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African American History Month |
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Secretary Condi Rice spoke on the occasion of National African American History Month.
Remarks at African American History Month Celebration
Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Dean Acheson Auditorium
Washington, DC
February 18, 2005
(4:00 p.m. EST)
AMBASSADOR DAVIS: Excellencies, Chiefs of Missions of the African Diplomatic Missions and other Members of the Diplomatic Corps, Members of the Association of the Black American Ambassadors, Blacks in Government, the Thursday Luncheon Group, Educational and Cultural Exchange participants, students from Miner Elementary School, Gilman International Scholars, Department employees and ladies and gentlemen -- I think that covers everybody -- good afternoon. I'm Ambassador Ruth A. Davis and I'm pleased to welcome each and every one of you to the Department of State's Celebration of African American History Month. (Applause.)
We are delighted to have you here on this Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend. I know that some of you postponed hasty Friday afternoon exits from the city just to be here. But I promise you, you won't be disappointed. This is a very special Black History Month Celebration because it is the first one that the Department celebrates with our brand new Secretary, Secretary Condoleezza Rice, who herself is an exceptional history maker. (Applause.)
This afternoon we will hear from four distinguished individuals who will share with you some of their experiences during the Civil Rights Movement and how these experiences influenced their lives. But let us put this all into perspective. Ninety years ago, Dr. Carter G. Woodsonrecognized the need for our country to gain a more complete and informed understanding of our past, so he formed the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History and he established the first Negro History Week. Through the pioneering efforts of Dr. Woodson and the dedicated work of the Association, in 1976 this observance officially became Black History Month.
Dr. Woodson's goal was to honor these men and women of color who for generations strengthened our nation by urging reform, by overcoming obstacles and by breaking down barriers. The work of these brave Americans helped to give credibility to our diplomatic efforts to promote human rights throughout the world.
Well, today we are privileged to have with us four individuals who have contributed to making this country a better nation through their actions during the Civil Rights Movementand in their respective fields. Ladies and gentlemen, let us welcome to the Department's African American History Celebration our four platform guests: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (applause), Dr. Bernard LaFayette, Jr. (applause), Dr. Dorothy Height, (applause), and -- football fans stay in your seats (laughter) -- the head coach of the Cleveland Browns, Coach Romeo Crennel (applause).
Our first speaker, Secretary Condoleezza Rice, became the 66th Secretary of State on January 26. Prior to becoming our nation's top diplomat, Secretary Rice served as Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs; in 1993, Secretary Rice became Provost of Stanford University; from 1989 through March 1991, she served on the staff of the National Security Council for President George Herbert Walker Bush as Senior Director of the Soviet and Eastern European Affairs in the National Security Council and Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs.
Throughout her diplomatic and academic career, Secretary Rice has enjoyed a series of firsts: the first African American to hold the position of Provost at Stanford University; the first female to hold the position of National Security Advisor; and now, to our good fortune, the first female African American to hold the position of Secretary of State.
I give you the Secretary of State of the United States of America. (Applause.)
SECRETARY RICE:Thank you very much. Boy, whenever I'm introduced, I want Ambassador Davis to introduce me. (Laughter.) She's fantastic.
I'd like to welcome you here to the Department of State's Celebration of African American History Month. I want to welcome especially the Members of the African Diplomatic Corps, the Members of Congress who are here, Educational and Cultural Exchange Program participants, the students from Miner Elementary School (applause), members of the various African American associations that are here, Department of State employees -- in particular, Blacks in Government and the Thursday Luncheon Group. I know, too, that the members of the African American Ambassadors are here, and other distinguished guests, especially my distinguished platform partners here, Ambassador Davis, Dr. LaFayette, Dr. Dorothy Height, one of my real heroines, and Coach Romeo Crennel, who is going to bring my Cleveland Browns back. (Laughter.)
I want to thank the Morgan State University Choir. What a fantastic, fantastic performance. (Applause.)
I just want to reflect for a few minutes on the African American experience in America and the essence of that experience. And each and every one of us, of course, experiences being African American in some different way. But when I talk to African Americans around the country, from all walks of life, from all kinds of backgrounds, a few things seem to unite us in our experiences: What has made this African American community prosper and thrive despite the tremendous, tremendous obstacles since Africans first landed here in America.
