[MUSIC PLAYING]
[MUSIC - "SING"]
CHOIR: (SINGING) Now is the time
for all people from every land
to come together.
Now is the moment for worship.
We enter in withholding nothing.
He's worthy, exalted.
He's high and lifted up.
Sing, sing unto the Lord.
Open up your heart.
Make a joyful noise
in the sanctuary.
Sing, sing unto the Lord.
Lavish Him with love.
Let the praises ring
in the sanctuary.
Sing.
Sing.
Now is the time for all
people from every land
to come together.
Now is the moment for worship.
We enter in withholding nothing.
He's worthy, exalted.
He's high and lifted up.
Sing, sing unto the Lord.
Open up your heart.
Make a joyful noise
in the sanctuary.
Sing, sing unto the Lord.
Lavish Him with love.
Let the praises ring
in the sanctuary.
Sing.
Sing unto the Lord.
Open up your hearts.
Make a joyful noise
in the sanctuary.
Sing, sing unto the Lord.
Lavish Him with love.
Let the praises ring
in the sanctuary.
Sing.
Sing.
Sing.
Sing.
Got to open up your mouth
and give Him praise.
Open up your heart
and give Him praise.
Lift up holy hands
unashamed in the sanctuary.
Got to open up your mouth
and give Him praise.
Open up your heart
and give Him praise.
Lift up holy hands unashamed.
Sing, sing, sing.
Got to open up your mouth
and give Him praise.
Open up your heart
and give Him praise.
Lift up holy hands
unashamed in the sanctuary.
Got to open up your mouth
and give Him praise.
Open up your heart
and give Him praise.
Lift up holy hands unashamed.
Sing, sing, sing.
Got to open up your mouth
and give Him praise.
Open up your heart
and give Him praise.
Lift up holy hands
unashamed in the sanctuary.
Got to open up your mouth
and give Him praise.
Open up your heart
and give Him praise.
Life up holy hands unashamed.
Sing, sing, sing.
Got to open up your mouth
and give Him praise.
Open up your heart
and give Him praise.
Lift up holy hands
unashamed in the sanctuary.
Got to open up our mouth
and give Him praise.
Open up your heart
and give him praise.
Lift up holy hands unashamed.
Sing, sing sing.
[APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC - "HOLD OUT"]
I'm going to hold out, going
to hold out until He comes.
God has just begun to make
a way, make a way for me.
I'm going to hold out, going
to hold out until He comes.
God has just begun
to make a way, way.
Storm clouds may rise,
strong winds may blow.
But I know the Lord will
take me through it all.
He'll make a way,
make a way for me.
I'm going to hold out, going
to hold out until He comes.
God has just begun to make
a way, make a way for me.
I'm going to hold out, going
to hold out until He comes.
God has just begun
to make a way, way.
Storm clouds may rise.
Strong winds may blow.
But I know the Lord will
take me through it all.
He'll make a way,
make a way for me.
I'm going to hold out, going
to hold out until He comes.
I'm going to hold out, going
to hold out until He comes.
I'm going to hold out, going
to hold out until He comes.
I'm going to hold out, going
to hold out until He comes.
Hold out until He comes.
Hold out until He comes.
Hold out until He comes.
Hold out until He comes.
Don't give up.
Don't give in.
Hold on until He comes.
Don't give up.
Don't give in.
Hold out until He comes.
I'm going to hold out, going
to hold out until He comes.
God has just begun to make
a way, make a way for me.
[APPLAUSE]
PEARCE: Good morning, everyone.
AUDIENCE: Good morning.
PEARCE: Good morning, everyone.
AUDIENCE: Good morning.
PEARCE: I'm Nicholas Pearce.
I'm a senior in the Department
of Chemical Engineering.
And I will be your master
of ceremonies this morning.
Please join me in
thanking the MIT gospel
choir for opening our program.
[APPLAUSE]
Dr. King, being a pastor
and civil rights leader,
was a servant of the people.
And in the spirit
of Dr. King, we
would like for
you to greet, hug,
or shake hands with someone
near you at your table,
behind you, or across from me.
Again, everyone, welcome.
Welcome, welcome to the 33rd
annual Reverend Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. Celebration.
It's truly a real joy to see
all of your beautiful faces
here this morning as
we gather together
to celebrate the life and legacy
of the Reverend Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. I'd
like to take this moment
to thank our president, Susan
Hockfield, and her husband, Dr.
Thomas Byrne, for
hosting this event.
[APPLAUSE]
I would also like to welcome our
guest speaker, Mr. Ted Childs,
who is our keynote speaker.
It's a pleasure to have
you here this morning.
[APPLAUSE]
Furthermore, I would like
to take this opportunity
to thank all of the members
of the Martin Luther King,
Jr. Planning Committee, to whom
we owe this wonderful morning.
When I call your name, when
I call your name, please
stand and remain standing.
Associate Professor
Larry Anderson.
[APPLAUSE]
Associate Professor
Martin Culpepper.
[APPLAUSE]
Professor John de Monchaux.
[APPLAUSE]
Professor Jerome Friedman.
[APPLAUSE]
Associate Dean
Arnold Henderson, Jr.
[APPLAUSE]
Assistant Director of Career
Services Deborah Liverman.
[APPLAUSE]
Co-director of the Office
of Government and Community
Relations Paul Parravano.
[APPLAUSE]
Associate Professor
J. Phillip Thompson.
[APPLAUSE]
An administrator
in the Department
of Political Science,
Tobie Weiner.
[APPLAUSE]
Reverend [? John ?]
[? Wusnick. ?]
[APPLAUSE]
Chancellor Phillip
L. Clay, ex-officio.
[APPLAUSE]
Assistant Dean Christopher
Jones, ex-officio.
[APPLAUSE]
Senior writer of the News
Office, Sarah Wright,
ex-officio.
[APPLAUSE]
And committee co-chairs
Associate Dean Karl Reid.
[APPLAUSE]
And co-chair Professor
Michael Feld.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you all for contributing
to the success of this event.
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]
The theme for this
year's breakfast
is maximizing potential,
the congruence
of diversity and excellence.
By choosing this
theme, the committee
aims to showcase how and
why diversity enriches
the research, academic, and
community triad that embodies
MIT's mission and focus.
We'll begin this morning's
program with an invocation
from Reverend Robert Randolph.
Following the invocation, we
will have breakfast and then
resume the program with
a musical selection.
Now let us receive the
Chaplain to the Institute,
Reverend Robert Randolph, who
will offer the invocation.
[APPLAUSE]
RANDOLPH: It is always
good to precede breakfast.
Let us pray together.
Almighty God, we ask
your presence with us
on this day when we
remember your servant,
Martin Luther King,
Jr. We remember
that he challenged us to make
real the promises of America.
And we confess that we
have not always done so.
We have made progress,
but we have far
to go before justice
is established,
and mercy flows
like living water.
We are reminded of our failures
by our brother, James Shirley.
We give thanks for
his courage and pray
that his witness will
sharpen our commitment
to deal with the racism
that too often confronts us.
Give us wisdom as
we respond to James.
Give him strength,
and give us strength
as we seek together to
grapple with the scourge
that we confront.
And we pray that you will
be present with us today,
that we may learn
from one another
and leave this place
committed anew to the notion
that it is not what we know,
but who we are that will
make a difference in our world.
Hear our prayer, Almighty
God, and let the congregation
say, Amen.
PEARCE: Ladies and
gentlemen, I hope
you have enjoyed your breakfast.
I've surely enjoyed mine
and the conversations
that we've had at
our table as well.
We'll now continue with
the rest of our program.
Please welcome Mr. [? Hiram ?]
[? Etienne, ?] a staff member
in the Department of Electrical
Engineering and Computer
Science.
[APPLAUSE]
Good morning.
Whoa.
I'd just like to share
with you one thing before I
get started as well.
And it's something
that encourages me,
something Martin
Luther King said.
And I won't say it
exactly right probably,
but you'll get the
thought behind it,
which is injustice and
inequality anywhere
is a threat to justice
and equality everywhere.
[APPLAUSE]
[MUSIC - "FATHER HELP YOUR
 CHILDREN"]
(SINGING) Father,
help your children.
Don't let them fall by
the side of the road.
And teach them to
love one another.
That heaven might find
a place in their hearts.
And Jesus is love Oh,
he won't let you down.
And I know, I know he's
mine forever in my heart.
Listen.
You've got to walk on.
Oh, walk on through temptation
because his love and his wisdom
will be a helping hand.
And I know the truth and his
word will be our salvation.
Just lift up our hearts
to be thankful and glad
'cause Jesus somebody got
to help me this morning.
He's mine.
Oh, he won't let you down.
And I know, I know
he's mine forever.
He, he's mine.
I'm trying to tell
you whatever you're
going through this morning.
I'm trying to tell somebody
that he's mine and I,
I know he's mine forever.
I'm going to tell
you something then.
Love's got the power.
Love's got the glory forever.
Oh, deep down in my heart,
love, love's got the power.
Love's got the
glory forever, oh.
Help me this morning.
Love's got the
power this morning.
Love's got the power.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
PEARCE: My.
Thank you for that
moving selection,
[? Hiram. ?] I now have
the pleasure and privilege
of introducing two of our very
own students, Tabitha Bonilla,
a senior in biology
and political science,
and Elizabeth Clay, a graduate
student in urban studies
and planning and a policy
advisor for our new governor,
Deval Patrick.
Tabitha and Elizabeth are
both very active members
of the MIT community.
Tabitha, the former president
of the Society for Hispanic
Professional Engineers,
and Elizabeth
is the co-chair of the Ad Hoc
Diversity Committee of the MIT
Graduate Student
Council, which is
a new committee hoping to get
permanent status here at MIT.
They will guide us in a
reflection on the life
and legacy of Dr. King.
We'll hear first
from Tabitha Bonilla.
Tabitha.
[APPLAUSE]
BONILLA: Good morning.
My name is Tabitha
Bonilla, and I'm
a senior majoring in
political science and biology.
It is a great honor for me
to stand before you today
at a breakfast commemorating
Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr, a man
whose legacy has laid
the foundation for our
continued pursuit of equality
and diversity.
In his work, Dr. King divided
the civil rights movement
into two components.
The first exposed the
ugliness of racism,
segregation, disenfranchisement,
hate, and violence.
These include
attitudes, judgments,
and actions directly victimizing
a certain race or ethnicity.
The second of Dr.
King's civil rights
initiatives addressed what
he termed as the limitations
to our achievements, those
institutions preventing
economic, academic, and
professional equality.
To say that discrimination
still exists
should not be a
surprise to anyone.
We can all cite instances
of overt discrimination.
When, for example,
the 2007 MLK seminars
installation commemorating
Dr. King's life and legacy
was vandalized in Lobby 10.
Times when we were called
names, followed around stores,
or had our abilities judged
on the basis of our skin color
or the sound of our names.
