Speeches - Etheridge's Commencement Address at Shaw University

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Remarks of
The Honorable Bob Etheridge
Shaw University Commencement
May 11, 2003

Dr. Newsome.

Members of the faculty.

Graduates.

Friends.

It is an honor for me to be here with you this morning. I appreciate your invitation for a number of reasons.

First off, Shaw University is in my district. And that makes it important.

Second, Shaw University has a distinguished record of service to Raleigh,
Wake County, and North Carolina. Its history is something of which we all should be proud.

Third, I like to be around young people who are achievers, and graduation from a university is one of the signal achievements in our society.

We don't have any oil wells out back. We don't have great deposits of iron and copper. There aren't any redwoods we can harvest. We must depend on our people, and we have plenty of those.

And fourth, and most importantly, Dr. Newsome asked me to do this address.

I have learned that it is a good thing to do what Dr. Newsome asks.

I did a little study about Dr. Newsome. I learned that he lettered at Duke University in football. That he graduated in three and a half years. That he was twice named to the ACC All Academic Team. That he graduated magna cum laude from one of the highest ranking schools in the country. That upon his graduation, he shared the stage at graduation with Walter Cronkite.

I figured Dr. Newsome was a lot bigger and stronger than I am and a heck of a lot smarter. So I better do what he asks.

Seriously, I commend you on your new president. He is one of the young men who have already made a difference in America. I predict we shall hear a lot more of this individual in the future. I expect to ask him for direction as I fulfill my Congressional duties.

This is a significant morning for all of you graduates. And for your parents and loved ones. No matter how "cool" it may be to discount the importance of university graduation; it remains one of the most important passages we humans ever experience. It opens doors that are closed to others.

So you graduates have my congratulations. You have made it. You have opened opportunities that can lead to a better future for you and your children and other loved ones.

My mother always told me that if I would just get an education I have something no one could ever take away from me. She was right.

I want also to congratulate your parents and those who worked hard, prayed hard, and made it possible for you to spend the last four or five years acquiring knowledge and having a lot of fun in the process. Knowledge that has resulted in Shaw University determining that you have met the standards imposed by the University for the awarding of the degree you will receive today.

Faye and I have three children. I'm not sure any of those children was half as proud of their graduation from college as Faye and I were. So know today that your parents are sitting here with their hearts pounding away with pride and love for you.

Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and one of the world's richest men, had this to say about parents when he spoke to a graduating class, and I want to repeat it for you graduates.

"Before you were born, your parents weren't nearly as boring as they are now. They got that way from working, paying bills, cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are."

So, this is your parents day also.

I am reminded of the story that was told about Michael Jordan's father who was in the arena when Jordan and the Chicago Bulls won their first NBA championship. The game was hard fought and MJ scored point after point, dunk after dunk to win the game. He would not allow the team to lose. There would be many more Chicago Bulls championships later, but this was the first, and that made it all the more important.

Afterwards, MJ's father was dazed and elated. The report is he ran around the huge arena hugging and shaking hands with absolute strangers and repeating these words over and over.

"Did you see what he did? And I raised him."

This morning, the parents of you graduates can be forgiven if they are thinking.

"Did you see what she did? And I raised her.

"Did you see what he did? And I raised him.

So, I want you to stand up right now and thank your parents. Stand up. You know where they are sitting. Thank Them!! Let's hear it for the parents!

While you are due praise for your graduation, I am not so sure about the timing of your birth. You may have done better to delay it for a year or two.

As many of you may already have discovered, the United States has some economic problems. Jobs are scarce. They are harder to find. The jobs available may pay less than they did a few years ago. They may offer less in the form of fringe benefits.

The News and Observer had a fine series of articles on the local economy last Sunday. I was impressed with the spirit of some of the individuals they interviewed who had lost their jobs. Some of those interviewed had been out of work for more than a year.

Three things came through loud and clear to me as I read the series. If you do not have a job yet, be patient. Companies now have so many applicants that they can afford to take their time to find exactly the right fit.

Second, be flexible. Companies are not giving many $5,000 signing bonuses any more.

Third. Be persistent. There is a place for you in this vast American economy, and I am confident you will find it.

When I use the word "persistence," I am reminded of the story of Thomas Edison. He and his assistant had tried 2,000 different materials in search of a filament for the light bulb. None of the 2,000 worked. The assistant, depressed by all the work, complained:

"All our work is in vain. We have learned nothing."

"Oh, no," said Edison. "We have come a long way and we have learned a lot. We now know that there are 2,000 elements we cannot use to make a good light bulb."

So when some of your job searches prove fruitless, don't give up.

Congress is aware of the economic situation the United States is facing and is moving to do what it can to prime the economic pump and get the country moving again. I'm working to put our people back to work and get the economy moving again.

