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