Likewise, we are all aware
of the shockingly low numbers
of underrepresented minority
faculty and graduate students.
We have even heard of the
disappointingly high number
of African-American, Latino,
and Native American students who
did not complete their
undergraduate or high school
education.
In academic institutions
such as MIT,
we tend to concentrate
on these statistics.
But what about those less
obvious ones of discrimination?
It is still acceptable to crack
jokes about another culture
to get a good laugh.
It is fine to make
assumptions about people
until those assumptions
are made about us.
But why do we
ignore those issues?
We say it is because these forms
of racism are less recognizable
and often because we are unaware
that we are participating
in a form of discrimination.
Unfortunately, these
subtle forms of prejudice
are the ones that tend to be
more prevalent in our society.
For me, the most
interesting comments
have been those related to
my understanding of diversity
and my inclusion within
the minority community.
Oddly enough,
these comments have
been made by people of almost
every race and ethnicity,
with many coming from fellow
underrepresented minorities.
My understanding
of diversity has
been challenged because I grew
up in Montana, a small state
with few minorities.
I've been told that a lack of
experience with discrimination
precludes me from really
understanding civil rights
issues, that because
my ancestors came
of their own free will
to the United States,
and not in chains, that
I could not possibly
understand the issues.
I have been criticized
by some because while I
claim a Hispanic heritage, I
speak more German than Spanish.
People making these remarks
have been assuming things
based on what they think they
know about my background.
What they do not know
is that my family
has experienced
discrimination since they
entered this country.
My mother's family came
to the United States
as German immigrants
seeking asylum because
of their Jewish heritage.
Her father was later imprisoned
and tortured during World War
II.
My father's parents were
brought here as children.
Both of their
families were trying
to escape poverty in Mexico.
They subsequently relocated
to Montana from Texas,
trying to escape discrimination.
Despite their past
experiences, neither side
of my grandparents, much
like the rest of society,
supported my parents'
interracial marriage.
Fortunately for me,
my parents did not
let these experiences
color their judgments.
Instead, they learned to value
their differences in culture
and have incorporated components
of each other's background
in our everyday life.
This is why my mother now
eats her eggs with tortillas,
instead of toast, and my father
eats sauerkraut on meatballs.
I did not mention this
story to suggest that we all
need to lose or
necessarily combine
our cultural identities.
Rather, I aim to show that the
excellence found in diversity
is lost when we fail to
appreciate and accept
each other's differences.
Unconsciously, we can all take
part in something seemingly
innocuous that causes
us to classify others
on the basis of
race and ethnicity.
When we do this, the
cohesion and communication
between different
ethnic and racial groups
suffers, and the diversity
no longer means progress.
In order to achieve
true diversity,
we must do more
than bring together
a group of people with
different skin tones.
We must learn to genuinely
appreciate and respect
different backgrounds,
cultures, and beliefs.
Only then can we champion
the cause and work
to complete the entirety
of Dr. King's dream.
As we leave here today, let us
remember our individual parts
in promoting diversity,
and only then will
we be able to experience the
excellence that comes with it.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
PEARCE: Thank you
very much, Tabitha.
Thank you for sharing
your experiences
and for your very
heartfelt reflections.
Very moving.
We will now hear from
Ms. Elizabeth Clay.
Elizabeth.
[APPLAUSE]
ELIZABETH CLAY: Good
morning, everyone.
AUDIENCE: Good morning.
ELIZABETH CLAY: My
name is Elizabeth Clay,
and it is my honor to be able
to speak to the MIT community
today, to celebrate the life
of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther
King, Jr. We convene in another
moment of contrast in America,
a year that I believe
would make Dr.
King proud, proud
of the achievement
and potential of
political leaders,
such as presidential candidate
Barack Obama, Massachusetts
Governor Deval
Patrick, and a more
diverse political
leadership in Congress.
However, I believe
that he would still
be angry about the neglect
of New Orleans and its people
and the world's unwillingness to
save the lives of our brothers
and sisters in Darfur.
Here at MIT, we're
not just observers
of the world around us,
but we have the opportunity
to be change agents and opinion
leaders on these issues.
And I hope that MIT extends
socially just community
supporting work in
New Orleans and commit
to divest from companies
working in the Sudan.
This morning, a morning
I'm very sad to say
finds our own community
at MIT divided.
I'll focus my thoughts on the
theme diversity and excellence.
The term diversity
has come to be focused
on the inclusion of groups, such
as women and racial minorities,
who, historically, have been
locked out from institutions
and processes of power.
Only when all of the
talent comes to the table
can true excellence emerge.
This is the importance of
diversity as fair play.
Dr. King dreamed of a world
of equality and justice,
where every individual
has the opportunity
to participate in and contribute
to institutions, communities,
and practices that he
or she is qualified for.
I do believe that
this is generally
a shared value at
MIT, but considering
our society's deep
history of exclusion,
more is required to
enable diverse populations
to produce excellent outcomes.
As a master's student
in urban planning,
I often think about
what makes a city great.
And while tastes vary about
the type of environment people
choose to live
in, certain cities
are magnets for international
and local migrants.
New York, London,
Mumbai, Sao Paolo all
draw some of the best and
brightest, the most creative
and most clever.
New citizens dare to make their
marks there, and in doing so,
make those cities
wealthy and vibrant.
Their excellence
and their diversity
exist in a virtuous cycle.
The constant flow of new
people from around the world
makes them strong and adaptable.
But it is often those who
bring so much to the city,
with their labor, their ideas,
their new small businesses, who
struggle to afford the cities
that they help to build.
Scholars have discussed the role
of Mexican-American immigrants
in bringing economic and social
vitality to America's Sun Belt
cities.
Yet many of these
families struggle
with stagnant wages,
limited services,
and social intolerance
in the very same places.
Similar economic and
social stigmatization
faces construction workers
who build the gleaming
towers of Mumbai, yet go
home to illegal settlements
with no water and no toilets.
Those who struggle continuously
to make a more tolerant nation,
a nation that lives up to
its promises of fairness
and justice, are frequently
made to suffer as well.
Everyday activists who
fight sexism and homophobia
are punished for daring
against the status quo.
The price Dr. King had to
pay to make America a better
place for all of us was
a lifetime of threats
on him and on his
loved ones, finally
ending in his own assassination.
Even today, in the 21st century,
Dalit people, formerly known
as untouchables in
India, are killed
for objecting to
slavery-like work conditions.
Their efforts to make the
country of their birth
live up to the promises
of the constitution
are rewarded with murder.
Interpersonal bigotry and
institutional racism, sexism,
and classism are
threats to building
a truly thriving
society and exist
at MIT and all of
America's universities.
The responsibility we have
as privileged people--
and we are all likely
privileged in some ways,
even if we are
marginalized in others--
whether it's homeowners or
voters, or current students,
faculty, and staff in
a leading university,
is to create an
enabling environment
for diversity to
flourish and for people
to reach their potential
unencumbered by prejudice.
Promoting affordable housing,
providing basic amenities
to all residents allows
all of the city's workers
to benefit from the city
that they have created.
Expressing tolerance and
rejecting bigoted acts
reduces the heavy
emotional costs
on individuals who
have been marginalized
and lift burdens that threaten
their chances for success.
And here at MIT,
while we all excel
in some part of our
careers or our studies,
we have not yet cracked
the code on building
a fully tolerant and
supportive society.
This divisive moment,
with allegations
of racism swirling
through the halls,
is an opportunity to
address a forbidden topic.
The Institute's
leadership must do more.
We must seize this moment
to do more than just talk.
They can take this
opportunity to listen.
Listen to the concerns and fears
and hopes of students, faculty,
and staff.
And then to act together to
create a more tolerant and open
community, where people
of all backgrounds feel
valued for their contributions.
The GSE Diversity Committee
has made an attempt
to begin these
type of discussions
among graduate students.
But sadly, it faces
resistance from some students
who think that
diversity is a passing
trend or an attempt
for minorities
to receive special treatment.
The graduate body
at MIT continues
to have shamefully low numbers
of underrepresented minority
graduate students.
And at a campus discussion
last week on cultural identity,
many international students said
that they feel voiceless here
at MIT and feel emotionally
exhausted by being
misunderstood by colleagues.
We are all reduced
intellectually,
spiritually, and morally
when members of our community
are silenced or
silence themselves out
of fear and discomfort.
For the GSE to vote for a
permanent diversity committee
at next month's meeting would
be a step in the right direction
for the student body to say
that a tolerant environment is
important, both for
current students
and to attract the best
talent from around the world.
Fear of change
paralyzes the privileged
as vigorously as hope for
change rouses the marginalized.
Therefore, leaving the challenge
of creating a supportive
atmosphere for excellence to
emerge to individuals alone
is untenable.
Coalitions of people
and institutions
should work
proactively to create
a more positive and enabling
environment for diversity
and excellence to converge.
This is not a favor from
rich to poor or from one race
to another, but an investment
in a more fair and prosperous
world.
Again, we at MIT are not
just observers of the world
around us, but have the
opportunity and responsibility
to make change.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
PEARCE: Thank you
very much, Elizabeth.
And certainly, we
accept your challenge
to be positive agents
of change in our world.
Once again, I'd like to thank
both Tabitha and Elizabeth
for their very poignant
and timely words
and for letting the
spirit of Dr. King
be renewed in this
contemporary context.
[APPLAUSE]
Now I have the honor of inviting
Chancellor Phillip Clay to come
and recognize the 2006, 2007
Martin Luther King Leadership
awardees.
Chancellor Clay.
[APPLAUSE]
PHILLIP CLAY: I want to
thank both of our student
speakers for their great remarks
and for their challenges to us.
Dr. King was first and
foremost a preacher.
And one of the lessons,
though, from a sermon
that is a favorite
of mine has to do
with the meaning of leadership.
And in a discussion with
a couple of his disciples,
one of whom asked to
be awarded leadership,
he indicated to them
that leadership is not
awarded, that leadership
is given to those
who are first servants--
those who serve and serve
in an important way.
They are awarded
leadership by their peers.
We had a wonderful
dinner last night
to celebrate the awardees,
and we won't go over
the whole program, but I do
want to introduce the awardees
and give you a little
bit of a sense of why
these servants have been
awarded the leadership
awards from last night.
First of all, let me ask Mr.
Nathaniel Gerald to stand.
[APPLAUSE]
Nathaniel has been
at MIT for many years
and has worked in the mail room,
but his most important service
to MIT has been in his
role as community glue.
Now many of us, especially
those of you who are new to MIT
and who believe all of
your news comes from email,
there are those of us who
remember and appreciate
the great role that Gerald
and others of his colleagues
played in coming to
visit us each morning
to bring us information
material, good news
and bad news from other
parts of the Institute.