I want to talk directly now to you students for just a few moments about the school from which you are graduating and about the heritage to which you are entitled. I also want to say a heartfelt "Thank You" to this institution and its role in the civil rights revolution of the 1960's.

When four students from North Carolina A&T University sat down at a Woolworth Drugstore lunch counter in Greensboro on February l, 1960, and demanded service, that action sent shock waves rippling through North Carolina and the nation. It is impossible to describe the depth of emotions that action had on this state. The emotion spread like a runaway flame.

Shaw University students caught that fire. Its students became the spear point of the civil rights struggle here in Raleigh and Wake County. It was in the halls of this University that plans were made for the sit-ins and marches that awakened people of conscience to the overt discrimination that was so much a part of life in Raleigh, North Carolina, in the spring of 1960. It was a time, in the words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., when "the cup of endurance ran over and men no longer were willing to plunge into the abyss of despair."

Shaw University students sat in at lunch counters of what is now Fayetteville Street Mall. They marched up Fayetteville Street to petition Governor Terry Sanford, then in his second month of office. They were imprisoned; they made bail; and then they marched some more. They were, again in Dr. King's words, "courageously and nonviolently …going to jail for conscience's sake."

Shaw University students helped all of us see the future through Dr. King's eyes. They helped educate us about indifference. They helped bring about modern North Carolina. A North Carolina that is no longer behind the rest of the nation "socially, educationally and economically."

Look across our state today and contrast it with 1960. Even in this time of recession, North Carolina has grown up to be a place people want to come to-not run away from.

That is part of your heritage as you leave this institution. Shaw University was founded in 1865. It is no surprise that it was a leader in the civil rights struggle in North Carolina. It is no surprise that it has become the "Mother of African-American colleges in the South."

North Carolina Central, Fayetteville State, and Elizabeth City State were founded by Shaw graduates. The founder of Livingston College spent his first two years at Shaw.

Because of those 1960 students at Shaw University, the whole apartheid social structure of Raleigh came tumbling down like a house of cards. Your school was part of a gigantic social revolution that all of us enjoy today. The Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee was an outgrowth of a conference held here in 1960

It is a proud heritage you enjoy.

I suspect that is why Shaw, as one of its missions, urges its students, and I am quoting, "to ask questions about the social ills of the day and seek answers to those questions."

Let me encourage you to make that part of your mission in life. You will have a vocation, a career in which you earn your living.

Make asking questions about the "social ills" of today your passionate avocation. For, certainly, there are questions that ought to be asked and answers sought on the social ills of this day, here in the spring of 2003.

While the ugly shame of apartheid has been banished in America, many of its scars remain. They remain in our inner cities where we waste the lives of children who are denied the kind of education they must have to prepare them for life in modern America. Ask questions and help solve that dilemma.

I hope you will also ask questions of the largest corporations in America about their moral and ethical standards. How can they feel it is all right to pay their top executives millions of dollars a year while those same executives are squandering the resources of the company and the retirement savings of lower level employees?

If you ask those questions and get the right answers, maybe we won't have any more Enrons or World Coms.

Some of you will work in the health care system.

I hope you will help us determine why the richest country in the world can't develop an excellent health care system for all its people. There is something badly wrong when some older citizens must choose between buying food or the drugs they need. Right here in Wake County, we have older citizens having to make that choice monthly.

Surely a country that can pay its sports stars and CEO's millions of dollars a year in salary ought to be able to afford health insurance for its children. Surely such a country ought to be able to provide dental care for children who need it.

Some of you are accounting majors or economic majors. Help us figure out how to share the tax load so that everyone pays his or her fair share. The cards should not always be stacked so that those who have more money get more and more and more.

Some of you are English or journalism students. I hope you will write books explaining to us why the federal government can build roads and hospitals and prisons but not schools.

Incidentally, the President plans to build schools in Iraq, as we probably should. But why not build some school buildings in the United States? Help me find the answer to that question.

Some years ago when I was State Superintendent of Public Instruction, I suggested that we give some of our dilapidated schools and trailers to the Prison Department and we would take some of the money for new prisons for school houses.

"Oh, No," they yelled. "It would be against the law to put prisoners in such conditions."

Your Shaw mission is a life-long quest.

How do we save the environment?

How do we assure decent housing for all citizens?

How do we reach the sense of brotherhood for all people?

What is the responsibility of rich nations to the poor in other nations?

How do we live up to the noble words from our Constitution, "All men are created equal?'

You are college graduates. You are the thinkers of our society.

To you will fall the responsibility for finding answers to these and other questions.

I commend you for what you have achieved this Saturday morning of May 10, 2003.

I congratulate you once again.

I will be watching and hoping as you find the answers.