A Call to Justice: Commencement Address, 1996
By David Paul Smith
My good friend, Robert Glaze, called me the very next day after he had heard Dr. David Paul Smith deliver the Commencement Address for the 1996 graduates of the Highland Park public high school in Dallas. Much impressed and deeply moved by this high school history teacher who for the past twenty years has given his life to teaching, he shared with me a copy of the address. In turn, I gladly share it with readers of Christian Ethics Today with the kind permission of Dr. Smith. May his tribe increase. Foy Valentine
Earlier this year Dr. Rutherford reminded us of a quotation from Thomas Jefferson: "If an honest heart is the first blessing, a knowing head is the second." You might think my talk tonight would be about "a knowing head," since Highland Park, by any standard, is known for its high academic achievement by our students, but it is the "honest heart" that I wish to focus on tonight.
It is said that there are three great questions in life. Pursuit for the answers to these questions commits us to a lifelong endeavor. They are:
1. What can we know?
2. What should we do?
3. What may we hope for?
The first, "What can we know?" relates to Jefferson`s "knowing head." If I ever give a lecture on epistemology, I`ll invite all of you, but for now I`ll stick with the latter two questions, "What should we do" and "What may we hope for?" both connected to Jefferson`s "honest heart."
The question "What should we do?" takes me to the core of what I want to get across. The topic I want to focus upon is one which I`ve noticed makes many people uncomfortable nowadays; it is one which, when mentioned, causes many people to look at the ground, or at their watch, or to hope that time passes swiftly on to another topic. The subject is values. Some people use the buzz phrase "family values," but I am referring simply to the timeless topic of ethics in education.
I have taught in this school district for twenty years, and I have a confession to make. I make this confession with the full realization that my superintendent and my principal and the school board are all sitting right behind me: for twenty years I have taught values in my history classes. Now before anyone gets upset, and wonders just what kind of values I am ramming down the throats of unsuspecting students, let me answer in the words of Shakespeare, from Julius Caesar, with a few words changed where appropriate:
"I have neither wit, nor words, nor worth, action, nor utterance, nor the power of speech, to stir men`s blood. I only speak right on; tell you that which you yourselves do know; show you the sweet lessons of history, poor dumb mouths, and bid them speak for me."
For it is in that quest for the essence of the human condition that is the study of history, that we find those examples which illuminate the values which we seek in our own lives. Now, it is often believed that the best use of the study of history is that it gives us the opportunity to correct mistakes of the past in order to prepare for a better future. We all remember the philosopher Santayana and his dictum: "Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it." Of course, my corollary to that is: "Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it…in summer school."
But another historian, Barbara Tuchman, reminded us that history, which should be like a beacon on the bow of a ship, illuminating most clearly where we will go, is instead, because of human frailties, more like a lantern on the stern of a ship, showing most clearly, only where we have been. History has a better use: to show us men and women of the past in the crises they faced in life, and how they endured, and how they triumphed. That is where we see examples of those values we seek within ourselves. And that brings me to the one ethical concept that time allows me to speak of tonight. It is the one idea that I would hope to be nourished in every graduate`s heart: it is the concept of Justice.
Of all those values or moral principles that anyone could emphasize in a speech, you might wonder why I choose Justice. For me, it is the first and best of all I could hope for you. And here is part of the reason why.
Of all the books I have read and loved, there is one that is my favorite. It is Plato`s Republic. This is, by the way, the book that contains my favorite definition of education. Education, Plato says, is not merely a transfer of knowledge into the soul, like the putting of sight into blind eyes, but rather it is a turning of the eye toward the light. As for teachers, Plato said they should inspire, not merely inform. Twenty-four centuries ago Plato penned this great book, a book dedicated to determining the nature of justice, and one that examines the question of why we should lead a just life. Justice, wrote Plato, is to the soul what health is to the body. Justice does not consist merely of righting a few past wrongs. It is larger than that. Justice is no less than an embodiment of the virtues of a society, and is the establishment of harmony between one`s rights and the rights of others.
Every age of Western civilization has wrestled with the idea of justice in the individual and on a society-wide basis. More than two thousand years ago, an Old Testament prophet wrote: "Three things does your Lord require of thee: to do justice, to show mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." And there is my admonition to you: DO justice. It is not an idea to be just understood. It is meant to be applied, and that is where an inner courage is often called for.