I would say it's a story of faith. It's a story of faith that was very powerfully brought forth in the song that was just performed by Morgan State. It's a story of family, the importance of family ties that hold us together. And you know, it's not just your mom and your dad and grandmother and your grandfather, it's your aunts and your uncles and your cousins and your cousins' cousins and your aunt and uncles' cousins' cousins. (Laughter.) You know that when we talk about family, we mean extended family in the African American experience.
And, of course, it's valuing education. And indeed, I'm so pleased that Morgan State is here and that the elementary school is here because that shows how African Americans have prospered and survived. It's because we've cared about the education of our children that this has mattered.
Now, my experience is an experience of faith and family and education, all brought together in one story that I'd like to tell you. I was born to parents who were college-educated. My parents were teachers. My father was a guidance counselor; eventually, he was the university administrator at the University of Denver. But he got there, and my mother got there, because they had parents who cared about education. And the first one in my family to really care about education was my paternal grandfather. And I want to tell you how faith and family and education came together in Granddaddy Rice.
Granddaddy Rice was a poor, sharecropper's son in Ewtah -- that's E-w-t-a-h -- Alabama. (Laughter.) And one day he decided that he wanted to get book learning. Nobody quite understands why Granddaddy Rice figured he wanted to get book learning, but he did. So he asked people who were coming through, in the parlance of the day, how a colored man could go to college. And they said, well, if you get some money together and you go about 60 miles down the road, there is Stillman College, a historically black college, in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, and they educate young colored men.
So he got his cotton together and he took off for Stillman College to go college. And after the first year, having paid for his college with cotton, they said to him, "Okay, well, how are you going to pay for a second year?" And he said, "Well, I used my cotton. I don't have any more." They said, "Well, you'll have to leave."
And he said, "Well, how are those boys going to college?" And they said, "Well, you see, they have what's called a scholarship, and if you wanted to be a Presbyterian minister you could have a scholarship, too." (Laughter.) And my grandfather said, "That's exactly what I had in mind." (Laughter and applause.) And my family has been Presbyterian and college-educated ever since. (Laughter.)
So black Americans, African Americans, have always depended on faith and family and education. In the most hostile times, in the most difficult times, that's what saw us through.
But something else saw us through, and that was a belief in America and its values and its principles, even when America didn't believe in us. It was a belief that was so strong that Frederick Douglassdidn't appeal outside of America's principles and values, he appealed to America's principles and values for America to be true to itself. It was such that Martin Luther Kingdidn't appeal outside of America's values, he appealed to America to be true to itself in progressing for black Americans. It was true that people like Dr. Dorothy Height, the only woman among the Big Six, appealed not outside of America's values, but to America's values, to challenge America to be true to itself.
That should remind us, each and every one of us, African American, European American, whatever we are, that the important thing that the founders left to us was not a perfect America by any means, but an America that had principles that allowed impatient patriots to appeal to those principles and to tell America to be true to itself.
And now, as we talk about the spread of freedom and liberty to places where it has not yet been known, we need to remember that human beings are by their very nature imperfect, and therefore human institutions will be imperfect. But if we have principles of human dignity and liberty and freedom, those principles will guide impatient patriots to appeal not outside of those principles, but to those principles, to challenge their leaders and their countries to be true to themselves.
That's the story of African Americans in America who, in appealing to America to be true to itself, in challenging America to be what America needed to be, participated in the second founding of America, an America in which the great Civil Rights leadersand those before them gave us the foundation that we have today that allows for somebody like me to emerge as America's Secretary of State.
Thank you very much. (Applause.)
AMBASSADOR DAVIS:Following on to what the Secretary said, it's true that the nation made its gains during the Civil Rights struggle, and not only by great figures like Martin Luther King, but also by lesser known folks who were considered the movement's foot soldiers. People like our next speaker, Dr. Bernard LaFayette, Jr., put their lives on the line to bring us where we are today. Dr. Lafayette was the leader of the 1960 Nashville Movement, the Freedom Rides of 1961and the Selma Movement. He directed the Alabama Voter Registration Project. In 1962, he was appointed National Program Administrator for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and National Coordinator for the 1968 Poor People's Campaign by Martin -- he was appointed by Martin Luther King.
An ordained minister, Dr. LaFayette is currently Director of the Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies and Distinguished Professor in Residence at the University of Rhode Island.
I give you Dr. LaFayette. (Applause.)
