SPEECH TRANSCRIPT

Following is the complete transcript of remarks Julius L. Chambers gave as spring commencement keynote speaker May 9 at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Kenan Memorial Stadium before a crowd of 30,000. Chambers is a pioneering civil rights attorney, alumnus of UNC’s School of Law, director of UNC’s Center for Civil Rights and chancellor emeritus of North Carolina Central University. To download a photo of Chambers, click on http://www.unc.edu/news/pics/event/commencement/2004/2004_b.jpg 

President Broad, Chancellor Moeser, members of the Board of Governors, members of the Board of Trustees, administrators, faculty and staff, honored graduates of 2004, friends and long-suffering parents. This is a great day for the University of North Carolina. It is also a great day for the state. Our university, our state and nation have come a long way in improving relations with each other, and, with our graduates today, we should all be proud. I am delighted to be a part of the university and of this graduation exercise.

I especially thank the students and Chancellor Moeser for inviting me to participate in today’s ceremony. Like today’s graduates, I have come a long way. I have been impressed with the work that Chancellor Moeser has done at the university. I served as chancellor of one of the 16 campuses, and I appreciate the enormous challenges from all the constituencies. Chancellor Moeser has done a fantastic job in responding to these challenges, and I congratulate him. I also congratulate the graduating class.

Commencement forces all of us to think of those who have helped to bring us to this day: parents, spouses and friends who have contributed so much spiritually and financially and frequently just being there. We also think of the many friends we will be leaving behind.

Today, we especially remember our mothers. We know that we couldn’t have gotten into this world without them. We owe you and thank you for who you are and for all you have done for us.

Fifty years ago, I dreamed of one day attending this university. I graduated from my segregated high school in Montgomery County, North Carolina. I could only dream with Dr. Martin Luther King that one day all of God’s children – black, white, yellow, brown, red and rich and poor – would share equally in the greatness of this state and nation. We would no longer be forced to separate ourselves on the basis of race and color. It is almost overwhelming to see how far we have come toward achieving that goal. It is equally disappointing, however, to see how far we still have to go.

Today, we put aside that disappointment and we rejoice with our graduates about where we are today and about the prospects that those who are graduating today will lead us much further in the future toward a better world, free of race and economic discrimination. I am, therefore, hopeful and pleased to join in this celebration. And for a few moments I would like to reflect on our past, how we got to this point in our history and on where we must go in the future in order to ensure a better world for ourselves and for our children.

As I look across this audience and particularly at our graduates, I am struck by the diversity we represent. I also note that several in the audience are celebrating their 50^th anniversary as graduates of this university. They, too, must appreciate the diversity, the changes that have taken place and the potential we have for utilizing these developments to build a better world.

Many of you are perhaps too young to remember the long struggle here and across this state to eliminate segregation. I can’t forget the experience because I was frequently, personally affected. I could not enroll in the university’s undergraduate program because of race. And I will never forget the experience of going to Atlanta with the president of the UNC Student Government Association and having to take racially separate taxicabs from the airport to a meeting at the Atlanta complex. These experiences remain indelibly marked in my memory but so do the changes that have taken place.

Many of the changes we note today resulted from the major civil rights campaign of the 1960s and 1970s. Because of these efforts, we have seen new and exciting opportunities in the social, political, and economic arenas, and in education. The landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision of 1954 and efforts to implement that decision have caused us to rewrite much of American history. We are now on the eve of the 50^th anniversary of that celebrated decision.

Looking back at that period, with the push for civil rights and for improved opportunities for minorities, one can appropriately ask, "How did we complete the task? How are we going to get further along?" I think those are appropriate questions, and I think we ought to reflect on them for a few moments.

Imagine with me, if you will, that this is the year 1954 – the year I graduated from high school with the highest of hopes and the biggest of dreams. In 1954, whites and blacks were legally and socially segregated everywhere in the American South. My hometown of Mt. Gilead, North Carolina, was no exception, and we might ask, we might consider the implications of what life was like as a typical white person or a typical black person.

