Convocation Address at Morgan State University
Speech by Wade Henderson on November 11, 2004.
It's a pleasure to be here at Morgan State University and an honor to speak at this convocation.As a proud graduate of Howard University, I am deeply aware and appreciative of the enormous contribution that historically black colleges and universities make to the education, the civic life, and the civil rights of African Americans - and all Americans.
Not long ago, HBCUs like Morgan State were the only source of higher education for most African Americans.
Even as opportunities began to open up throughout the higher education system, HBCUs never lost their place as the centerpiece of African American education.
And now, as the assault on affirmative action continues and college costs soar further out of reach for most African Americans, HBCUs are more important than ever as a source of quality education.
That is why Morgan State's growth and development has been so important over the past 20 years - which just happen to have been Earl Richardson's first twenty years as president of this University.
Applications are way up.
The qualifications of entering students are way up.
And more and more students are getting undergraduate, Masters and Doctoral degrees in engineering, telecommunications, business, public health, education and many other fields.
That's the training they need for the best jobs in the Twenty-First Century economy. And that's good for them, good for our community, and good for our country.
We know that minority professionals are far more likely to give back to their communities than the average student. Especially when they are trained at an institution as conscious as this University of its mission to develop future leaders for Baltimore, for Maryland, and for the nation.
Lord knows, we need leaders. Because this is a difficult and demanding time. When our nation's leaders are suppressing the vote in Ohio, harassing the NAACP, and preparing to pack the nation's highest court with Justices who don't know what justice is, we can't afford to rest or remain silent.
This year, we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act, and the 40th anniversary of the sacrificial deaths of James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner. But we are still separated by race, by class, by politics, and by our very visions of America.
Next year, we will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act. But, two months from now, we will swear in a President, a Vice President, and the leaders of both houses of Congress, all of whom earned the votes of only one of ten African Americans.
And today, we celebrate the national holiday that was originally called Armistice Day, commemorating the end of World War I, which was supposed to - and I quote - "make the world safe for democracy." But, just like the soldiers who came back from World War I, World War II, Korea and Vietnam, we must still stand sentry for our freedoms here at home.
What does it mean that last week 88% of African Americans voted for Senator Kerry and for Democrats up and down the ballot, but the next Congress will have greater Republican majorities in both Houses of Congress.
When it comes to setting our country's course, the great and growing racial and political divide does not mean that we should retreat - or that we are doomed to defeat. But we do need to stay active - and to act even more strategically.
Eighty-eight percent of African Americans vote Democratic because, for 40 years, Democrats have been the catalysts of social change. But every civil rights bill that has been enacted in this country has required not only Democratic votes but also the votes of moderate Republicans, such as former Massachusetts Senator Ed Brooke, former Maryland Senator Mac Matthias, former Maryland Congresswomen Connie Morella.
Historically, the only way to advance an affirmative, progressive agenda has been through bipartisanship. But now Republican moderates like Brooke, Matthias, and Morella have given way to ideological extremists who look to Jefferson Davis, not Abraham Lincoln, for their historic inspiration.
We can't have bipartisanship when a leading thinker on the Right, a fellow named Grover Norquist, says - and I quote - "Bipartisanship is like date rape."
And the fault isn't only with our foes; it's also with our friends; and - to tell the painful truth - with ourselves as well.
Because we can't have bipartisanship when one side treats us like a tornado treats a trailer park - and the other side watches quietly as the storm rips through your humble home, promising only to drop by later and help you clean up the debris. We can't have bipartisanship on that basis.
We can only have bipartisanship when everyone knows that we can fight back. When one side has an ideologically driven agenda that represents a roll back in everything that we stand for, they've got to know that we have the power to stop them.
This election is only a week behind us now, but already we can see its consequences. Chief Justice Rehnquist is recovering from cancer surgery and absent from the bench. He is expected to retire during this term, with a re-elected President Bush picking his replacement. And that's not all.
The Right Wing of the Republican Party is anticipating the opportunity to pack the Supreme Court with not just one but possibly three or even four young conservative ideologues.
And they are demanding that Senator Arlen Specter be denied his place as chairman of the judiciary committee. Why? Because he had the temerity to suggest that nominees to the Supreme Court who would restrict constitutional rights might not be rubber stamped by the Senate.
Senator Specter - who was once considered a leading moderate Republican - immediately caved in. He said that he's voted for every one of the President's nominees so far, regardless of how ideologically extreme they've been. If this is what we can expect from supposedly moderate Republicans, bipartisanship really will be dead -- until Democrats make it clear that they will never allow radical conservative judicial activists to be confirmed.
The entire episode is a wake-up call. If we don't answer it, we'll see decades of progress and social justice disappear before our eyes. And, if the Senate Democrats stay asleep at the switch, they'll be in for a political nightmare - because African Americans won't always be their largest and most loyal group of supporters.
Despite the current condition of American politics, I still believe in American Democracy. Four years after the close and disputed 2000 election, Americans not only returned to the electoral system - they embraced it. Voter participation is way up - and we should all be proud.
But we cannot be proud that, for most of American history, for much of the American people, the right to vote has been a dream deferred.
We cannot be proud that it took almost a hundred years, the Civil War and the reconstruction amendments before African American men got the right to vote in 1870.
We cannot be proud that it took a half-century more before women - white or minority - got the right to vote in 1920. And we cannot be proud that it took another half-century - and the Vietnam War - before eighteen year olds got the right to vote in 1971.
We cannot be proud that the people of the District of Columbia didn't get a right to vote for President until 1961 - and still have no vote for Representatives and Senators. We cannot be proud that the perception that the African American population of the District will elect Democrats - black Democrats - is going to keep them from getting congressional representation any time soon.
We cannot be proud that Jim Crow-era poll taxes weren't abolished until the 24th amendment in 1964 -- and neither Brown nor the 24th amendment purged all of the vestiges of Jim Crow. We cannot be proud that, through
