John Lewis: 'You must find a way to get into trouble, good trouble', Emory University - 2014

12 May 2014, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, USA

President Wagner. members of the Board of Trustees, distinguished faculty, parents, family, and friends, and to the class of 2014, I'm delighted and very pleased to be with you on this important occasion.
Now let me join President Wagman in saying "hashtag thanks Gary" to each and every one of you who are receiving a degree. Congratulations. Congratulations. This is your day. Enjoy it. Be happy. Just be happy, have a little fun. Smile. You look good. You look beautiful, handsome. Did anyone else tell you that you really look good? <laugh> Colourful.

And let me just tell you for a moment, I didn't grow up in a big city like Decatur. I didn't grow up in a big city like Snellville. I didn't grow up in a big city like, uh, Buffalo or Chicago or New York or Los Angeles. Or Atlanta. I grew up in rural Alabama, 50 miles from Montgomery outside of a little place called Troy. My father was a sharecropper itinerant farmer, but back in 1944 when I was only four years old, my father had saved $300. And with the $300, he bought 110 acres of land. My family still own that land today. How many of you remember when you were four? Now what happened to the rest of us?

It was many, many years ago, when we would visit the little town of Troy, visit Montgomery visit Tuskegee visit Birmingham, I saw those signs that said 'white men, coloured men', 'white women, coloured women,' 'white waiting, coloured waiting.' I would come home and ask my mother, my father, my grandparents, my great-grandparents, 'Why?'. And they would say, 'That's the way it is. Don't get in the way , don't get in trouble! But one day in 1955, 15 years old in the 10th grade, I heard about Rosa Parks. I heard the words of Martin Luther king Jr on our radio. In 1957, I met Rosa Parks at the age of 17 In 1958 at the age of 18, I met Martin Luther King Jr, and these two individuals inspired me to get in the way, to get in trouble. So I come here to say to you this morning , on this beautiful campus, with your great education, you must find a way to get in the way. You must find a way to get in trouble. Good trouble. Necessary trouble.

Use your education. You have wonderful teachers, wonderful professors, researchers . Use what you have. Use your learning. Use your tools. To help make our country and make our world a better place where no one would be left out or left behind. You can do it and you must do it. It is your time.

In a few short days, we will commemorate what we call the Mississippi Summer Project, when more than a thousand students from all over America, many from abroad, made a trip to Mississippi to encourage people to register to vote. And on the summer night of June 21st, 1964, three young men that I know, two whites and one African American, Nick sprinter, Andy Goodman and James Chaney went out to investigate the burning of an African American church that was used for voter registration workshop. These three young men were detained by the sheriff, taken to jail, taken out of jail, turned over to the Klan where they were beaten shot and killed. And I tell students today, these three young men didn't die in Vietnam. They didn't die in the Middle East or Eastern Europe. They didn't die in Africa or central or south America. They died right here in our own country, trying to help all of our citizens become participants in the democratic process.

As young people, you must understand that there are forces that wanna take us back to another period, but you must say that we're not going back. We made too much progress and we are going forward.
There may be some setbacks, some delays, some disappointment, but you must never ever give up, or give in. You must keep the faith and keep your eyes on the price that is your calling, that is your mission, that is your moral obligation, that is your mandate. Get out there and do it get in the way!

In the final analysis, we all must learn to live together as brothers and sisters, not just in America, but around the world. I want to tell you one little story. I told you I wouldn't be long. You know, I got arrested a few times during the sixties, 40 times, an attorney, Ben Johnson, my great friend, president Beverly Tatum. I'm honoured to be honoured with these two wonderful people , that all of the charges was dropped and dismissed.

But since I've been in Congress and young people ask me, how can you be in Congress, you got arrested so many times. Been arrested since I've been in Congress, five more times.
<laugh>
And, and I may get arrested again.
The last time I got arrested was trying to say to the Congress, we need to pass comprehensive immigration reform and set people in a path to citizenship. It's the right thing to do
.
It doesn't make sense that we live in our country, we live in a society where more than 12 million people are living in the shadow, living in fear. That is not right. That is not fair. And that is not just, and you must get in the way and find a way to make the way outta no way.