If you were white, you probably would not have thought much about your segregated society. "That is the way it is," you might have thought. You used "White Only" water fountains and restrooms; you could sit where you wanted on the city buses; you could travel across the country and use all public accommodations, such as hotels and transportation; you could attend movies and sit in the first-floor seating; you could check out books from the public libraries; your parents could work in the local mills and the local lumber company, and could make at least a competitive salary. And frequently, they would hold management positions. Most of you would attend public schools that had some of the state’s best teachers, newest and best textbooks, and the widest array of course offerings; and you had the opportunity to get an education at any college or university for which you were qualified and could pay the tuition. Your parents probably had graduated from high school and often from college. Your parents could vote in all of the elections; they were savvy in the ways of the world that privilege brings and they endowed you with that same privilege. Neither you nor your parents probably gave a thought to the fact of the privilege you enjoyed, but most worked to make sure that they remained segregated.

If you were black, living in Mt. Gilead, your parents would not be hired in any position at the local mill, and if they were fortunate enough to land a job at the local lumber company, they could rise no higher than the lowest-paying and most menial jobs there. Perhaps your parents were enterprising and courageous and talented enough to own a business, as my parents did, but even so, they knew that there were barriers to their opportunities for doing more. You could not travel far from home unless you had family and friends along the way because you could not be accommodated in public accommodations; you could not count on being able to buy gas; and if you used public transportation you would be segregated in an undesirable space and could be put off the bus along the way as I was in traveling from Durham, from North Carolina Central, to my hometown in Mt. Gilead. You probably went to the county’s own black public schools; your textbooks had been used and you could tell the number of people who had used your textbooks; your course offerings were limited. If you had a dream, as I did, of attending the university in 1954, you were turned down solely because of your race.

I grew up in this segregated environment, and I had dreamed about doing things that I knew I couldn’t do, and then the Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education, holding that this state and other states could no longer enforce racially segregated schools. This ruling went against the grain of all the things we knew and had learned, and the changes that took place were pervasive. But the process, the cost in those changes were matters that we hadn’t really thought about very much.

I could sympathize … with black families when we talked about integrating schools, when we talked about black families coming to the University of North Carolina. Black families were exposed to horrors and financial bankruptcy. But the only way we were going to change those practices was through the risk of stepping forward.

White families, however, were also at risk. Many white families of goodwill – and there were such families, including the nine members of the U.S. Supreme Court who decided Brown – had to take similar chances in order to do what was necessary to protect the rights of minorities.

My father stepped forward during this period. He had begun trying to register to vote before the Brown decision. In fact, he ran for one of the seats on the Montgomery County Commission. He never won an election but his running was an incentive for other blacks to run. And recently, we elected our first black to the Montgomery County Commission.

Several whites also stepped forward during this same period and insisted that black families be treated fairly. I remember particularly President Frank Porter Graham, President William Friday, Governor Terry Sanford and close to me, Dean Henry Brandis of the UNC Law School. Along with many others, they stepped forward and demanded fairness and equal treatment and they took the heat in return. We all knew the price, however, for insisting that all people be treated fairly, particularly people who were hated, considered for selfish reasons to be inferior, or treated unfairly for no reason other than race or color or their economic condition in life. We face these same problems today. Our intolerance and lack of respect for those who differ continue to affect us all.

We see the results of our practices in education – our schools, including our colleges and universities, are still largely segregated; we are still failing to ensure that all children receive a quality education.

We still fail to ensure equal employment opportunities for all citizens. Many of our citizens are still without equal housing.

Our criminal justice system, which our Supreme Court Justices concede reflects the moral values and standards of fairness and decency of the nation, is continuously sustained only because we believe it would be too expensive to eliminate these unjust practices. We, therefore, continue our capital punishment practices and other criminal justice practices which are characterized by racial discrimination.

When we look back 40 or 50 years from today, as we made a major push to improve opportunities for minorities, we had dreams that we could eliminate the remaining barriers that limit all of us. We appreciate, however, how ingrained our racial practices are and how deeply they have affected all of us.

Even Thurgood Marshall and Bob Carter who litigated the Brown v. Board of Education case were not certain how well white and black parents and children would respond to Brown. They were not certain how long it would take for parents and children to adjust. And that concern has continued today.