So his role in
providing this service
over many years,
something many of us
remember with great fondness,
represents an important way
that he has served the MIT
community for many years.
Thank you very much, Gerald.
[APPLAUSE]
Let me ask Michelle Harton
and Austin Harton to stand.
[APPLAUSE]
These two alumni serve
us in an important way.
Not only have they had
outstanding professional
careers in Chicago and have
served in a variety of roles
at the Chicago chapter
of Black Alumni of MIT,
they have set a model for how
to do the kind of outreach which
goes a long way to make
MIT a great institution
and to make sure this continues.
They and their colleagues were
responsible for recruiting
seven of the class of 2007
black students at MIT.
Their role in outreach to dozens
of schools in the Chicago area
made our task especially easy.
Not only did they provide
the kind of outreach
to these seven students,
but they provided service
to many dozens of students,
who, whether they come to MIT
or not, will be part of the
advancement in STEM fields
that will be so important to us.
So we honor their
initiative and service
in leading us to these
outstanding young men
and women.
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]
La Tonya Green.
[APPLAUSE]
La Tonya is a PhD student in
urban studies and planning,
but we honor her for a
couple of other roles.
First of all, upon completing
her master's degree,
she went to work for about
three years in the Paterson, New
Jersey schools and developed
an outstanding program
that linked public education,
secondary education,
to important aspects of
community development,
using the skill and
methods of design
to provide an extra
leavening to high school
reform in Paterson, New Jersey.
I also want to
remind our colleagues
that she has played an important
role as a student leader
both in the first incarnation
of her time at MIT
as a graduate student and more
recently in her time as a PhD
student.
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]
Finally, I will ask
Ike Colbert to stand.
[APPLAUSE]
Is there anybody
here who doesn't
know that Ike is retiring?
I warned Ike a couple of years
ago about the long goodbye.
And I advised him
earlier this week
that he should begin to prepare
some remarks for these events.
I need not say much
more, except that Ike,
both in his role as an
administrative officer
and for the last dozen
years in the dean's office
and the last seven years as
dean of graduate students,
Ike has played a very,
very special role
to many of us who have had the
pleasure of being his colleague
and to generations of
graduate students, some
of whom-- all of whom benefited
greatly from it, though some
of them had to visit him more
than once to get the message.
He is nevertheless
a person who has
served MIT with great
distinction and dedication.
And for that service,
we are grateful.
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]
PEARCE: Thank you very
much, Chancellor Clay.
On a personal note,
I must mention
that I am particularly
pleased that the Hartons were
recognized for their
tireless efforts.
In fact, I must say that I am
one of the now famous Chicago
Seven.
[APPLAUSE]
Congratulations to each of you.
Your tireless efforts
have not gone unnoticed.
The Black Students Union lounge
has had an impact on many of us
in the MIT community.
Here to reflect on the
impact of the lounge
and to speak about the
recent improvements,
please welcome Mr.
Richard Burgess,
a sophomore in the Department
of Civil Engineering
and Environmental Engineering.
And he is also senior co-chair
of the Black Students Union.
Richard.
[APPLAUSE]
BURGESS: Good morning.
Next year will mark
the 40th anniversary
of the pivotal events that
led to a seven-fold increase
in the number of
students of color
who entered MIT freshman
class over the previous year.
At that time, the
Black Student Union
was led by Dr. Shirley
Ann Jackson, now
the president of RPI.
She and her colleagues listed as
one of the 12 requests to then
President Howard Johnson
the establishment of, quote,
"an Afro-American center run
by the MIT Black Student Union,
where students can meet and
where examples of black culture
could be on display."
This center, called
the BSU Lounge,
is located outside
those doors and has
undergone major renovations.
This week, the BSU will be
celebrating the renovation
of the Black Students Union
lounge, a safe student
space that has been affiliated
with the organization
since 1968.
Over the past few years,
the members of the BSU
have seen the need to
revitalize the lounge.
And through the generosity
of the Chancellor's Office,
the black alumni of MIT,
and student life programs,
we have been able to make
significant enhancements
to this space.
These additions include
new audio visual system,
new lighting, and
new furnishings.
At the conclusion
of this program,
I invite you to
view the lounge so
that you may see for yourselves
the improvements to the space.
Armed with this newly
renovated lounge,
the Black Students
Union is fully equipped
to realize its dual goal of
creating a sense of community
for black students at MIT
and impacting both the MIT
and greater Boston community.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
PEARCE: Thank you
very much, Ricky.
As he mentioned and
I also encourage you,
please visit the Black
Students Union lounge.
It's right outside
these doors here.
Please visit the lounge
later on this morning.
It now gives me great pleasure
to welcome the 16th president
of MIT, Dr. Susan Hockfield.
She will give some remarks
and speak to MIT's congruence
of diversity and excellence.
After her remarks, she will
introduce our keynote speaker,
Mr. Ted Childs.
President Hockfield.
[APPLAUSE]
HOCKFIELD: Good
morning, everybody.
AUDIENCE: Good morning.
HOCKFIELD: I want to add
my thanks to everyone's--
to the organizing committee for
this year's Martin Luther King,
Jr. celebration.
As was mentioned earlier, this
is the 33rd annual celebration
of Dr. King's life and legacy.
Extraordinary comment on MIT's
dedication to these principles.
Special thanks go to Professor
Michael Feld and Dean Karl Reid
for their work as co-chairs.
I would mention that Professor
Feld's leadership in particular
has been critical to the
success of this annual event
for many years, and
I want to invite
you to join me in thanking him.
[APPLAUSE]
I also want to add
my congratulations
to those that have already been
spoken to this year's Martin
Luther King, Jr. Award winners.
Congratulations, Nathaniel, La
Tonya, Michelle, and Austin.
And special thanks to you, Ike.
I've known Dean Ike Colbert and
his commitment to the Institute
and its students from my first
years in academic leadership,
long before I arrived at MIT.
I met Ike when I
had just started
as dean of the graduate
school at Yale University,
and he served as a very
powerful mentor to me
in those early years.
So thank you on behalf
of the Institute,
and thank you personally.
[APPLAUSE]
And finally, and certainly
last is not least,
I want to thank this
year's student speakers.
Tabitha, Elizabeth, and Richard,
thank you so much, so much
for inspiring us with
your powerful remarks.
[APPLAUSE]
Now I want to begin
my own remarks
with a brief
personal reflection.
And then I'm going to
let that short reflection
lead into some thoughts
on where we are today
and where we want
to be tomorrow.
On January 15 this year
was the national day
of celebration of the life
and legacy of Dr. King.
Part of my own personal
reflection for the day
was to reread the words
of Dr. King in his now
iconic "I Have a Dream" speech.
The speech never
fails to move me
as it did when I first heard
it now many, many years ago
and as it has moved and
inspired millions of others
in the nearly 45
years since it was
delivered on the steps
of the Lincoln Memorial.
Every time I read that
speech, some passages
seemed to me a well-known
well-loved tune.
And every time I read
it, at least one passage
sings a new song to me and
strikes me in a new way.
So it is with only the
most powerful expressions
of the human spirit.
This year, one passage
in particular really
just jumped off the page.
It harmonized with
my own reflections,
and it joined with my
thoughts on our work
together here at MIT.
As Dr. King describes our
forward path toward justice
for all, he says we
cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we
must make the pledge
that we shall
always march ahead.
We cannot turn back.
I believe that the
most powerful way
we can honor Dr. King
at this annual breakfast
is to assess our
progress on the march
and to affirm our commitment
as a community to accelerate
the pace of change.
We're gathered this morning at
a painful moment for the MIT
community.
Professor James
Shirley has raised
issues that reach beyond
any single individual
or any single institution.
In this difficult time,
our deepest concern,
our deepest concern is for
Professor Shirley's health
and for the impact of this
situation on his family--
his wife Marian, who is a
respected and beloved member
of our community, and for
their two young daughters.
But our concern also reaches
into the larger MIT community
because, as Dr. King reminds
us, none of us walks alone.
We will only move ahead
if we do so together.
If MIT today is to advance its
historic mission of teaching,
research, and service, we simply
must increase the opportunities
for minority faculty,
students, and staff.
Let me first speak
about our faculty.
Our faculty itself has made
an important commitment
to accelerating our progress
in the May 2004 faculty
resolution.
Overall, the number of minority
faculty at the Institute
has doubled--
doubled since 1990.
However, the numbers
are still way too small.
As of October 2005, less
than 5% of our faculty
were members of minority groups.
I say that, but I follow
quickly with reminding us
that there are some
encouraging signs of progress.
First, of the new faculty
who arrived at MIT this year,
11 and 1/2% are members of
underrepresented minority
groups.
You heard me correctly--
11 and 1/2% this year.
This year, we welcomed to
campus eight Martin Luther
King, Jr. visiting professors
and scholars, more than ever
before in this program.
And we together
have been working
toward an Institute
leadership that reflects
the diversity of our community.
In our departments, our
labs, our centers, and at
the level of the
Academic Council,
our academic and administrative
leadership is now more diverse
than it has ever been before.
Still, we remain acutely aware
that the numbers remain small,
much smaller than we'd like.
But as we chart the course
of our walk together,
we can point to powerful proof
that concerted institutional
effort can make a difference.
That proof lies in MIT's own
ongoing work in gender equity.
The study of women faculty
in the School of Science
and its successors
in the other schools
had a powerful impact not just
at MIT, but around the nation
and around the world.
We want our new initiative
on minority faculty issues
recently announced
by the provost
to have the same
catalytic impact
and to demonstrate the same kind
of institutional and national
leadership.
This new initiative will
build on important work
over the past year.
The review of the Martin Luther
King, Jr. Scholars Program,
charged by Provost
Reif a year ago,
has produced some
important new ideas
about how this program
might help accelerate
our progress in
bringing new minority
scholars to our campus.
And we've announced
plans for a new office
of the Associate Provost
for Faculty Equity,
and we're now in an active
search for its first leader.
Our new initiative
will examine and assess
what we have accomplished
and also how race might still
affect the recruitment, the
retention, and the experiences
of underrepresented minority
faculty members at MIT.
The committees the provost
appointed last year
to address minority recruitment
and retention issues
will be merged into
this new initiative.
We're now moving toward the
appointment of a core team.
That team will consult with--
and to Elizabeth's reminder--
will listen to,
listen closely to,
our minority faculty and
others to define a process--
we'll define the
process together
that will lead to a
comprehensive, rigorous, and
systematic study
of these issues.
The core team will also
assess the resources
needed to carry out
this effort thoroughly.
We believe that
this initiative will
provide the critical
information needed
to develop the most
effective ways to strengthen
the representation
and the career
experiences of underrepresented
minority faculty members
at MIT.
I assure you that the Provost
and I are deeply committed
to this initiative as a
stimulus for real change
at the Institute and
as a national example.
As we move forward to
increase opportunities
within the faculty,
we will continue
to do the same for
students and staff.