When I was growing up, when I was growing up outside of Troy, Alabama, I had an aunt by the name of Sineva and my Aunt Sineva live in what we call a 'shotgun house.' I know as Emory students, soon to graduate, you had never seen a shotgun house. You don't even know what I'm talking about. My aunt Sineva didn't have a green manicured lawn , had a simple plain dirt yard. And sometime at night, you can look up through the holes in the ceiling, the holes in the tin roof and count the stars. And when it rained she would get a pail, a bucket or tub and catch the rain water.

But if you really want to know what a shotgun house look like in a nonviolence sense, it's an old house, one way in one way out , where you can bounce a basketball through the front door and it will go straight out the back door. My Aunt Sienva lived in a shotgun house. From time to time, she would walk out into the woods and cut branches from a Dogwood tree and tie these branches together and make what she call a 'brush broom'. And she would sweep the dirt yard very clean, sometime two and three times a week, but especially on a Friday or Saturday because she wanted that dirt yard to look good during the weekend.
One Saturday afternoon, a group of my brothers and sisters, and a few of my first cousins were out playing in my Aunt Sineva's dirt yard. And an unbelievable storm came up. The wind started blowing. The thunder started rolling. That lightning started flashing and the rain started beating on the tin roof of this old shotgun house. My aunt became terrified. She started crying. She thought this whole house were going to blow away. When it appeared that one corner of the house were going to blow away, my aunt had us all to hold hand and walk to that side, to try to hold the house down with our little bodies. When other corner appeared to be lifting, she had us to walk to that side. We were little children walking with the wind, but we never left the house. I said to you, as you leave here, leave this beautiful campus.

The wind may blow. The thunder may roll, the lightning may flash, and the rain may beat on our old house. Call it a house of Emory, call it a house of Georgia or Alabama or New York. Call it a house of Europe. Call it a house of Africa. Call it a house of Asia. Of central or south America. Call it a house of the Middle East. We all live in the same house , and it doesn't matter whether we are black or white, Latino, Asian American, or native American.

It doesn't matter if we, we are straight or gay. We are one people. We are one family. We all live in the same house.

Be bold. Be courageous, stand up, speak up, speak out and find a way to create the beloved community. The beloved world. A world of peace world that recognise the dignity of all humankind. Never become bitter, never become hostile, never hate. Live in peace. We are one, one people and one love. Thank you very much.

Natasha Trethewey: - 'In the words of Atlanta rapper T.I "Unhappy with the riches because you're piss poor morally"', Emory University - 2017

8 May 2017, Atlanta, Georgia

Good morning, members of the Knox College Community, President Amott, trustees, faculty, parents, and the graduating Class of 2014.  It's a great pleasure and honor to address you today in the birthplace of Carl Sandburg, a great poet of the people whose democratic vistas have compelled us to see the possibility of justice in the world.

I have visited this lovely place once before, but it is, more importantly, the history of Knox College, the commitment to abolition, to social justice, woven into its founding that makes my return today feel like a kind of homecoming. For that, I am grateful and, also, because I did not attend my own college graduation, I am grateful to share this day with you. I know that I missed out on something important, something I might have carried with me as a memory of a momentous day, a sense of triumph over difficult odds and a way to mark an important milestone that, at some moments, seemed I might never reach. Some of you have faced difficult odds thus far in your lives. Perhaps having to work while pursuing your studies, or dealing with an illness or disability, or serving as a caregiver for a family member. Many of you will have not, and, for that blessing, I am thankful and wish for you that it always be so. For all of you graduating today, I wish a smooth and lucky passage. 

This is a time of year I love, perhaps second only to the beginning of a new academic year; that first inkling of autumn in the air, the way the sharp pages of a newly acquired book or even the musty scent of an old one, suggests to me the endless possibilities for learning, for pursuing knowledge not only for my work as a poet, but also for the sheer pleasure of it. I love this time of year differently. I anticipate some time to rest, the brief respite of a few days vacation in the warmer months, so that I can begin again with renewed enthusiasm my life's work. But I also anticipate the reckoning again with my difficult past. You are perhaps feeling something quite different, perhaps relief to have completed this part of your education or melancholy at moving on from this stage in your life, excitement about the opportunities before you, or anxiety in these difficult times about the uncertain future. No doubt you've given this some serious thought.  Although my own passage was not smooth, I can still see in it a measure of luck. 