DR. LAFAYETTE:Thank you very much, Ambassador, for that introduction, and to our distinguished Secretary, Dr. Rice, and to one of my favorite people, Dorothy Height, and to Coach. You just really made a great statement. I'm very proud to be in the company of such fine and noble people today. And to all of those who are present -- dignitaries, Ambassadors, Consuls, and all of our young people who have joined us -- my remarks will be brief. And I wanted Dr. Rice to know that I'll be preaching at a Presbyterian church this coming Sunday (laughter) in Tuskegee, Alabama. And so that means -- she understands what I mean by that. That means that although I'm a Baptist preacher, I won't take long. (Laughter.) We only have five minutes to speak and I'm going to give Coach two of mine because we made a deal. (Laughter.)
I was born in the segregated south in Tampa, Florida, in Ybor City, and I grew up there understanding that there was separation between the races, and in our schools, in our playgrounds, parks. Some of you don't realize that the libraries were segregated. They had separate libraries for black folks, and to make you feel good about it, it was a George Washington Carverbranch. (Laughter.)
So we grew up in that circumstance and the buses were segregated, and I often thought it was so unfair and inhumane to force white people to sit in the front of the bus. (Laughter.) They couldn't help it. They didn't choose to be born white. And if you were white, you were not allowed to go to the back. And I remember the feeling I had many times when I saw the little white children get on the bus and start running to the back and they'd snatch them back. (Laughter and applause.) It was an awful thing. (Laughter.)
And they, see, every black person on the bus could see every white person because they were all sitting in the front. (Laughter.) So we used to watch them. And the other thing was this. Some of you know about these seats now in your cars where you can press a button on a cold day and your seat warms up. We had that all of the time on the back of the bus. (Laughter.) That back seat was on the motor. (Laughter.) Black only. If you were white, you had to sit up there and the door opened every time someone got on. Now just because they were white, that was not right. (Laughter.)
And then when the bus had a wreck, most of the time it was in the front and all the white folks' faces were -- (laughter). And the worst thing happened, they told those white kids the reason they were sitting up front was because they were better than the folks in the back. How could anyone do that to their children, tell them that they were better than someone else simply because of the color of their skin?
That's a cruel thing to put in the mind of your children. It made it difficult for them to live in the world with the rest of the people, going around acting arrogant and people are laughing at you all over the world. I try to spend my time explaining, you know, so folks wouldn't feel so, you know, hostile towards them, but it's a hard job.
We must change that. This is what our mission has been in the Civil Rights movement. Martin Luther King is not able to be here with us today because he was cut down in Memphis, but I was with him the morning of the assassination. In fact, I was en route to Washington, D.C., to open up the headquarters for the Poor People's Campaign when he was assassinated. I found out after I landed at what once was Washington National. But that morning he told me something that I never forgot and it has changed the course of my entire life. That was, he said, "Bernard, the next movement we're going to have is to institutionalize and internationalize nonviolence."
So then I took off to law school and Harvard University, trying to learn how to institutionalize things. We're working on it. I'm proud today we have a Secretary of State who understands how to stand fast, the quarterback, yes, on our team. The one who knows how to take insults, and yet smiles. The one who has a mission, and that is to win the hearts of her enemies. That's what nonviolence is all about. Martin Luther King taught us well, and because of those lessons we're going to go a long way.
America is not what it can be. It's a great nation, but we can be greater now. We've always made important achievements in the area of human rights and liberty. And because of America, many nations enjoy democracy, while we're working on improving our own. And we know we have work to do, and we've got to continue that work to make a more perfect nation. That's our challenge for the future.
And finally I want to say to Dorothy Height, my mentor, those of us in SNCC, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, dropped out of school to go on the Freedom Rides. We dropped out in the middle of our final exams so we could make sure that Freedom Ride continued after the bombing in Anniston, Alabama. I was on that ride.
I was one of those in Birmingham, where we stayed all night trying to get a bus out because bus drivers refused to drive us because they were afraid for their own lives. I was with that group in Montgomery, Alabama, when they waited out at the waiting room at the bus station and clobbered us and beat us to the ground, hospitalized some. We're going to be celebrating that first Sunday in March next year, that anniversary of the sit-ins, rather the Freedom Rides.
I was there in Parchman, Alabama, in prison, because we were standing up for our rights, refusing to take a back seat to justice. But of all my journeys, I want you to know that one of the things that made me what I am today is Dorothy Height, because we came from the battlefield when the war was over. Her organization, the National Council of Negro Women, gave us scholarships to go back to school. And I want to say today to the Heights, you knew what wed need even if we didn't know. And I want to publicly thank you for all of us students in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. You had our back. (Applause.)
