Monday, May 6, 2013

Faith and Future

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).

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