In trying to implement Brown in the public schools, I had the opportunity to travel across North Carolina, from Manteo to Murphy, to talk with black and white parents and children. I learned a lot about their feelings and aspirations. What was intriguing to me were the similarities in their hopes and dreams, excluding their experiences.

While serving as chancellor of North Carolina Central University, I talked with college and university presidents and chancellors. We, too, had dreams for our institutions, for our students, for ourselves. What is challenging is moving from the segregated society we have known to the colorblind society we have all talked about.

Even though individuals can do much to address our problems, correcting the problems will require the involvement and support of all of us, black and white. The U.S. Supreme Court is, therefore, correct, in the Michigan affirmative action cases in recognizing the importance of diversity as a compelling state interest.

The Court must now go further and recognize diversity as a constitutional mandate. Nothing short of this standard will permit us to achieve a truly integrated society.

Let me close by raising with you some challenges that I think we all must address. One is a dilemma that we adults have not answered.

What is a colorblind society? How do we know when we have achieved it? Is it something we want or do we just like to talk about it because it makes us feel or look good? What did the Supreme Court mean in its affirmative action cases with references to racial diversity? Can we have a colorblind society and a racially diverse university?

While I pose those questions, I do not mean to give you answers. I did not give the Supreme Court an answer, nor did my colleagues or opponents.

In arguing a Voting Rights case before the Supreme Court out of North Carolina, I suggested that we must continue to consider race until our citizens get to the point of voting without regard to race. Will that happen in 25 years, as Justice O’Connor suggested, or never?

We have made the same arguments in education, in housing and in employment. When will our Board of Governors, our Board of Trustees get to the point of being able to pick a university president or chancellor without consideration of race? Can or should a black parent or child adopt, or even advocate, a colorblind remedy unless he or she can be assured that race will not be a factor in decisions affecting him or her?

More recently we have had these same discussions with presidents and chancellors of historically black colleges and universities – how will the affirmative action decisions and the Mississippi higher education decision affect the future of historically black colleges and universities, and the future of white colleges and universities?

Unfortunately, we do not have an answer to the question. It is a challenge I leave with you and hope that you will provide a more substantive answer than we have been able to provide to date. While trying to reach a consensus, let me tell you what has governed me over the years.

I sincerely believe in a colorblind society. Like Dr. King, I believe that we must treat all people with the same respect and accord them equal treatment and opportunities. I believe we must move beyond historically black and historically white institutions to racially inclusive institutions. I believe that even the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill must be colorblind.

There is another challenge I leave with you and that involves the sordid state we have reached in this country today that affects not only race issues but basically our total lives. This condition was captured recently by Russell Baker in "In Bush’s Washington" in The New York Review of Books. He wrote:

In Washington an age of moral and philosophical sterility is deeply entrenched, and … the result is not pretty. The declines dates from the end of the cold war, which suddenly and shockingly left Washington without any purpose that could be called visionary or even faintly noble.

You are entering the job market and beginning your careers, at a time when we face enormous challenges. You have some exciting opportunities ahead. I look back at my graduation when race discrimination and segregation were the primary issues. I compare that period to now when the challenges and opportunities are far greater. You can have a significant impact for the good of our people and for the good of the country.

You don’t need to be a millionaire or a corporate executive in order to have an impact. You now have the skills and the ability to have an enormous effect on our society and world. You are graduating from an institution that not only has trained you well but has also shown you the value of a moral commitment to ensure fairness and equality for all people.

Paul Green, in a conversation with students, raised the question: "What do you want? What do you consider important?" And I leave, posing that question with you. I also leave with you the comments out of a book "The Agony and the Ecstasy," the teacher Michelangelo talking about how hard sculpture was, how brutal your work will be and how expensive your dedication will be. It will, he said, cost you your life.

You face those same questions, and you will give the same answer. I hope that your answer will be one not of greed or selfishness or one where you will decide to do nothing but one where you will decide to make a major contribution to society and to the world like the graduates of the University of North Carolina who have preceded you.

Best wishes for a great future.

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