We've seen our country make some great strides in the past. My final comment is, Secretary Rice, you ain't seen nothing yet. (Laughter and applause.)
AMBASSADOR DAVIS:Thank you, Dr. LaFayette.
Dr. Dorothy Height is recognized as an activist for social rights, women's rights, and civil rights. She is the recipient of many awards and many accolades for her efforts, including the Congressional Gold Medal, the Citizens Medal Award for DistinguishedService and the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Dr. Height shared the platform with Dr. Martin Luther King when he delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech.
Dr. Height has a strong commitment to international work, beginning in earnest in 1952 when she served as Visiting Professor at the University of Delhi, India. She continues her affiliation with the National Council of Negro Womenas its President Emeritus and Chair of the Board. A memoir she wrote about her remarkable life entitled, "Open Wide the Freedom Gates," was published in 2003.
I give you the remarkable Dr. Height. (Applause.)
MS. HEIGHT:Thank you. I cannot begin my remarks without saying how wonderful it is to be here with the Secretary of State and how proud I feel of being an African American womanas I have followed her these last days and have seen her as she has moved from place to place. And I just have to say to you, you make us very, very proud. (Applause.)
Carter Woodson, in establishing Black History Month, said we have to fill in those missing pages of our history, and he laid the groundwork for doing that. Our comedian Dick Gregoryoften says that we are shortchanged and we even shortchanged ourselves in selecting the month because we took the month with the fewest days. (Laughter.)
But Dr. Woodson was very clear: he was honoring the month of Abraham Lincolnand the month in which not Valentines Day but it was Frederick Douglass' birthday. And it was Frederick Douglass who said that in the struggle for equality and justice your only reward may be in the opportunity to stay in the struggle. And I feel that I have been blessed with the opportunity to work with so many people, and as I've come to this I look back and say that it was encouraging to me to know that we will be having soon an African American Museumon the Mall in Washington. The President announced that the other day. (Applause.)
I grew up in a small Pennsylvania town where all of my neighbors and friends and schoolmates were predominantly from Eastern Europe. In fact, it was an outpost for the foreign-born and there were very few African Americans living in that community. And every time we came to our history classes, I hated history just -- I just hated the history class. Though I was a good student, I hated to go to the class because they would talk only about slavery, and slavery then, as it was described, was something that made me feel demeaned. And in the midst of all these white classmates, it was most of us as black students, we would withdraw.
But I think thats the good thing about having a museum is that we will look back and realize what slavery was and how it is that those who were enslaved contributed to the development of our country and youll have a different perspective on it, and that it will give us an opportunity to start with our own story because of African Americans. Most of us do not know our own history because we have not had a chance to learn it in a systemized way.
In these days, it's very important for us to begin to see how we get to know one another. I was interested that the Association for the Center of African American Life and History made the theme for this month the Niagara Movement. The Niagara Movement was a movement, was really the first protest movement in the black community. But it cannot stand alone because it has to be shown that during slavery there was the abolitionist movement of black and white people who worked against slavery, and that all the way through that whole movement there was that kind of an effort.
But in the Niagara Movement in 1905, they declared, "We claim for ourselves every single right that belongs to a freeborn American, whether it's political, civil or social; and until we get these rights we will never cease to protest and assail the ears of America." And that was a major protest movement. And many of you will recall it was at a time when Booker T. Washingtonfelt that one kind of education was needed and that black people needed to be gentle in their approach. And then there was Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, who came forward, and he said we need a more aggressive approach and preferred five years (inaudible).
Even in their initial meeting it's very significant they call it the Niagara Movement because they tried to reach Niagara Falls in the United States and there was no hotel that would take them. So they moved the meeting to Niagara Falls in Canada and they soon called it the Niagara Movement.
I think, as we look back, we have to realize -- and I have been acting with the NAACP and other organizations -- that the Niagara Movement laid the base for the development of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. It also stirred more -- and one of the things that always intrigues me when I look back over the slave period and that period that followed, I wonder how it was that those who were freed slaves with very little were able to build insurance companies or able to build businesses and were able to say they made things happen for themselves, and they did it with dignity. I always remember Madam C.J. Walker, a woman who became a millionaire. Someone asked her, well, how did you get started? And she said, I got started by giving myself a start. That's how I got started. And that was the kind of spirit of those times. And Ida B. Wells, who was thrown off the train because she had anti-lynching literature with her.