When I was a graduating senior, I had already experienced the most traumatic event of my life and had to overcome that hardship. In my freshman year, my mother was killed, gunned down in a parking lot by her second husband, her then ex-husband, a troubled Vietnam veteran with a history of mental illness. For the rest of my time in college, I was grieving. When I wasn't grieving, I was trying to carry on with my extracurricular activities, holding down a part time job and socializing with my friends. I was not doing much studying and only showing up in my classes enough to earn a gentlewoman's C average. I couldn't focus on school work, and I didn't know enough to forgive myself that fact and seek some kind of counseling that would have perhaps helped me contend with my grief and perform better at my studies.

I'd been an English major from the time I arrived at the university, but during those school years, I shopped around taking all sorts of classes and thinking I might change my major. I never did, though, not only because I liked literature in high school but also because I think I'd become complacent and not as invested in my education as I needed to be. It was my default choice. I can see now that I was lucky to be getting a liberal arts education that allowed me to explore a lot of different types of courses, as well as being offered a more concentrated education in a particular subject.

So many of my classmates seemed to know exactly what they were doing and why. And I envy that. I still do. I often wonder now what would be different about my life and career had I decided to become a history major. But I was without direction, a sampler, and fortunate that many of those courses I studied, I tried out if only for a semester, sustained my scattered attention in ways that I could not have anticipated.

Two of them stand out to me now. Perhaps you can already look back and recognize what course, academic experience, or faculty member has made what will be a lasting impact on your life. Back then, I could not see how what I was learning would give shape and purpose to my life, let alone a kind of redemption.

In the spring of my freshman year, the spring I lost my mother, I was taking an American History course. On the first day of class, the professor asked us to write down on note cards the names of our hometowns. Now, this was in the 1980s, before the ease of research on the Internet, so what the professor did is even more impressive to me as I look back on it now. We, too, were on the quarter system, and the next day when we came back to class, he introduced each of us by describing some significant historical events that had taken place at our hometowns.

Because my hometown was out of state, I sat there waiting for him to get to me, certain he couldn't have much to say about where I'd come from, a little town on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. But he did know something. And as I listened, I began to see myself as part of a larger history. Not just my personal history, but also geographical, cultural, social, political, and economic history that connected me to other people and that had already helped to shape me, to make me who I was.

From that one class, I took away a seed that grew in me the first real inklings of myself as a historical being. Not someone outside of history or adrift in it, but someone with a past that was older and more significant than my 19 years on Earth. I did not know then what that would mean to me years later when I finally had found my calling as a poet, deeply interested in writing about the intersections and contentions between personal and public history and about justice. Nor did I consider the ways in which I was on my way to being part of an educated and informed citizenry, who could fully participate in the ongoing shaping of my nation.

Within a few months of that second day of class, my mother would be dead, and I would find myself asking the question, more profoundly than I ever had before: How has this world as it now exists come to be what it is? At the moment, the question was no longer what we ask in our studies in general, not the usual way we ask how and why are things, but now a life and death matter. It had an immediacy that was bound to the fact of my being and whether I would survive and flourish or merely survive in the world I'd been given.

The other class was a food science course I took in my senior year. It was only a two credit course, but it was one of the most memorable of my college experience. We studied everything from the FDA and the USDA guidelines about the various grades of meat, food processing, labeling, and safety, to food-borne illnesses. In one assignment, in order to learn how to recognize which bacteria in food preparation had caused a particular illness, we had to solve cases in which we were like detectives, following the clues as the sleuth does in a mystery novel.

Until then, I had not known how much I could be drawn to a kind of scientific research, to investigation, to puzzling out using primary evidence the answer to some practical question affecting our lives. Nor did I realize that there were connections between a course like this one and my shock and disgust and pleasure upon reading in high school Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel, The Jungle, that details some of the early horrors of the meat packing industry in Chicago and the regulations that it spurred. Nor could I see that taken altogether, these courses and my English major were preparing me for the moment that I'd recognize what it was I had been meant to do, that it involved literature, not only reading it, but writing it and that the writing of it would involve an engagement with history, society, and culture, a curiosity that fostered a desire to do research, to go beyond disciplinary boundaries, to make my way in the world, not just in spite of certain setbacks, but building upon them. Those lessons that hardships and limitations, no matter what they are, can teach us.

Without realizing it, I'd been given the tools and the opportunity to think critically, to grapple with difficult knowledge, and to question assumptions and perceived notions about things. I had begun to ask more pointedly than ever before: How the world as it is now exists come to be what it is and what is my place in it? Questions that formed the scaffolding of a life built upon being consciously historical.  

