 he was a handsome 14-year-old lad. 
 Met pals and was collegial and friendly with them. 
 One day there in front of a country store operated by a white woman. 
 That night she tells here husband and brother 
 that this young visitor from Chicago had insulted her. It's not clear what he said, 
 or if he said anything. Some say it was 
 a wolf whistle. Those two men  
 
 went to the home of Emmett TIll's uncle and kidnapped him. 
 They beat him brutally. They disfigured him. 
 They shot him through the head. 
 They tied his body to  
 this discarded automotive radiator, and threw his body 
 into the river.  
 Mamie Till  
 brought her boy home to Chicago 
 and opened the doors to the media. You know, 
 John Lewis has said the media to the movement was like 
 wings to a bird.  
 And he would know.  
 When Mamie Till Mobley invited  
 Jet and Ebony magazines to come in and photograph 
 Emmett, the whole world saw those pictures. 
 They were picked up from Johnson Publications 
 services.  
 And I tell you that story from the past 
 and we would all hope, you know, 
 it'll never happen again.  
 We would all believe it might never happen again. 
 But you know, I've thought  
 about Mamie Till Mobley,  
 who came to the Seigenthaler Center at Vanderbilt a few years ago
 and related her story.  
 But I tell it because I think  
 of her and I've thought of her twice 
 during these last few months.  
 First time was the outcome of the trial 
 of George Zimmerman, who confronted, then 
 shot and killed Trayvon Martin, who was 17, 
 in a neighborhood near Miami Gardens, Florida. 
 
 Emmett Till was wearing a hood, 
 was black, and he was suspect.  
 And he was murdered.  
 And you know the outcome of that. 
 George Zimmerman is free.  
 And then more recently, in Jacksonville, 
 we watched as a white man named Michael Dunn 
 was tried for killing another 17-year-old black 
 lad, Jordan Davis. After a controversy erupted 
 over Dunn's objection to  
 the victim and his friends, listening to what Dunn called 
 "loud music."  
 Well, Dunn shot into this car,  
 killed this lad and will serve a long 
 term for firing those shots,  
 but the jury,  
 as in the Zimmerman trial,  
 did not convict him of murder.  
 I could not help but think  
 as I watched the mothers of these two black, 
 these two young black men, 17 years old 
 mourn the loss of their sons, I could not help but think of Mamie Till 
 and her son, Emmett.  
 You can tell me there are aspects of the cases of the past 
 and the cases of the present  
 that should be considered, and I won't disagree. 
 But I will answer, that the tears of the mothers 
 of Trayvon and Jordan were as  
 real as the tears of Mamie Till Mobley. 
 You know,  
 I think of the experiences  
 like these... the Board of Regents in Tennessee, 
 two juries in Florida, and I know 
 the journey from slavery to freedom has not ended. 
 These lectures are important.  
 They're important because they force us to face the past 
 we'd rather not face.  
 So I come to Michigan State to say with 
 my friend Bill Anderson, that we must not assume 
 that the journey is complete.  
 I said throughout this day to those who are young, 
 that the challenge now  
 is for them, young people their age, 
 to change this society once  
 and they... these young people, must change it once more. 
 
 I wanna close with another story 
 about Jack,  
 my beloved grandson.  
 When he was five years old,  
 he lived in Connecticut with his 
 parents, and periodically, we would visit.
 And so, one Thanksgiving, 
 we were there. Always, it was my job to read Jack 
 a couple of stories at bedtime. 
 And so, there I am, snuggled in with this five-year-old, 
 his father, six foot-two,  
 stern, walks in. "Dad,  
 long day today. Long day tomorrow, it's Thanksgiving. 
 Read one story to Jack tonight, only one 
 story. Jack, you got it? Grand's going to read one story tonight." 
 "Yes, dad." "Yes, son." He goes. 
 "Okay, Jack what will it be?" "Well, I'd like a chapter of Harry Potter, 
 this one." And I read it, and I finish it. 
 I begin to lean down to kiss him, he says, 
 "Wait Grand. Dad said you could read me a story. But you know, you could tell 
 me another story." (laughter)  
 I said, "Okay, fine Jack. I will. But it will have to 
 be a short story. You have anything you'd like me to 
 tell you?" He said, "Yeah, Grand. Not long ago, 
 mom, dad and I watched a documentary on television. 
 And there was a guy there, an actor, 
 who had your name. A big fat guy, bald-headed, 
 but he was you.  
 And you know, he got hurt.  
 And it was during the Freedom Rides. Tell me 
 about that." "Well, Jack, it'll have to be quick, or your 
 father will be in here on both of us. 
 But the story is a short story. 
 There came a time, Jack, one day in Montgomery, Alabama, 
 when some mean, angry, hostile  
 white people would not let  
 black people ride the bus.  
 But the black people insisted on riding the bus. And these 
 mean, angry, hostile white people beat them, 
 put them in the hospital. And  
 one of them beat me, and put me in 
 the hospital. But Jack, it's a story with a happy ending. 
 We all came out of the hospital. 
 We survived it. And now we can all ride 
 the bus." You know, you tell your... 
 this beautiful five-year-old child 
 that story, and you look into  
 that innocent face, you know that somewhere wheels are turning. 
 I don't know whether it was  
 ten seconds or thirty seconds, or a minute or two 
 when it came,  
Grand, are you black?" (laughter)  
 
 Now, I look at this beautiful child. I've 
 been to pre-school with him. There are two black children in that class, 
 and I suddenly realize I'm talking to a child who's color-blind. 
 I'm talking to a child who is color-blind. 
 And I kissed him, and I said, "It really 
 doesn't matter, does it, Jack." And I went home. And I thought about it, 
 I sat down at the computer one day and I wrote him a letter. 
 I recounted the story just as I've told it to you. 
 And I said to him, you know Jack, I told you something that's not true. 
 I said it didn't matter.  
 Race matters.  
 Color still matters. I can only hope, Jack, 
 I'm 75, you're five. That was 11 years ago. 
 I can only hope, Jack, that by the time you're 75, 
 color won't matter anymore.  
 My friends, color still matters. 
 The problems of the past  
 linger. The journey from slavery to freedom 
 is not complete.  
 There's hope. I set with students all 
 day today. I know there's hope. 
 I see my grandson, his generation, color-blind, 
 I know there's hope. I come to this place, 
 to this lecture series, where you have come 
 to revisit the past, to relive it, 
 determined not to forget it.  
 You know, we're with each passing year 
 perhaps a little more closer  
 to that perfect union the Founders 
 envisioned. I can only hope that 
 this generation of students at Michigan State 
 and the generation of my  
 grandson Jack, will complete the journey. 
 And I thank you all for coming tonight to let me talk about it. 
 Thank you very much. (applause) 