In my youth, I was very active, beginning with my high school days. I entered a contest on the Constitution of the United States-- it was sponsored by the Elks. I won the contest. My mother said to me when I came home from Chicago, where there were more people in the auditorium than lived in the town of Rankin where I lived, and she said, Dorothy, I have to tell you your speech sounded much better in the armory than it did in the kitchen. (Laughter.) But what she didn't realize, and neither I at the time, that it was in the kitchen that she gave me the courage to go to the armory.
But I think the thing that I think of now is that I chose the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments, and I'm still working on the 14th amendment, to make justice and the law a reality. And out of all of this you could see that the Civil Rights movement had a long rootage that had begun. (Inaudible) we had to think about this, the idea of protests, the building that the National Council for Negro Women has just moved in and bought on Pennsylvania Avenue, was the seat of the largest -- of the Pearl incident, which was the largest uprising during slavery where 77 slaves, including two girls, 12 and 15, tried to get away, but the winds didn't go with them and they were brought back in chains to 7th and Pennsylvania Avenue.
You get the sense, as Oppenheimer wrote after seeing the monuments in Lincoln Park, he said if you look at the slave in this monument at the knee of Abraham Lincoln, you will realize that Abraham Lincoln didn't free the slaves, the slaves freed themselves, that they fought, that there was a (Applause.)
But I often say to young people, those people you think of as slaves were not slaves in Africa. They were kings and queens and inventors and educators. They were made slaves. And I think that we often forget that as we go along.
The Civil Rights Movement -- I played -- I was the female member in the Civil Rights team called United Civil Rights Leadership with Dr. King and Whitney Youngand Roy Wilkins, and you know Philip Randolphand you know the rest. And I have to say to Dr. LaFayette, little did we think when we had the most on a day that Medgar Everswas assassinated, Steven Perry of the (inaudible) Fund called the group together and he said we have to do something. And Roy Wilkins had to leave early to go to the funeral and in a discussion each of us talked about what was up. I could tell about the atrocities, literally atrocities, happening with our girls in the hands of law enforcement officers (inaudible). But on that day, the first real money ever raised for Civil Rights, that day in 1963, June, on that day the National Council of Negro Women, through its educational foundation, became the agency through which we could send 114 of those young people who had interrupted their education.
And I think too little is known about the way in which youth played such a strong part in the Civil Rights Movement. And to sit here today and to hear him, it's a real pleasure for me and I just want to thank him for what he contributed. (Applause.) Because the Student Nonviolent Committee was not about hot dogs and coca-colas and Woolworths; it was about dignity. And I think that that struggle for dignity means a lot to women especially because even through all the period of segregation the Civil Rights Movement was able to change and eliminate they were such great indignities to people, and I think we do not realize that over and above the things like transportation, just plain indignities, for example: Mary McLeod Bethune, who founded the National Council of Negro Women, said as a black woman she was traveling on a train and at that time they would not address a woman of color with any name, they would never call her Miss or Mrs. They would call her Doctor or anything else but Miss or Mrs. And she said a conductor looked at her and he said, "Auntie, may I have your ticket?" And she said, "I looked into this man's blue eyes and I said to him, "Tell me, which of my sisters' sons are you?" (Laughter and applause.)
I think that I learned and relearned working in the Civil Rights Movement, that we had to be conscious at every level. Black History Month has great value because it makes us stop and think of who we are and of our contributions, and to recognize that contribution, and to see that we have made a contribution. But I also learned through the Civil Rights Movement that all of our organizations had different programs and we used different tactics and different strategies, but that unity did not mean uniformity and that we all had to learn to work together, and that was very important.
And as I look at this year at where we are in the world today, in a world where two-thirds of the people of the world are colored, I really think that the contribution that we could make and are making has to be understood. But it begins with knowing who you are and knowing your own history, and to say that this is we are part of a new generation. The new generation has to build on the last.
We need each other in this moment of history. We are different. We have many differences. But I think as we have learned about unity, so we must learn to appreciate differences, and I think that's one of the contributions that Black History Month challenges us to do, to appreciate differences.