Our progress in each
of these domains
will amplify our
success and the others
as we build a more diverse
and more inclusive MIT.
MIT has a reputation as
an excellent employer,
acknowledged by national awards.
But we cannot deny that we are
not yet where we want to be
with respect to the
diversity of our staff,
nor have we yet laid the paths
to career advancement that can
inspire the best work and build
the strongest organizations.
The human resources department
has launched promising efforts
to reach out to
minority communities.
And our new vice president for
human resources, Dr. Allison
Aldon, has made it
clear that this will
be a central issue for her.
But recruiting and developing
a more diverse staff
requires hard work all
across the community
at all steps of the process.
Whenever there is a vacancy to
fill, a promotion to be made,
or a project to
be assigned, I am
certain that working together,
we can make real progress.
Our progress has been
greater in student issues,
as we just heard, thanks to
the activities in Chicago
and elsewhere.
But we cannot be complacent.
And with respect to graduate
students in particular,
there is still very
much work to do.
When I first spoke to the MIT
community in August of 2004,
I said that I wanted MIT to be
the dream of every child who
wants to make the
world a better place.
I meant it then,
and I mean it now.
To achieve that dream,
we must continue
to dismantle any
impediments that
may keep exceptional
students from attending MIT.
Access to educational
opportunity
is still distributed very
unevenly in our society.
That's why MIT engages so
many innovative outreach
programs to draw young people
toward the very best colleges,
programs such as
STEM, SEED, and MITES.
These extraordinary programs
prepare young people
with the skills they
need for success here
at MIT and at other
great universities.
Our admissions office has
intensified its efforts
to recruit the most talented
students from all backgrounds.
That work has borne fruit,
with this year's freshman
class the most diverse
in MIT's history.
Our financial aid
policies open our doors
to as wide a range of
students as possible.
As we have for many decades,
we admit undergraduates
without regard to
their financial need,
and we award all MIT scholarship
aid on the basis of need alone.
These policies represent
an institutional investment
of more than $60
million this year.
And one of the key objectives
of the campaign for students
that we launched
earlier in the winter
is to fully endow
undergraduate financial aid
to ensure that their
need never, never
be a decision between
funding financial aid
and funding other important
institutional activities.
At the graduate
level, we continue
to build Institute-wide
recruiting
efforts, such as
the Converge Weekend
for prospective students.
Our role as a leader
in graduate education
for diverse communities
was recognized last fall
when MIT became one of
10 universities chosen
to offer the new
Amgen scholarships,
a nationwide initiative
that provides opportunities
for talented
undergraduate students
to engage in fully
funded summer research
experiences to
encourage them to pursue
graduate degrees and,
eventually, careers
in science and technology.
And MIT was chosen to host
the program's national office.
Taking away obstacles for
the Institute's own students
and for other young people is a
job for all of us gathered here
today.
It is a serious but also
a joyful obligation,
eloquently expressed two
years ago at this breakfast
by our own student, Sarah
Gonzalez, who's now a senior.
At that event, Sarah encouraged
us each to do our part.
This is what she said.
"I hope that
everyone in this hall
will reach out and embrace every
opportunity to become a mentor,
to become a role model, and to
support programs that encourage
students to accept the challenge
and break through the remaining
frontiers, professional
and scholarly."
The truly remarkable
accomplishments
of our students
and our graduates
show us why we must hear
and act on Sarah's words.
Dr. King urges us
to walk together.
And we have been walking
steadily forward.
But now, it is time
to pick up the pace.
We owe that faster pace
to our own community
of teachers and students,
researchers and staff.
We owe it to the many
extended communities
for whom we stand as a beacon
of excellence and aspiration.
And we owe it to
a world that looks
to us to bring the very best
thinking to bear on the world's
toughest problems.
While each of us must pick
up Sarah Gonzalez's charge,
we must move ahead
as a community.
As Dr. King said, we
cannot walk alone.
And as we walk, we
must make the pledge
that we shall
always march ahead.
We cannot turn back.
Let us walk forward together.
Thank you.
[APPLAUSE]
Now it gives me
truly great pleasure
to introduce this
year's keynote speaker,
Ted Childs, Jr. Mr. Childs,
now a world renowned consultant
specializing in diversity
issues, formerly
served as the vice president
for Global Workforce Diversity
at IBM.
His success in that role at one
of the world's great technology
companies won him praise as
perhaps the most effective
diversity executive
on the planet--
perhaps in the galaxy.
In his work at IBM, Mr. Childs
stressed the critical role
of diversity to the
company's business success.
As he used to say in
speeches to new managers--
and I love this--
no matter who you
are, you're going
to have to work with people
who are different from you.
You're going to have
to sell to people
who are different from
you, and buy from people
who are different from
you, and manage people
who are different from you.
His effective leadership
in developing talent
and strengthening recruiting
and mentoring strategies
generated enormous gains for
women and minority executives
at IBM and for the
company itself.
During a social
service leave from IBM,
Mr. Childs served as
executive assistant
to Benjamin L. Hooks,
the executive director
of the NAACP.
And he's currently a
member of the board
of directors of the NAACP Legal
Defense and Education Fund.
He has been deeply involved
in child care and aging issues
and also serves as a trustee of
his alma mater, West Virginia
State University.
Mr. Childs has been
quoted as saying
that he is intensely
proud of the gains
women and members
of minority groups
made in IBM's executive ranks
during his tenure there.
He has every right to be.
His remarks this
morning promise to teach
all of us how we can
work together to make MIT
a model of both
diversity and excellence.
Please join me in extending
MIT's warmest welcome
to Mr. Ted Childs.
[APPLAUSE]
CHILDS: Thank you very much.
It is always a treat
to be on any college
campus in our country.
The joy comes from the
traditions associated
with college in America,
pursuit of education,
mental stimulation,
development, spirited debate.
And when the times
are issue conflicted,
challenging the system, its
leaders, and our nation's core
principles and values.
These are issue
conflicted times.
And while we have the joy of
being in an academic community,
I am stressed over the absence
nationally of student activism
to address what I consider to
be the key issues of our time,
or to even get a consistent
theme of messages
that they care.
I know that this is the
beginning of Black History
Month.
It would be easy for me to take
your theme of the convergence
of diversity and excellence.
It would be easy to talk
about Black History Month.
I hope when I'm done, you'll
feel that I did a bit of both.
I'm interested in this
concept that I saw
emerge this morning of family.
I'm teaching a class
down at Bennett College.
Some of you know Johnnetta
Cole, the president of Bennett.
This is her last
semester, and I agreed
to teach a seminar there.
And each week, the
students have gotten
accustomed to me saying to them,
you can't make this stuff up.
I come in each week
with two or three
news stories of
the last day or so
that are relevant to
what I'm talking about.
And this week, we had
something happen that I
thought was quite provocative.
Across town here, you had
a new president installed.
And the New York Times did
quite a provocative piece on her
on Monday, and I read it and
highlighted a couple of things.
Recalling her coming
of age as the only girl
in a privileged tradition bound
family in Virginia, Virginia
horse country specifically,
Drew Gilpin Faust
has often spoken of her
continued confrontation
with her mother about the
requirements of which she
usually called femininity.
Her mother Catherine,
she has said,
told her repeatedly, it's
a man's world, sweetie,
and the sooner you learn
that, the better you will be.
She's written, frankly,
of the community
of rigid racial segregation that
she and her brothers grew up in
and how it formed her as
a rebellious daughter who
would go on to march
in the civil rights
protests of the
'60s and to become
an historian of the region.
Race was not much
discussed in her family.
She wrote in an article
printed in Harvard Magazine,
"I live in a world where
social arrangements were
taken for granted and
assumed to be timeless.
A child's obligation was
to learn these usages,
not to question them.
The complexities of racial
deportment were of a piece
with learning manners
and etiquette.
There were formalized
ways of organizing
almost every aspect of human
relationships and interactions.
How you placed your fork
and knife on the plate,
when you had finished
eating, what you
did with the finger bowl,
who walked through a door
first, whose name was spoken
first in an introduction, how
others were dressed, black
adults with just a first name,
whites as Mr. or Mrs.,
whose hand you shook
and whose you didn't, who
ate in the dining room
and who ate in the kitchen."
I have heard stories about that.
That is the first time I
have ever seen it in writing,
and it's quite riveting.
I was interested this
morning because I
had that news story on
Monday, and yesterday, we
had a new story because one of
the more enlightened members
of our athletic establishment,
Mr. Timothy Hardaway,
said in a radio interview
about how much he hated gays,
didn't want to be
on a team with one.
Now he's a retired
player from the NBA.
He was scheduled to participate
in the all-star events
this weekend.
And I was very proud that
Commissioner David Stern
stepped up to him
immediately and said,
you will not participate in
any NBA-related activity.
Your views are not compatible
with the views of the NBA.
[APPLAUSE]
Commissioner Stern's
response was, in my view,
compatible with the requirements
of leadership today.
When I left IBM in
August, I started
my own business,
Ted Childs, LLC,
and I needed
somebody to help me.
So I knew this young lady.
She had an undergraduate degree
from Florida A&M in sociology.
She has a master's
degree in sociology
from University of Texas.
She has a master's degree
in human resource management
from Rutgers.
And I said to her, I paid
for all those tuition bills.
Why don't you come join
me in this business?
And I tell you that story.
I did not plan to
talk about that,
but I saw something
this morning.
No one that I heard commented
that very wonderful set
of remarks that we heard
from Elizabeth Clay.
She's the daughter of
Phillip Clay who was here.
You can grow your own talent.
We didn't talk about--
well, hold on.
Hold on.
We didn't talk about
Austin and Michelle Harton.
They've got two daughters
who are students
at MIT seated over there.
My colleague, [? Aida ?]
[? Saibot ?] from EMC is here.
[? Aida ?] is heads
up diversity for EMC,
but she's an
engineer by training,
and her daughter
graduated with a 3.8
in engineering from
Penn State in December.
It seems that you can truly grow
your own talent if you plant
the seed and water that plant.
So I commend all of
you for your parenting,
and I join you in that.
[APPLAUSE]
If you follow the
thread of my comments,
you will find me
in the neighborhood
of workforce diversity.
And if I don't touch what
you want me to talk about,
if we have time,
I'll take it in Q&A.
My colleagues at the
American Program Bureau
that coordinate my speeches
say that they're wary about me
because I write my own
speeches, one for each audience.
They say, you know, you
should have a stump speech.
And I tell them, subjects may
be the same, but the issues
and the times, they change.
Lyndon Johnson wrote that
you will find meaning only
by sharing in the
responsibilities, the dangers,
and the passions of your time.
In the '60s, in my college
classes, the class of '67,
we were engaged in issues.
For examples, lunch
counter sit-ins
in Greensboro, North Carolina.