To illustrate, let`s go to a twentieth century example, about four decades ago. It is Thursday, December 1, 1955, some eighteen months after the Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education. On that Thursday, in Montgomery, Alabama, Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man, and she was arrested for violating the city`s segregation ordinance. The following day, a boycott was organized to take place on Monday, December 5. On that day the Montgomery Improvement Association was formed. Elected as its president was a twenty-six year old pastor in the black community who had only been in the city for little more than a year-Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Nearly ten thousand people showed up at the church that day for the first meeting. They filled the church and loudspeakers were set up outside for the crowd. Dr. King began his address with a dispassionate review of the city`s segregation laws, then suddenly brought the congregation along with him to the heart of his message.
"There comes a time when people get tired of being trampled by the iron feet of oppression, and we as a people are tired today." Those words, over the distance of time, may not seem moving today, but they electrified that crowd. They were words of defiance by a black man in the South, who had just put his life at risk by what he was saying, and those who heard it had never heard anything like it in public. The individual responses dissolved into a rising cheer and applause exploded. The noise rolled on, like a wave, and a wall of sound came in from the enormous crowd outdoors to push the volume still higher.
He continued: "We are going to work with grim and bold determination to gain justice on the buses in this city. And we are not wrong. We are not wrong in what we are doing. If we are wrong-the Supreme Court of this nation is wrong. If we are wrong-God Almighty is wrong," and the crowd exploded with applause and emotion for a second time. But what brought them to their feet was this sentence: "If we are wrong-Justice is a lie." This was too much for those assembled, as tears streamed down their faces, and Dr. King had to wait some time before he could continue. And he finished with a flourish, using the words of the prophet Amos, when he said: "We are determined here in Montgomery-to work and fight until justice runs down like water, and righteousness like a mighty stream!"
Joe Azbell, a white reporter covering the meeting, wrote the next day that he had seen the beginning of a fire that would sweep across the South. And the Civil Rights Movement did just that. It was a movement for justice that changed the world.
That Old Testament prophet was right-we have to DO justice. It is not enough to merely understand it, or to approve of it in an abstract way. We have to DO it.
I have to relate this story to you. It happened about ten days ago, and it involves my youngest son, Madison, who is a sixth grader at McCulloch Intermediate School. Madison is somewhere in the audience tonight, and he does NOT know that his Dad is going to talk about him. I picked him up at school one afternoon, and usually he has a big smile on his face. He has a very outgoing personality, unlike his Dad. But this day was different. He spoke, then just sat quietly for a few moments, as we drove away, then he asked me a startling question.
He said, "Dad, do you know any racists in Highland Park?" Now he and I have had many talks for several years about racism, and I knew what he meant. He wanted to know whether or not I had heard anyone around me using racist language, but the way he put the question was quite blunt. I asked him what had happened. He said that for some time, some of his classmates were constantly either telling racist jokes or referring to blacks with racist words. I asked him what he did when he heard things like that. He said "I walked away. I knew it wasn`t right to listen to things like that." Then he said, "Dad, that wasn`t enough. I began staying and telling them not to talk like that. It wasn`t right. And I wouldn`t go away." He said because of what he did, some of his classmates no longer talked to him, and some of his friends now stayed away from him. Then his eyes filled with tears, and he said, "Dad, I know what I`m doing is right. But it`s so hard to DO."
I`m still working on Madison`s "knowing head," but he has Jefferson`s "honest heart." He has a good heart that is filled with love, and as Dr. King once said: "Standing beside justice is always love."
Graduates, you`ll find, if you have not yet discovered it, that knowing WHAT you should do is really not all that difficult. What IS difficult is having the moral courage to do it. And the time to do it is always now, because the time is always right to do what is right.
So what may we hope for? Nothing less than changing the world. If you change the way you see the world, and the way you see others, then the world DOES change.
So I charge the Class of `96:
When you see a wrong, try to right it.
When you see intolerance, try to bring about understanding.
When you see injustice, try to bring about…simple justice.
You are only moments from graduating, so I`ll close and let someone else`s words give you advice for the future. This is from the great seventeenth century mathematician and philosopher, Rene Descartes. He wrote it about himself, but I`m sure he must have been thinking of twentieth century high school graduates:
"May you always have an exceeding desire to learn to distinguish the true from the false, in order to see clearly in all your actions, and to walk with confidence in this life."