Dr. King always said, "The black man needs the white man to free him of his fear, and the white man needs the black man to free him of his guilt." We need each other, and that we need to work together. And if we do so, and use the kind of vigor -- I think we need new vigor in our whole effort, new strength, new determination. We need some of the old spirit that was there when we sang, "We Shall Overcome." But we also need to do it with full respect for people of every race and color, and we need to work together, realizing that we can have a world in which we have peace and justice and freedom and dignity for every person, as we work at it with the inspiration of Black History Month and with the quality of spirit that we get in our new leadership in the Secretary of State.
Thank you very much. (Applause.)
AMBASSADOR DAVIS:Thank you so much, Dr. Height. Now, how many of you are football fans? (Applause.) Well, Madame Secretary, knowing of your interest in the Cleveland Browns, I think that you and the others in our audience will be pleased to know that our next speaker is Coach -- Head Coach Romeo Crennel. Mr. Crennel was appointed the Head Coach of the Cleveland Browns just this month, and this is one of his first appearances, actually. (Applause.)
He is the NFL's sixth minority coach and the Cleveland Browns' first African American coach. His resume includes 35 years of coaching experience, including 24 years in the NFL. In 2003, he was recognized by the Pro-Football Writers of America as the NFL's Assistant Coach of the Year. He has appeared in six Super Bowls during his 24 years of coaching in the NFL, and has won five Super Bowl rings, one of which he is wearing today. It's diamond-studded, and it weighs five pounds. (Laughter and applause.)
COACH CRENNEL:Good afternoon. I am really pleased that you were able to stay and turn out for this affair. The panel is a really great panel. Dr. Davis, Dr. Rice, Dr. LaFayette, Dr. Height. I don't know how I got here, to tell you the truth, you know. (Laughter.) Coach Crennel. I guess I'm a doctor of football or something like that. (Laughter.)
Now, Dr. Lafayette, he was so gracious to agree to give me two minutes of his time, and then he took it all back, you know. (Laughter.) So what I'm going to try to do is I'm going to try to be somewhat brief and kind of tell you a little bit about me and a little bit about my journey to get to this point.
Super Bowls, I've been to a few, won a few, and as I've gone along I've started off down at the bottom of the totem pole. And so I was a special teams coach and got a Super Bowl there. I was a Defensive Line Coach, got a Super Bowl there, then got a couple as Defensive Coordinator. So now I'm looking to try to get a Super Bowl as a Head Coach.
I know that members of this distinguished panel here, the work that they did back in the '60s during the Freedom March, that allowed me to be able to stand here today before you. And I think that young people as we go through this life, and we as parents, we need to teach our young people our history and tell them what has happened. Because I have three daughters myself and they don't know, even though I tried to talk to them and tell them, every time I tell them they don't believe it. They said, "Oh, Dad, that was in the olden days." All right? (Laughter.)
But as a result of the olden days, we are here today, and so I think we need to tell them that. And sometimes, you know, this family that we talk about which we need to grow with and that helps us grow - and my family has been a big part of me and my being here -- it's with that family in today's environment what's happening is there's a TV in the bedroom and there's a TV in the living room and there's a TV in the other bedroom, and then the kids begin to go off in different directions. All right? And they're on their own, maybe a little too much, and so I think we need to try to get that family back together.
And you young people as you grow, all right, try to keep those families together. I know in this Information Age there's a lot of information out there and there's a lot of temptation for young people, but we need to stay on top of them. They are looking for direction and they want and need direction. So go ahead and give that to them.
And as I go through and I think about my mom and my dad, emphasizing education. And education had a lot to do with me being here because Dad, he always wanted to make sure that you got your homework done. All right? So, kids, you always have to do that homework. So, then Mom, she was there to kind of supervise, and Mom, she would tell Dad if we didn't do the homework, and then when we got home, you know, then, boom, he was the enforcer. (Laughter.)
Not only did he tell us to do the homework and then enforce, but my father didn't finish high school. All right? He kind of got in a little trouble in where he was and he ended up going into the army. And the army gave him some structure, but he was always looking to learn. So when we were doing homework, my dad, he was also doing homework because he is somewhat of a jack-of-all-trades and whatever thing that he wanted to do or try to do, he would get books. All right? Whether it was air conditioning or whether it was automobile mechanic work, whether it was brick-laying, he would get a book and he would read and he would be reading as we were reading and doing homework. All right? And so that was a good inspiration for us and to let us know that education was important.