In February of 1964, a young
black man from North Carolina,
A&T University, an
historically black college,
sat at a lunch counter at
a Woolworths Department
Store in Greensboro.
They were refused
service that day.
They remained in their
seats until closing time,
and the sit-in
movement was born.
The protests spread to 54
cities and nine states.
And over a two-month
period, the economic impact
was as pronounced as
the social impact,
so much so that
on July 25, 1960,
the first black person
ate a meal sitting down
at that same Woolworths.
And that lunch counter is now
on display at the Smithsonian.
Later in the '60s, Michael
Schwerner, a Cornell graduate
student, Cornell graduate, a
social worker in Manhattan,
James Chaney, a young
black man from Mississippi,
Andrew Goodman, a Queens
College sophomore,
all involved in a voting
rights activity in Mississippi,
two white and one
black all killed
in pursuit of their mission.
1968, the Democratic Convention.
The events that occurred at
the Democratic Convention
in Chicago in 1968 brought
about several changes
in politics and society.
It was a defining moment
for the youth in America
that were protesting
the war in Vietnam.
And young people saw
that they could really
make a difference in
confronting the establishment.
The anti-war
movement really came
to have a new
level of prominence
at the Chicago convention.
And it could be argued that it
laid the groundwork for troops
to be withdrawn from
Vietnam in April of 1975.
And I was reminded when
you talked about you're
a member of the
Chicago Seven, there's
a Chicago Eight
from that convention
that had another impact.
But they would be proud of you.
West Virginia State
College, a college
that was a member of the
historically black college
and university network.
Until the 1954 Supreme
Court decision,
it was against the
law for white students
to attend that college.
I arrived on that campus
in September of 1963.
I arrived on a campus
that was 80% white.
The dormitories were 90% black.
In the minds of black
America, West Virginia State
was still a black college.
In the minds of white
West Virginians,
here was a school where they
could get a good education,
go to school in the day
time, and go home at night.
1966 was our senior year
and the 75th anniversary
of the college.
Student body president, a white
student named Steve Bragg,
was one of the
few white students
who lived in the dorms, and we
had, over time, become friends.
Steve asked me to be
the social committee
chair for our senior year, the
major event being homecoming.
I agreed to accept
the role if he
agreed that our primary
goal at homecoming
would be to
integrate our campus.
From 1954 to 1965,
there had never
been more than six white
couples come to homecoming,
to the dance.
That year, we hired a
very popular white band,
The Esquires, and a
popular black band, Martha
and the Vandellas.
[APPLAUSE]
The black students
had fun, and they
were joined by 600 of
their white colleagues.
We had a moment of integration.
We stood up to the
patterns of our time
and said we are one
student body and would
be consistent with the motto
of our college, a living
laboratory of human relations.
Managing that event
became a pivotal event
in determining the professional
course my life would take.
Examples of student activism,
challenging, standing up,
fighting for principles
and values that we believed
were right and consistent
with the founding principles
of our nation.
The '60s were also the
time of corporate awakening
in the United States.
We're coming off
a 30-year period
of visible examples of
challenge, social questioning,
sometimes violent
behavior and change.
Nazi Germany and the
Holocaust gave us
real insight into the depth
of bigotry and hatred.
The attack on Pearl Harbor
shook our nation to its core,
but also sparked a reaction
that we would later regret--
the internment of our
Japanese citizens.
The world saw the debate
about the war lead
to the founding of the
United Nations in the hope
that it would be a forum to
avoid conflict, a place where
we could talk, not
before shooting,
but in place of shooting.
In the United
States 60 years ago,
April 15, 1947, Jackie
Robinson integrated
our nation's pastime, baseball.
And later, on July 26,
1948, President Harry Truman
issued Executive Order
9981, abolishing segregation
in the armed forces and
ordering full integration
of all the services.
While World War
II had concluded,
the Korean War shortly followed.
And black and white
soldiers actually
got to fight and die together.
Now, I'm going to sprinkle
my remarks with some sidebar
stories.
Tabitha, when you talked
about Dr. King having
two segments to his
civil right activity,
I penciled some notes here.
Because a friend of
mine, Dr. Larry Spruill,
did his doctoral dissertation
on the civil rights movement
and the media.
And when I talked to Larry about
it and read his dissertation,
I learned something
that I did not know,
and that was that the media
played an important role
in the civil rights movement,
but Dr. King was a strategist.
The march to Pettus
Bridge and what
happened surrounding that
was orchestrated by him.
He said, in a
strategy meeting, we
will continue to be beaten,
but not in the dark of night,
but only in the
full light of day.
And he planned that march
so that the media could tell
the story, because he
picked that place because he
knew that they could provoke
Bull Connor to attack them
and that America would see
what they were subjected.
I got to read what happened when
they talked to the newspaper
and magazine reporters and
saw one of the magazine
reporters talked about the
people there, the police.
They knew who they were.
They did not want them
showing up with their cameras,
and how the photographers
trained themselves
to hide their cameras
under their coats
strapped to their bodies so that
they could bring the coat up,
flash the camera
at the scene, snap,
put their coat down again,
so that the police wouldn't
know that they were there.
And those were the
pictures that America saw
that helped America understand.
Now, three weeks ago, I had one
of those personal experiences
that kind of live with you.
I was on a plane headed
to Austin, Texas.
And the flight attendant came
by to take our meal orders.
And she addressed the man seated
next to me as Mr. Greenberg.
And I didn't pay
any attention to it,
but then we were
still at the gate,
and he took a cell phone call.
And that prompted me, when
I heard his conversation,
to ask him a question.
I said, look, I heard the
flight attendant address you,
and I couldn't help
overhearing your conversation.
Your name is Greenberg.
Are you any relation
to Hank Greenberg,
the man who played baseball?
And he said, yes, I'm his son.
And I said, 58 home runs, 1938.
And he said, 1937.
Now, I have a hallway in my home
named Jackie Robinson Parkway.
And I have a street
sign that I got
that I bought at an
auction, that it hangs
at the top of that hallway.
I grew up in Massachusetts.
I was born and raised
in Springfield.
My dad loved baseball
and in another time,
might have been able
to play professionally.
He would not bring
me to Fenway Park
because the Red Sox
were the last team
to have black players--
Pumpsie Green in 1959.
But he took me to Ebbets Field.
I saw Jackie play, and Roy
Campanella and Don Newcombe.
They were my heroes.
But for three hours,
Stephen Greenberg and I
had a riveting discussion.
And he sent me some
artifacts about his dad.
He is sending me
pictures that are
going to hang on
Jackie Robinson Parkway
with some pictures of Jackie.
But when we think about what
we celebrate, years later,
Elden Auker, the
Detroit pitcher,
recalled during the game,
somebody from the White Sox
dugout yelled out that Hank was
a yellow Jew son of a bitch.
When the ball game was over,
Hank took off his spikes,
and he walked across the
way and opened the door.
He walked right into
the White Sox clubhouse,
which was just across the aisle
from our clubhouse, and said,
the guy that called me a yellow
son of a bitch, get on his feet
and come out here and
call it to my face.
Not a guy moved.
He was damn lucky because
Hank would have killed him.
Hank was a tough guy.
Birdie Tebbetts, a young
reserve catcher on the Tigers
and a Detroit teammate of
Hank's for seven seasons,
also remembered that incident.
Hank walked into the White
Sox locker room and said,
I don't know who called
me a yellow Jew bastard,
but whoever it was, stand
up and say it to my face.
Tebbetts recalled
years later, there
was nobody in the
history of the game who
took more abuse than Greenberg
unless it was Jackie.
I was there with Hank when it
was happening, and I heard it.
However, Hank was
not only equal to it,
he was superior to most of the
people who were yelling at him.
And in the case of Jackie,
Jackie had no place
to go after a ball
game, and Greenberg
could go anyplace in the world.
Greenberg had to bear the
terrible burden on the field.
Jackie had to bear
it all of his life.
I wasn't in the National
League with Jackie,
but I was with Hank, and Hank
consistently took more abuse.
In those days, there
was an awful lot
of what we called jockeying.
There's no room for it
now because the organists
have taken over.
It was between innings.
We got our feelings across to
everybody-- umpires, hitters,
pitchers.
It was a continuous thing.
There were bench
jockeys who would
get on the edge of the bench
and yell obscenities, or jokes,
or something about a
guy's personal life.
And you'd hear it
out in the stands.
To Greenberg, you'd hear, Jew
bastard or kike son of a bitch.
Nobody else could have withstood
the foul invectives that
were directed toward Greenberg,
and he had to eat them.
Or else, he would
be out of a game.
Tebbetts recalled
another time when
the Yankees were writing
Greenberg from the bench
during a game.
Hank walked over to
the Yankee bench,
said Tebbetts, and
challenged the entire team.
Nobody said a word.
Ben Chapman, who played
on several teams,
was considered one
of the toughest bench
jockeys in baseball.
And he was tough on Greenberg.
He was also rough on
Jackie, after Jackie
broke into the National League.
Chapman was then the
manager of the Phillies.
It was Chapman who
was supposed to have
thrown a black cat on the
field to try to shame Robinson.
And Robinson's most difficult
moment, he would say later,
was when he swallowed his
pride in his rookie year
and buried the
hatchet with Chapman
and posed for a photograph.
A short column in the
New York Times on May 18
where the headline,
"Hank Greenberg a
Hero to Dodgers Negro Star."
The story read, "Jackie
Robinson, the first Negro
player, has picked the diamond
hero, the rival first baseman
Hank Greenberg of the
Pittsburgh Pirates.
Here's why.
Robinson and Greenberg collided
in a play at first base
during the current
Dodger-Pirates series.
The next time Jackie
came down to the set,
Hank said, I forgot to ask you
if you were hurt on that play.
Assured that Robinson
was unharmed,
Greenberg said,
Jackie, stick in there.
You're doing fine.
Keep your chin up.
This encouragement from
an established star
heartened Robinson who
has been the subject
of racial treatment.
Jackie came into Pittsburgh
on a Friday afternoon,
and the place was jammed.
We were in last place, and the
Dodgers were in first place.
Our southern ball players,
a bunch of bench jockeys,
kept yelling to
Jackie, hey, coal mine.
Hey, coal mine.
Hey, you black coal mine.
We're going to get you.
You ain't going to
play no baseball here.
Jackie paid them no mind.
He got on base and
started dancing.
It was beautiful to watch.
I couldn't help but admire him.
Anyway, we were in last
place and these guys
were calling a guy on a
first place team names.
The last thing that
stuck out was later on,
Hank Greenberg became
the general manager
of the Cleveland Indians.
And he traveled with the players
on their last field trip.
We were leading
the league, and it
looked like we were
going to win the pennant.
From Washington, we went
to Baltimore by bus.
When we arrived at
the Baltimore hotel,
all the players rushed
to get off the bus.
