Draft of Remarks to be delivered at Fisk University Commencement
May 6, 2013
By Jeh Charles Johnson[1]
Thank you for this invitation and the
honor you bestow on me today, on behalf of myself and the other members of the Johnson
family here today.
My grandfather was president of Fisk from
1947 to 1956. Charles S. Johnson was a
forward-thinking man. Two generations
before it had become popular for African Americans to do so, he bestowed upon
his son, my father, the African name Jeh -- J E H – in honor of his African
heritage. After accepting the administrative duties of president of this
university, Dr. Johnson did not leave the field of sociology. In October 1956, as the civil rights movement
in this country was in its infancy, Dr. Johnson wrote an essay published in the
New York Times Magazine entitled “A Southern Negro’s View of the South,” for which
he received many letters of congratulations and praise. One was from the 27-year old pastor of a small
church in downtown Montgomery, Alabama:
“Dear Dr.
Johnson:
This is just a
note to say that I have just read your article which recently appeared in the
New York Times. It is the best statement
that I have read in this whole area. You
evince a profound grasp of the whole subject.
I am sure that the more this article is read it will bring about a
greater understanding of the Negro’s point of view as he struggles for first
class citizenship. You combine in this article the fact finding mind of the
social scientist with the moral insights of a religious prophet.”
Sincerely
yours,
M.L. King,
Jr.”
My grandfather did not live to see the
great civil rights revolution the 27-year-old pastor was about to lead. He died two weeks after receiving this letter,
in Louisville, Kentucky, on his way to a board of trustees meeting in New York
City --a man with honorary degrees from Harvard and Columbia died a second class
citizen in this country, in fact and in law.
A few yards from here sits my
grandfather’s greatest legacy, the art collection he assembled for the benefit
of this University, which, I’m told, is today the most valuable college art
collection in the southeast.
A few more yards in that direction is
the small brick house on 18th Avenue that the Board of Trustees
built for my grandmother after Dr. Johnson’s untimely death, the backyard in
which I played as a small boy 50 years ago.
For a Johnson, any visit to the Fisk
campus is a trip down memory lane.
But we are not here today to dwell on my
past; we are here to celebrate your future.
But, out of my heritage can be found lessons about your future. Today I want to talk you 55 graduating
seniors about faith and future.
Dr. Johnson’s last surviving child is
here today -- Jeh Vincent Johnson. He
was born in this city 82 years ago, and he grew up on this campus. He was your age 60 years ago. And, 60 years
from now, when you are 82, like Jeh Vincent Johnson you will have seen and
achieved things in your life that are beyond
your present comprehension.
To know this is true about the next 60 years, think about all that has
happened in the last 60 years.
Sixty years ago, there was no Supreme
Court decision called Brown v. Board of Education; it hadn’t been
decided yet. Separate schools and separate water fountains were still
considered equal.
Sixty years ago, if my father wanted
to tell his parents “I found a job!” after graduating college, he would write a
letter and get a congratulatory response from them in the U.S. mail, in an
exchange that took one to two weeks.
Fifty years ago, when I played in my
grandmother’s backyard, interracial marriage was still illegal in some states
in this country, there was no Civil Rights Act of 1964, no Voting Rights Act of
1965, and no Fair Housing Act of 1968.
That summer the Negro citizens of Birmingham who marched for integrated access
to public accommodations were met by repression, tear gas, attack dogs, fire
hoses and jail, care of their own city government. No man had landed on the
moon, or even left the Earth’s orbit.
Forty years ago, Jeh Vincent’s son was
a C and D student in high school. On a
regular basis, I received numeric grades in the 50s and 60s. A grade in the 70s was a gift. I did not successfully complete math beyond
the 10th grade: I flunked 9th grade math, took 9th
grade math again in 10th grade, took 10th grade math in
11th grade, took 11th grade math in 12th grade
and flunked. My father and my mother were
told by my high school guidance counselor: you should not think about four-year college for your son.
Today, forty years later, Jeh Vincent
Johnson has seen his son -- who never completed a math course beyond the 10th
grade – become a partner in one of the preeminent law firms in this country,
and appointed by the President to a position of great sensitivity in national
security. He has read lectures on war
and peace delivered by his son, who was not supposed to go to four-year
college, delivered at Oxford, Stanford, Harvard and Yale.
Today Jeh Vincent Johnson’s daughter
-- my sister – lives in what used to be an all-white neighborhood of
Birmingham, and her husband anchors the top-rated newscast in the city, which
is under the leadership of its fourth black mayor. They
have a close friend who is the grandchild of a Klansman.
Today, our President is another black
man with an African first name, and the product of an interracial marriage.
Today, if Jeh Vincent Johnson wants to
write his grandkids and ask “did you get a job yet?” he pulls out his iPhone
and sends a text message, and can count on the response – “I’m still working on
it” -- in about one to two minutes, not
one to two weeks.
And, today Jeh Vincent Johnson is
present to see his son finally get a
degree from the four-year college he has always wanted me to attend.
The United States military is filled
with even more remarkable stories that defy the imagination:
Twenty-one months ago Navy Lieutenant
Brad Snyder was a member of an ordinance disposal unit in Afghanistan. An IED he was attempting to defuse exploded in
his face, severely injured him and blinded him for the rest of his life. Lieutenant Snyder recovered from his
injuries, made the best of his reduced physical abilities, and one year later
won several gold medals at the 2012 Paralympics.
For about a year while I was General
Counsel of the Defense Department I regularly received intelligence briefings
from a 38-year-old Army major. Before
that, this major had been on 16 deployments, and in six separate incidents (i)
broke his back and neck when his parachute failed to open, (ii) lost part of
his leg from an RPG, (iii) was shot in the back, and (iv) has been the victim
of three separate IED attacks in Afghanistan.
Today that same soldier competes in triathlons and runs in 50-mile
races.
I
heard recently that somewhere on this planet is a man or women alive today who
will live for 200 years.
The God-given
capacity of the human mind, body, and spirit to achieve great things is
astounding. Progress is amazing. And it represents your future.
Those of you who
sit here today have already demonstrated the character and ability to persevere
and to complete the mission. You have
survived attrition, kept your eyes on the prize, met your academic and
financial obligations to this University, and have crossed today’s finish
line. Now, carry on.
Carry on, but don’t forget to look in
the rear-view mirror once in a while. Today
you leave this school, but do not leave
it behind. Fisk needs its alumni to
continue. It has supported you, and you
must support it. You are indebted to it,
like the parent who raised you. For the
rest of your life, Fisk is part of who you are.
This brings me
to my last point. Perhaps the best
example of perseverance through adversity, survival against all the odds, is this
very University. For decades, and on
occasions too numerous for me to count, Fisk University has been counted out.
My senior year in high school, 38 years ago, there were rumors that the school
would not open that fall. Yet, Fisk refuses to give up; she refuses to
bow down. Year after year, she marches on, armed with a proud heritage in her
veins, her head high and her back erect.
As an honorary
degree recipient, I am proud to call myself, like you, a member of the Fisk
class of 2013. And to set the example
which I hope others will follow, Mr. President, I will be the first alumnus
from the class of 2013 to offer my support to the continued future of this
great institution.
Fisk Forever. Congratulations
classmates!
[1]Partner with the law firm of Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, LLP; General Counsel of the Department of Defense (2009-2012); General Counsel of the Department of the Air Force (1998-2001); Assistant United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York (1989-1991); B.A., Morehouse College (1979); J.D. Columbia Law School (1982).