So I think that as we go forward today and you young people understand that education is important and it'll open up some doors for you to give you a chance to get where you want to be in this life. The other thing is I think education opens up doors and gives you opportunity, and that's one of the big things about the Civil Rights struggle is the opportunity. You know, we as people, as human beings, like you say, we're not perfect. But the thing that we want to feel like as black Americans is that we can have an opportunity, an equal opportunity. And I think that was Dr. King's vision, all right, as he went through with the nonviolence. He wanted everybody to have an equal opportunity. You don't have to give me anything, all right, but just give me that opportunity, the same opportunity that you give everybody else, and then leave it up to me then. All right? And I feel like I've got enough confidence in myself and my ability that I can get the job done.
And so you also, young people, have that same challenge. All right? We're going to try to give you the opportunity and you take advantage of it. And the way you take advantage of it is through that education because it's really important. And as you go along, everything is not going to be smooth. You'll find that out in this life. All right? There are some potholes in the road and experience is the thing that can help you get around those potholes.
But when you're young, you're not very experienced and so sometimes you're going to hit that pothole, all right, and you're going to have a down period. But the challenge is not to stay down. The challenge is to come up, rise up, stand up, all right, and then go forward because there's more to life than just that one pothole that you encounter, just that one negative experience that you encounter. So keep moving forward. All right? Keep that positive attitude and keep going because there is something at the end of that rainbow. You know that rainbow that's in the sky? You see it and it seems like it just goes and goes, but at the end of that rainbow they always say that there's a pot of gold. All right? And if you quit and you never try to get to that end of the rainbow, you'll never find that pot of gold. So always strive to keep and give yourself the best chance.
And as we go through, education has allowed me to be here because education gave me my first job. I graduated from college and I could have gone to work right away coaching in high school, but I had a chance to be a graduate assistant so I decided at that point I wanted to be the graduate assistant to further my education and get my Master's. And by getting my Master's, by being there at Western Kentucky, they had an opening on the staff and I started coaching. And so I did a pretty decent job and after a few years I got a chance to move from Western, which was Division II, up to Division I at Texas Tech. All right? So always working to strive forward.
And I think that as you young people move forward and set goals, try to set your goals a little higher. All right? Don't accept mediocrity. Always reach higher. All right? And now by reaching higher you're going to encounter some of those potholes because you're going to get denied, they're going to tell you no. All right? But you have to be persistent and keep calling, keep sending your resume, keep putting yourself out there, because by your persistence that gives you the chance. And by my fact that here, I'm 57 years old, probably the oldest first-time coach in the NFL, all right, by being persistent and by staying after it, by doing my job to a high quality. Somebody recognized that I might be able to get the job done.
And by having the head coaching job, I feel good about that; but I'm not satisfied with just the job. I want to be successful at the job because I know this: I know that if I'm successful it will open up some doors for some of you people, some of you people somewhere down the road. And so the better I do, the better you're going to do and the better we as a nation will do. And if we will remember that, all right, that that equality, that equal opportunity for everybody, for each individual, all right, it's really important for self-esteem, all right, for our outlook on life. If we will remember that and keep that in focus, the forefront, then this world will be a better place because of it, will be a better place.
So I want to tell you young people particularly as you go forward that education is important, so work on your education. Get that done. All right? Do that homework. Read the books. Go to the library. All right? Those things will help you. All right? And then, like I say, don't accept mediocrity. Always strive for the next limb. All right? That higher rung on the ladder. You have to get that one done. And then if you'll do that, then you'll have a chance to be successful. You know, there's an old adage about success. All right? They talk about success is when preparation meets opportunity. All right? So preparation, that's your education, that's your dedication, that's your hard work. But if you get all of those things in line and then the opportunity comes along, then you can be successful. All right? So that's what it takes, that opportunity and that preparation, and you'll have a chance to be successful.
So I leave with you today, all right, from hearing from all of these distinguished members up here, and the messages have been great. And personally, Dr. LaFayette, he could have taken all of my time because I could sit here all night and listen to our history because these people have lived it and so it's really important. But remember that education. All right? Be prepared and be ready to go when that opportunity comes along so that you can be successful.
Thank you. (Applause.)
AMBASSADOR DAVIS:I'd like to invite the choir up. We're going to have a photo opportunity with the Secretary, but I know you've heard them before and you know how marvelous they are. They are one of the nation's most prestigious university choral ensembles and while classical, gospel and contemporary and popular music comprise the chorus' repertoire, the chorus is noted for its emphasis on preserving the heritage of the Negro spiritual. I first heard them on the television at home and I could hardly stay in my seat. Aren't we lucky to have them here today? (Applause.)
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