I waited until all the
players had left the bus,
and then I found myself standing
there with five players.
They were not going to the
hotel because they were black.
It hadn't occurred to me
that these players would not
be admitted to the hotel.
I asked them, what
do you guys do?
They said, we wait for the taxi.
The taxis take us
to different homes,
and we stay with families.
And I thought to myself,
this is terrible.
Here, these fellows are
a vital part of the team,
contributing to our success,
and they have to be segregated
and they're not permitted
to stay in the hotel.
And I said to Spud Goldstein,
our traveling secretary,
this is not going on any longer.
For next season, I want to
write a letter to every hotel
before the season
opens and tell them
that we will not
send our team there
unless everyone on the team
is accepted and treated
as a guest with the
same equal rights.
I found that blacks
were not permitted
in the hotels in St. Louis,
Baltimore, and Washington.
So the next year, we
wrote to all the hotels
and explained that if they
wanted the Cleveland Indians'
business, they would take all
of our players or none of them.
Now, all of the hotels
said, bring your players."
Now, to me, one of the riveting
things about my business
is I have a saying that
I have trademarked.
I don't care who you
hate, you don't hate them
more than you love money.
On September 21, 1953,
Tom Watson, Jr, then
the chief executive
at IBM, wrote
what we think was America's
first equal opportunity policy
letter.
Now I retired from IBM
last August after 39 years,
but I worked for a new-- every
CEO, except Tom, Sr, his dad.
And I interviewed Tom,
Jr, in the early '90s.
And I asked him, why did
you write that letter?
And I posed the question by
saying that you could not
have been under any social
or political pressure
to write a letter.
And Tom, Jr. told me
that he was motivated
to do so because
he was negotiating
with the governors of
Kentucky and North Carolina
to build the IBM plants
in Lexington and Raleigh,
two major sites
potentially for IBM.
But he told both governors
that he would not accept
separate but equal at IBM.
And both governors
said, bring the payroll
and manage the people
any way you want to.
Now, that's an early example
of not show me the money,
but bring me the money.
Tax and payroll dollars.
Once again, I don't
care who you hate.
You don't hate them more
than you love money.
And on May 17, 1954, the Supreme
Court decision, the Brown
decision, declaring
that separate but equal
was inconsistent with the
principles of our nation.
And in 1957, we got
the Civil Rights Act
of 1957, Congress's first
civil rights legislation
since reconstruction,
which established
the US Department of Justice
as the guarantor of the right
to vote.
The act was a
presidential response
to the political divisions that
followed the Brown decision.
Now I want another
sidebar story.
I want to talk about
the Brown decision.
There were some players
in this decision--
presidential candidate Dwight
Eisenhower, California Attorney
General, later to be governor,
Earl Warren, the Brown case
itself, the Supreme Court
Chief Justice Fred Vinson.
And some of you know Professor
Charles Ogletree at Harvard,
and he describes this story
very poignantly in his book,
All Deliberate Speed.
Dwight Eisenhower was a
candidate for President
of the United States.
Earl Warren was the
governor of California.
Dwight Eisenhower
concluded that he
needed the delegation
from California
to win the nomination.
And he told then Governor
Warren that if you will deliver
the votes of
California for me, I
will give you the first
appointment to the Supreme
Court of the United States.
The Brown case was moving
through the court system.
Conservatives in
America were not
worried about the Brown case.
They knew where it was
headed, to the Supreme Court,
but their people were in charge.
Fred Vinson was
the Chief Justice.
Fred Vinson died.
As you have watched the process
of filling Supreme Court seats,
those who worry about such
things had their short lists.
They also had a problem.
Dwight David Eisenhower had
made a deal with Earl Warren,
and he chose to honor the deal.
What he did in appointing Earl
Warren governor of California
was he appointed Earl Warren
governor of California,
previously attorney
general for California who
orchestrated the internment of
the Japanese and had concluded
that was a bad decision.
And he led the Supreme
Court to the Brown decision
that we now know
happened on May 17, 1954.
The results of the various
actions that I've described
would lay the foundation of the
social corporate and political
behavior in the '60s and beyond.
In 1962, President John
Kennedy initiated Plans
for Progress, a program
providing US companies
with the opportunity to
sign the document indicating
their intent to hire
minority citizens.
Active affirmative
action programs
were launched with college
recruitment directed
at black colleges.
My hiring by IBM in 1967 was a
result of such an initiative.
Another sidebar
story-- yesterday,
I'm standing at LaGuardia.
Yesterday was pure
hell at LaGuardia,
the result of the day before.
I find myself standing next
to a fellow, and I said,
are you who I think you are?
He just looks at me, and
he smiles, and he said,
I think so.
Bobby Kennedy, Jr. I said,
young fella, where do you live?
Don't we live near each other?
He said, I live in Mount Kisco.
I said I live in Pound Ridge.
The towns are right
next to each other.
I said, look, I'm a
native of Springfield.
1960, I was a freshman
in high school.
My United States senator
was running for president.
He came to town to
let us out of school.
When I watched the interview
on 60 Minutes on Sunday,
I told my friends that
man reminds me of Jack.
The interview was with Barack.
And he and I had a few
moments about his uncle.
Companion to the
hiring initiatives,
corporations launched
minority supplier programs
that were equally important
because they pledged
their support to
buy from companies
owned by women or minorities.
So the bigotry and
intolerance of the '40s
sparked attitudinal
change in the '50s,
and that led to
social, political,
and corporate
activism in the '60s.
A lot of water has passed
over the dam since then.
50 years since the Brown
decision, where are we?
Well, we can claim and
demonstrate progress,
but we cannot hide the fact
that we are in a crisis,
what I call a seminal moment.
For me, a seminal moment
is when we encounter
a crisis, a crisis that requires
the social and political will
to use all of our resources
to combat a real or perceived
threat.
Pearl Harbor was
a seminal moment.
Sputnik was a seminal moment.
The gasoline crisis of the
'70s was a seminal moment,
for the moment.
We suffered.
We sucked it up.
We sat in lines
at gasoline pumps.
Some of us got up at
4:00 AM in the morning
to drive to gas
stations to get in line.
We sacrificed, we walked.
We took buses, we carpooled.
We had discussions
at the highest levels
of our government about the
need to wean ourselves off
of our oil dependence.
We stopped buying big cars.
And for a moment in time,
we had a love affair
with small cars,
gas conscious cars.
Then the gas started flowing,
and the crisis ended.
I think 9/11 was
a seminal moment.
At least, it made us angry.
Our seminal moment
today is, I believe,
the need to develop and execute
a competitive national talent
strategy.
Our schools are not producing
students who can read, write,
count, and think.
A key founding principle
of the democracy
was that a public
school education
would provide an
educated citizenry that
could understand and debate
issues, draw conclusions, go
into a voting booth,
and elect our leaders.
Not only are we not
educated, we don't vote.
If you go to
tomorrowsworkforce.org,
this website describes where
American high school students
rank versus their peers
in other countries.
And it ain't pretty.
Of the 21 countries
participating
in the third International
Mathematics and Science Study,
American high school seniors
outperformed only students
from Cyprus and South Africa.
It ranked behind students in
Sweden, Canada, New Zealand,
Russia, and the Czech Republic.
A recent study by
the Organization
for Economic Cooperation
and Development
showed that America's
literacy rate
is average among the nations
of the industrialized world
and that our high school
graduation rate, 73%,
is one of the lowest in
the industrial nations.
We follow Denmark, Norway,
Germany, Japan, Poland,
Switzerland, Finland, Greece,
Japan, Australia, Canada,
Belgium, Switzerland, the
Netherlands, France, Germany,
Sweden, and Ireland.
It's rather intimidating.
That is why this is
a seminal moment,
because the failure of
our educational system
is undermining our
competitiveness
in a global marketplace.
I travel all over the
world, and I'm amazed
that I can talk to children.
I speak one language,
and I meet kids
who speak their
language and English.
They tell a joke
in other countries.
You speak three languages,
you're trilingual.
If you speak two languages,
you're bilingual.
If you speak one
language, you're American.
A recent issue about
the national anthem
being sung in Spanish,
president of the United States
and the Vice President commented
that the US national anthem
should only be sung in English.
And I was kind of
overwhelmed by that.
I can't imagine anyone
singing my national anthem
in their language and flying
planes into our buildings.
I'd like to see a lot of people
singing the national anthem
in their countries.
We're having a national
debate about English
being the national language.
I think that's a flawed debate.
I think English is going
to be the dominant language
in the United States.
And if we conclude
there is a risk,
we can attack that where
the problem emerges.
But I think we need to
have a national dialogue
about requiring American
children to speak
more than one language and
to do so fluently before they
can graduate from high school.
The Chinese government
has made a commitment
to Chinese children to
learn to speak English.
That is a strong message.
I was in a meeting
one day recently,
just a group of us talking
about world affairs.
And I posed a thought.
I said, I wonder if the Chinese
government does not want
Bin Laden as much as we do.
I wonder if they got him,
if the conversation wouldn't
go like this.
Chinese leader--
Mr. Bin Laden, you
are destroying
private property when
you fly those planes into
buildings in the United States,
especially New York.
Bin Laden-- what do you
mean private property?
They are the Americans.
They are devils.
Chinese leader-- Mr. Bin Laden,
you must have missed a meeting.
You are not with the strategy.
The Americans, they
are not our enemies.
They are our business partners.
We are investing
in their country.
We may even own those
buildings one day.
And we are not in a hurry.
One day will come.
Mr. bin Laden, no more planes.
You are destroying our
long-term investment.
Hold the thought.
When we look back over history,
the most advanced civilizations
were the ones that had the
highest degree of technology
however technology was
defined in their time.
We have been viewed as the
most advanced civilization
of our time.
But change is coming.
A key defining example of
the technological prowess
of your civilization
is the number
of engineers you produce.
I have not forgotten
where I am--
America's premier
institution of higher
learning in the field
of math and science.
Well, America produces
75,000 engineers a year,
but Russia produces 85,000,
Japan, 105,000, India, 130,000,
and China, well over 200,000.
Well, if they can
produce more engineers
and they can speak their
language and English, who
is preparing to
compete for being
the most advanced civilization?
Whose children will be
the most competitive
in a global marketplace?
Not ours.
If you look at the
Fortune 25 in 1955,
you see names like US Steel,
Bethlehem Steel, Gulf Oil,
Swift, International
Harvester, Union Carbide, RCA,
Firestone Tire and
Rubber, companies
that were there in 1955 and
either don't exist today,
have been bought, or are
just far down the list.
Just like they had no long-term
guarantee of remaining on top,
America has no such
guarantee either.
We are concerned
about job flight.
Those are not our jobs.
They are not American jobs.
We do not have an
entitlement to them.
How many people in this room
own stock in a global company?
Well, we're conflicted.
We want jobs here and
we want to make money.
Indeed, we expect and
demand to make money.