Most of my other courses those years are a blur to me, now part of what seems like intuitive knowledge but is, as the best intuition is, the result of prolonged tuition. And in many ways, this is perhaps the best part of a liberal arts education. I was not studying to be a writer, but everything I studied has helped me become one, to answer my calling.

Today marks the day that you too have done that preliminary work, whether you are yet fully aware of it or not, and it is to be celebrated now and in the years to come as you continue to build upon the sound foundation of your excellent education. But this is not a time for complacency. In her essay "Resisting Amnesia," poet Adrienne Rich reminds us that one does indeed have a choice to become consciously historical. That is, a person who tries from memory and connectedness against amnesia and nostalgia. One who tries to describe her or his journeys. "Historical amnesia," she wrote, "is starvation of the imagination that no ongoing pursuit of knowledge can survive."

It was in that pursuit of knowledge that I was lucky enough to ensure my survival through what would not be a smooth passage. When I think back on those years, I have a momentary sense of terror that I might not have made it to where I am now, might not have survived personal tragedy and found a calling, a way to live in the world that continues to challenge and reward me beyond the necessary and pleasurable material comforts. And I can say without a doubt that my education, seemingly haphazard, and often blindly gained, saved me. It gave me a means of understanding my place in the world, a way to contend with history, law, and society, my role and rights as a citizen. A way to grapple with the political, societal, and socioeconomic context of the historical moment in which my mother was murdered.

Even now, it is hard to say that word. But I am a writer, and therefore, I am in the business of saying things precisely and of choosing to be consciously historical. Some people go blindly about their lives letting others decide the kind of world we're going to live in. Your education is a privilege that not everyone is able to attain and therefore, you have a greater responsibility as the educated citizenry to enter as the poet Robert Penn Warren put it, the world of action and liability. That is the necessity now, more than ever for historical awareness, civic duty, and social responsibility. To be truly educated is to resist the easy certainties of deeply ingrained and unexamined ideologies of soundbites and cliches in favor of an ongoing pursuit of knowledge, of truth, no matter how uncomfortable it makes you.

There are countless ways to enter that world of action and liability, to answer your own calling, in a way that will benefit not only yourselves and your loved ones, but can also serve the greater good. One of the things I love most about my calling, poetry, is that across time and space, it shows us not that we are different, but how we are alike. It connects us through the intimacy of a single voice speaking across the distances and through empathy to the lives of others, showing us a way to know ourselves in the mirror of someone else's experience. And, it allows us to say exactly, precisely, what we mean and to mean something else, perhaps even more important, at the same time.        

So, in closing, I'd like to read you a lovely poem by Richard Wilbur. It offers a fitting metaphor for this occasion, as you embark on writing the next chapter of your life's story. It's called "The Writer."

In her room at the prow of the house
Where light breaks, and the windows are tossed with linden,
My daughter is writing a story.

I pause in the stairwell, hearing
From her shut door a commotion of typewriter-keys
Like a chain hauled over a gunwale.

Young as she is, the stuff
Of her life is a great cargo, and some of it heavy:
I wish her a lucky passage.

But now it is she who pauses,
As if to reject my thought and its easy figure.
A stillness greatens, in which

The whole house seems to be thinking,
And then she is at it again with a bunched clamor
Of strokes, and again is silent.

I remember the dazed starling
Which was trapped in that very room, two years ago;
How we stole in, lifted a sash

And retreated, not to affright it;
And how for a helpless hour, through the crack of the door,
We watched the sleek, wild, dark

And iridescent creature
Batter against the brilliance, drop like a glove
To the hard floor, or the desktop,

And wait then, humped and bloody,
For the wits to try it again; and how our spirits
Rose when, suddenly sure,

It lifted off from a chair-back,
Beating a smooth course for the right window
And clearing the sill of the world.

It is always a matter, my darling,
Of life or death, as I had forgotten. I wish
What I wished you before, but harder.

How true, the sentiments of the poem, the stuff of our lives a great cargo, some of it heavy. The work, often difficult at times to clear the sill of the world in our pursuits. The way our lives are always a matter of life or death. Out of the stuff of my life and the gifts of a liberal arts education, I've found a way to live in the world that could nurture my soul, and, I like to think, the souls of others. There are myriad ways to do that. What will yours be? How lucky you are today to be poised before the sill of the world on the cusp of so much to come. I wish what I wished you before, but harder. Congratulations.