We can't have it both ways.
Those countries are making
more of an investment
in their schools than we are.
40 or 50 years ago, when an
IBM was looking for a community
to build a plant, we had
a handful of criteria.
No labor conflict,
quality transportation,
quality housing, good schools,
and a good university system.
You can find that
today in many places.
Last week, in a New York
Times and Wall Street Journal
article, Mr. Bernanke,
at the Federal Reserve,
talked about disparities
in education and training
as the single greatest source
of the long-term increase
in inequality.
If the head of one of
our global companies
is visiting a country
today and meeting
with the president
of that country,
the business leader
is likely to be asked,
what are you doing
for my country?
In the past, the
company's CEO would
have said, well, I'm paying this
much in taxes in your country.
I'm making this much in
charitable contributions.
Today, that answer
will not be acceptable.
The country
president will say, I
know how much money
your company is making.
And I know how much
you made in my country.
The only answer
I'm interested in
is how many jobs you are
putting in my country.
The country president
would be on point
in focusing on the source of the
conflict with the shareholder.
Global companies
require a network
of successful local economies.
A global company cannot be
successful by being successful
only in the United States.
You can have a great
year here and a bad year
in enough other places to
have a bad business year.
Global financial success
means multiple success.
Tom Watson, Sr.
joined IBM in 1914.
It was CTR Company at the time.
He became the president in 1915.
In 1923, he established
a subsidiary, World Trade
Corporation, then changed
the name to IBM in 1924.
He had a vision that it
would be a global business.
IBM made its first billion
dollars outside of the US
in 1965.
1975 was the first
year more than half
the company's revenue came from
outside of the United States--
1975.
I point that out to you
because three major competitors
of IBM--
Apple, Microsoft, and Dell--
didn't exist in 1975.
And then in 1993, that was the
first year that more than half
of IBM's people were outside
of the United States.
Now let me come back to the
Chinese leader and the Bin
Laden discussion.
If those nations where we see
the greatest economic growth--
China, India, Brazil,
Russia, former Eastern Bloc--
are competing with
us for opportunity,
well, if they're making
a more focused investment
in their country,
particularly education,
and investing in the United
States, what picture do we see?
When I said hold
the thought, I meant
do we see a seminal moment?
I don't mean Pearl
Harbor or 9/11.
I don't mean Sputnik, where
we will have airway drills
and schoolchildren
that will practice what
to do if there's an attack.
The essence of my imaginary
Chinese leader Bin Laden
discussion is that someone
wins, but no bullets are fired.
I did not mean to offend
by using the Chinese leader
in the discussion.
He was just an effective
tool for my debate.
I said earlier that I'm stressed
over the absence of student
activism.
I'm concerned about
what's on their minds.
Here are four recent incidents.
Here in Massachusetts, last
fall at Babson, some students
dressed up as Celtics
and in blackface.
Two weeks ago at Guilford
College in North Carolina,
I was there to speak at
Bennett Newspaper Story.
It has been reported that on
the morning of January 20, three
students, two from Guilford
College, one visiting
from North Carolina State,
all from the West Bank,
were attacked by Guilford
College football players
in what is being
labeled a hate crime.
This was a crime that occurred
on a Greensboro, North Carolina
campus, a Quaker college.
Greensboro, the
home of the lunch
counter sit-ins that
changed the nation.
Now, we ask the question--
how did such an act of violence
occur in an environment that
so adamantly opposes violence?
We have two white students
and one black student
allegedly beating
on these students
and calling them sand
niggers and terrorists.
So we go back to the argument
of why do they hate us?
Texas, students at Tarleton
State University in Texas
held a Martin
Luther King, Jr. Day
party that ridiculed
black culture
by having students
play upon the worst
stereotypes, such as students
wearing gang apparel,
dressing up as Aunt Jemima,
drinking malt liquor,
and eating fried chicken.
Education officials
at the school
found out about the
party by looking
at pictures of the
party that were
displayed on the social
networking site Facebook.com.
University president
Dennis McCabe
said the photographs
were reprehensible.
Princeton University.
Princeton is a renowned
institution of higher learning.
And recently, the student
newspaper at Princeton,
[? Velvet ?] Chan, a senior
at Princeton University,
was stunned when she encountered
an article in broken English
in the annual joke issue
of The Student Daily
parodying an
Asian-American student who
had filed a civil rights
complaint against Student.
The editor in chief
said their attention
was to spark dialogue on race.
The article read,
"Hi, Princeton.
Remember me?
The parody began.
"I so good at math and science,
perfect 2,400 SAT score.
Ring bells?
Just in cases, let me
refresh your memories.
I the super smart Asian.
Princeton, the super dumb
college, not accept me.
What is wrong with
you no colored people?
Yellow people make
the world go round.
We cook greasy food,
wash your clothes,
let you copy our homework."
The Princetonian's
editor in chief,
who is of Indian descent,
said the staff was trying
to put the article behind them.
"We embraced racist language
in order to strangle it,"
she said.
"At its worst, the
column was a bad joke.
At its best, it provokes
serious thought."
Well, she's right
about that part.
Where is our student
attention to global warming,
the war in Iraq?
I figured that one
out, by the way.
My generation was
concerned about Vietnam
because of the draft.
Where are the students'
concern about immigration,
the quality of our air and
water, continuing civil rights
debates, stem cell
research, the lack of health
care for all Americans, the
increasing competitive job
advantage of other nations?
And I believe most importantly,
the failure of our schools.
By the way, I don't mean
to criticize them for not
aggressively taking on the war.
I do think that the fact
that our generation dealt
with the draft was important.
Now unless you think I'm just
concerned about our students,
I'm just as concerned
about business leaders.
I entered high school with
some very strong views.
I thought that because
of Jackie Robinson
integrating baseball, Harry
Truman's executive order
integrating the military, and
the Brown decision declaring
separate but equal
unacceptable, that a generation
of boys that went to school
together, played ball
together, and died together
would change America.
I was wrong.
But now the debates
are far bigger,
and for very real reasons,
bigger than black and white.
Those conflicts still exist.
But the inclusion of
our Hispanic, Asian,
and Native American, disabled,
the gay lesbian debate,
career equity for women,
all of that is important.
And the issue of
age may turn out
to be the premiere
business-related issue
of our generation.
Regarding race, we have to
have a meaningful discussion
about affirmative action.
I believe we have to adopt
the concept of mend it,
don't end it.
But my version of mend it,
don't end it is very simple.
We have to end the focus
on affirmative action
as a race and gender dialogue.
Affirmative action has
to be about disadvantage,
and people who
are white and poor
have to be able to benefit
from our commitment
to affirmative action.
Because we need everybody
on the playing field.
For me to say to
someone white, somewhere
in your history,
somebody owned slaves,
it doesn't matter anymore.
We have sportswriters
who would like
to tell us that America's
team is located in Dallas
or that American
sport is baseball.
Well, America's team
is its workforce.
In America, sport is innovation.
Those workers and
that innovation
are in a global marketplace.
And that is what we bring
to the economic table--
our workforce.
We have to help all of our
people be prepared to compete.
We can't win in our
local neighborhoods
or individual
constituency groups.
We can only win as Americans.
So back to my seminal
moment, the college students
need to see clearly the
responsibilities, the dangers,
and the passions of their time.
They need to see
them and agitate
for healthy spirited debate.
I think what these
two young ladies
did this morning is
consistent with that.
They need to galvanize
around real issues that
are important to
their generation,
as racial segregation and the
war in Vietnam were to ours.
They need to spark debate
and grab us by the neck.
A couple of years ago,
we had a major case
come before the US Supreme
Court, the Michigan case.
It generated more print
of the court briefs
than any Supreme
Court case in history.
IBM participated in
that case, and I was
proud to help write the brief.
IBM's involvement came about
because Dr. John Slaughter,
then a member of the board,
former president of Occidental
College, now the head
of National Action
Council for Minorities
in Engineering,
and Chuck Vest, a
member of the IBM board,
then the president of MIT,
both pushed IBM, and Dupont,
and Stanford, and MIT, and the
National Academy of Engineering
to focus on it.
And what we did was
say, look, we're
not going to take a position on
the mathematical process that's
being used by the university.
But we do want to make
a couple of points.
First, we argued that if the
universities of the United
States don't produce a
diverse set of graduates,
they're contributing to the
competitive disadvantage
of the United States
business community.
And second, we
wanted to redefine
the concept of customer.
We made the case that the
parents who pay the tuition--
no disrespect to the parents
who are paying tuition--
but that the parents
who pay the tuition
are not the customers
at a college.
The customers are
the employers who
buy the finished product,
who produce the jobs.
Education has always been our
strength, a differentiator
in the global marketplace.
We're only going to
win through education.
We need national standards
and performance expectations.
We cannot tolerate schools
in our largest cities
or population centers
that are underfunded
and underperforming.
We cannot accept states
like Alabama and Mississippi
consistently being at the bottom
of the educational performance
letter.
All of our children
are important
in a global economic war.
They are our troops, and
we need to develop them.
So I lobby you for
a renewed commitment
to defining and attacking the
responsibilities the dangerous
and the passions of our time.
The young have to be
appropriately distrustful,
unhappy, and challenging
of the decisions
and execution of those
decisions by their elders.
Those elders have got to
see far more clearly than we
are doing today.
We have to make
decisions that are
in the best interests
of our nation, not
our company or our community.
We have to think about
our country long-term, not
three to five years.
We have to see the demographic
changes that are underway
in the United States.
Our nation today has 90
million people of color.
That is larger than
individual populations
of Argentina, Australia, Canada,
France, England, Spain, Italy,
Germany, South Korea,
South Africa, and Vietnam.
Our Hispanic population,
the largest minority group.
By 2050, America will be 50%
white, 25% Hispanic, and 25%
everybody else.
Our elected officials
in the marketplace
reflect that change.
It is important that
Nancy Pelosi is now
the Speaker of the House.
That's worth noting.
But the news about
her elevation has
overshadowed some
other elevations, which
I think are very important.
Charlie Rangel is now the
chairman of Ways and Means;
John Conyers, chair of
the Judiciary Committee;
Bennie Thompson, the chair
of Homeland Security;
Juanita McDonald, the chair
of House Administration.
They're all black.
Silvestre Reyes, the chair of
Intelligence, Nydia Velázquez,
the chair of Small
Business-- they're Hispanic.
Louise Slaughter, a white
woman, chair of Rules,
and the most conservative
industry in the world,
the banking community,
now has to deal
with a gay white man, graduate
of Harvard, from Boston.
And I know that the
bank-- because I
deal with these banking CEOs.
I know that this is
their worst nightmare.
The Asian, black, Hispanic,
and women's caucuses
are gaining in strength.
They've developed their
agendas, and they're
focusing on connections.
We have reached the point where
the interests of the minorities
and women in the nation
are not separate from those
of business.
Our destinies are intertwined.
I have met privately with the
CEOs of General Motors, Daimler
Chrysler, Hallmark
Card, Sylvania, Pepsi,
the Royal Bank of Canada,
JP Morgan Chase, Merck,
Wyeth Lockheed Martin, American
Express, Campbell's Soup,
Herman Miller, Sodexo, Eli
Lilly, the Southern Company,
UBS, and a group
of CEOs in Tokyo.
All of the discussions
were about their customers.
And they increasingly
understand and want
to execute within
the framework of what
I tell them are two and the
only two meaningful goals
of a diversity strategy.
How do you identify, attract,
and retain the best people,
and how do you
create a workplace
where they can perform
to your maximum benefit?
The investments
that we must make
and the strategies
that we must develop
will not yield overnight fixes.
We need to understand
that excepts
the absence of overnight fixes.
But we must sit down together.
Black, white, brown, red,
or yellow, young or old,
gay or straight, male or female,
able-bodied or physically
challenged, we are all in this
together when we win together
or lose as a nation together.
The responsibilities,
the dangers,
and the passions of our
time belong to all of us,
and all of us must solve them.
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]
PEARCE: Please join me again
in thanking Mr. Ted Childs.
[APPLAUSE]
Certainly your words were
quite timely in helping
us to recognize the seminal
moment that we've now
found ourselves in.
Now at this time, I would
like to welcome Provost Rafael
Reif who will recognize the
2006, 2007 Martin Luther
King, Jr. visiting
professors and scholars.
The MLK visiting professors
and scholars programs
are administered through
the provost's office.
Professor Reif.
[APPLAUSE]
REIF: Mr. Childs, thank you
indeed for a very inspiring
speech.
And Tabitha, I would
like to say here publicly
that I identify strongly with
your background and experience,
and I found your
speech very moving.
I am honored here today to
recognize our MLK visiting
professors and scholars.
This program was established
to recognize the contributions
of outstanding scholars.
Since the first
appointments in 1995,
we have had close to 40
visiting scholars among us.
This year, as President
Hockfield said earlier,
we have eight outstanding
MLK visiting scholars,
enriching our MIT community
with their presence.
And I would like to
introduce them and say
a few words about each of them.
The first one is Professor
William M. Harris,
Sr. Department of Urban
Studies and Planning.
He was here this morning
actually sharing the table
with me.
He had to leave a
few minutes ago.
He's a professor of Urban
and Regional Planning
at Jackson State University.
He holds memberships in
several organizations,
including the Urban Affairs
Association and the American
Planning Association.
Professor Harris has
received numerous awards
and recognitions,
including more than 1,000
outstanding community
service awards.
And most of his
sponsored research
has been directly related to
African-American low income
populations.
Next, I would like to introduce
Professor Dale Joachim.
Dale, would you please stand up?
[APPLAUSE]
Before breakfast, I asked
Dale to help me practice
pronounce his last name.
I know I'm doing a
terrible job at it, Dale,
but I'm doing the best I can.
Dale's here in the Media,
Arts, and Sciences Program.
He's a member of the faculty
of Tulane University, where
he instituted this Speech and
Sound Laboratory for research
on audio signature
detection, identification,
and localization.
He has taught computer
architecture, digital logic,
and speech processing
courses at Tulane.
Before joining Tulane, he worked
for Sanders Lockheed Martin
in senior data systems.
The next one is Professor
Ainissa Ramirez.
I didn't see her this morning.
Is she here with us?
Ainissa was here until recently
in the Department of Material
Science and Engineering.
She is a professor of mechanical
engineering at Yale University.
In 2003, Technology
Review named her
as one of the world's
top 100 young innovators,
what we refer to as
TR100, for her discovery
of a universal solder that can
bond metals to ceramics class
diamonds and oxide materials.
She is a strong advocate
of improving the public's
understanding of science.
She lectures widely, and
she has been also a science
correspondent for Time Magazine.
Next I would like to introduce
Professor Akalu Tefera.
Please stand up.
[APPLAUSE]
Professor Tefera is with
us in the Math department.
He is a professor of math
at Grand Valley State
University in Michigan.
He enjoys teaching
math at many levels
and has taught courses in
calculus, linear algebra,
discrete math,
differential equations,
and advanced calculus.
In addition to undergraduate
teaching and curriculum
development,
Professor Tefera has
mentored undergraduate students
in cutting-edge research.
Next, I would like to introduce
Dr. Dwight L. Williams.
[APPLAUSE]
Dwight is in the Department
of Nuclear Science
and Engineering.
He is presently the
principal nuclear physicist
of the Science and
Technology Brain Trust
in the US Department
of Defense, where
he serves as the principal
advisor on all nuclear matters.
He has numerous distinctions,
including a National Young
Engineer of the Year Award,
and most recently, he
was named a director of
National Intelligence
Fellow, the highest
intelligence community award
available to scientists.
Dr. Williams is the first
African-American ever
to win this award.
Next I would like to
introduce Frank Espinosa.
His name is really
Francisco Espinosa,
but we Americanize it here.
I think I didn't see
him this morning.
Is Frank here?
He's with the Media, Arts, and
Science, and Writing Program.
He's presently the creator,
designer, and writer
of Rocketo, A comic book series
published by Image Comics.
Rocketo follows the
life and adventures
of Rocketo Garrison, a world
famous explorer and mapmaker.
Frank has worked extensively
for Disney and Warner Brothers.
In 1992, he redesigned
the complete Looney Tunes
characters.
He has fashioned a series of
Looney Tunes US postage stamps
and has produced an
award-winning character design
manual for graphic
problem-solving strategies.
Next, I would like to
introduce Eugene Gus Newport.
Mr. Newport?
[APPLAUSE]
Gus is with us at the
Urban Studies and Planning
Department.
He is presently a senior
associate of the Urban
Strategies Council, program
director of the Vanguard Public
Foundation, and consultant to
the Louisiana Disaster Recovery
Foundation.
He has worked in several
capacities for federal, state,
county, and
municipal governance,
nonprofit agencies in
the private sector.
I knew his name back
in the late '70s.
At the time, I was a
grad student at Stanford.
And Mr. Newport served as the
mayor of the city of Berkeley
during that period, '79 to '86.
He also served as vice president
from the US of the World Peace
Council from '82 to 1990.
Finally, I would like to
introduce Wilton Virgo, who
I didn't see him this morning.
Is Wilton here?
He's in our
chemistry department.
Dr. Virgo is presently a postdoc
working in Professor Robert
Fields' laboratory.
He received his PhD at Arizona
State and his undergrad degree
in chemistry at Princeton.
He has worked at
Brookhaven National Lab
and has been the occasional
consultant for the American
Tutoring Service.
His research is in higher
resolution spectroscopy
of transition metal
containing molecules.
I would like to thank all
our visiting professors
and scholars for
sharing their knowledge
and enriching our community.
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]
PEARCE: Thank you very
much, Provost Reif.
We will now continue
with some announcements
relevant to our celebration.
Those of you on
campus last week may
have had the pleasure of seeing
the beautiful and informative
installation
located in Lobby 10,
which was designed and
constructed by the Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. IEP seminar.
The theme of the
installation was
have we lived up to the dream?
That's a really good question.
Hopefully, each
of us can respond
by knowing in our hearts that
we are striving to do just that.
The installation,
which is described
in the insert in your
program this morning,
included a walkway that
visualized Dr. King's dream
and what still needs to be done.
In addition to the installation,
the students in the class
are working on
several other projects
involving children in the
community, a voter registration
drive, T-shirts, and a work
on both the MIT@Lawrence
Project and a
project with CASPAR,
which stands for Cambridge
and Somerville Program
for Alcoholism and Drug
Abuse Rehabilitation,
both continuing into
the spring semester.
Again, your insert
includes a description
of all the projects.
In addition, this morning you
may have picked up a flyer
announcing an event,
Architecture Race Academe,
the Black Architects Journey
Conference, which will be held
March 16 and 17 here at MIT.
Sponsored by the
Department of Architecture,
this program is free
and open to the public.
Now please welcome back Mr.
[? Hiram ?] [? Etienne ?]
to lead us in singing the
black national anthem,
"Lift Every Voice and Sing"
by James Weldon Johnson.
We'd ask that you please
stand and join us in the song.
The lyrics are located on
the back of your program.
[MUSIC - "LIFT EVERY VOICE AND
 SING"]
Help me out.
(SINGING) Lift every voice
and sing till earth and heaven
ring.
Ring with the
harmonies of liberty.
Let our rejoicing rise high
as the list'ning skies,
let it resound loud
as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the
faith that the dark past
has taught us.
Sing a song full of the
hope that the present
has brought us.
Facing the rising sun
of our new day begun,
let us march on
till victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
bitter the chast'ning rod,
felt in the days when
hope unborn had died.
Yet with a steady beat,
have not our weary feet
come to the place for
which our fathers sighed?
Oh, we have come over a way that
with tears has been watered.
We have come, treading
our path through the blood
of the slaughtered, out of
the gloomy past, till now we
stand at last where the white
gleam of our bright star
is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
thou who has brought
us thus far on the way,
thou who has by thy might
led us into the light
keep us forever in
the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from
the places, our God,
where we met thee,
lest our hearts, drunk
with the wine of the
world, we forget thee,
shadowed beneath thy
hand, may we forever
stand true to our God,
true to our native land.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
PEARCE: Thank you so much for
that heartwarming rendition
of "Lift Every Voice and Sing."
Now I would like to ask Reverend
John [? Wusnick ?] of the MIT
board of chaplains
to come forward
to offer the benediction and
close this morning's program.
Let us pray.
Bless to us, oh God, the
song lifted from our lips.
Relieve from us, oh God,
the malady of our racism.
And bless to us, oh God,
the challenge of diversity
and the challenge of
excellence, the possibilities
of congruence.
And lift from us, oh
God, injustice anywhere.
Bind us, oh God, to the vision
we have for our friends,
to the vision we have
for our colleagues.
Bind us, oh God,
to the dreams we
wish for our children and
our children's children.
Amen.
AUDIENCE: Amen.
PEARCE: I certainly hope you've
enjoyed this morning's program.
It is my sincere
desire that you've
been inspired to not
only remember the words
and work of Dr. King and his
wife, Coretta Scott King,
but also to act upon them.
Please remember also to drop
by the Black Students Union
Lounge, which is right outside
these doors, after the program.
Thank you once again for
joining us this morning,
and we would be
delighted to see you
next year for the program
and the celebration
that we will have
on February 8, 2008.
I leave you with these words
by William George Jordan.
Into the hands of
every individual
is given a marvelous
power for good or evil--
the silent unconscious
unseen influence of his life.
I urge you today to resolve
to use your power for good.
Have an outstanding
and blessed day.
[APPLAUSE]
