I want to thank you for the opportunity to be here with you today. I am honored to walk with you and to share in this celebration of the birth of the man I consider to be one of the greatest American leaders of the twentieth century. In fact, he remains one of my heroes.
I grew up in the sixties, watching the events of those times – the Viet Nam war dragged on, protests against that war tore through college campuses, Harper Lee won a Pulitzer Prize for her novel "To Kill a Mockingbird," Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon, we listened to the Beatles and Marvin Gaye, and four hundred thousand people marched on Washington in support of jobs and freedom. That march on Washington took place on the 28th of August 1963.
The final speaker that day in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial, as I know you are all well aware, was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He told us that day of his dream, and here I quote: that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood. End of quote.
Yesterday, Dr. King would have been seventy-six years old. His inspiring and moving "I Have a Dream" speech was given almost 42 years ago. And sadly, Dr. King was taken from us 37 years ago. Those time spans make me feel quite old.
What makes Martin Luther King so amazing to me was his firm belief in our goodness, in my goodness. As we all know, Dr. King used non-violence to create change. He believed that by pointing out the absurdity and brutality of injustice, we could bring about change. But make no mistake, bringing about that change in this manner is only possible if people are inherently good, for it is only through our own inner beliefs in justice and humanity that we can see the illogicality and cruelty of segregation and discrimination, and resolve to make a difference. And what is even more, by believing in our innate goodness, he made it possible for us to see that goodness in ourselves where we sometimes could not see it before. What a wonderful gift for us to receive, the light by which we can read the passages of strength and courage written on our own souls.
Given the magnitude of that gift, I believe we owe a debt to Dr. King to continue seeking his dream. Where do we stand these forty-two years later in relation to his dream? Do the sons of former slaves sit at the table of brotherhood with the sons of former slave owners? I look around me and I see we have, here in small-town, rural Georgia as our mayor my friend Dewaine who is African-American. I see business owners and leaders of commerce within our town are men and women of color. Many of our educators and principals in our schools are African-Americans. I look around and see that we have indeed made strides.
But I won't be telling you anything you do not already know when I say, there is still a divide, a gap between the treatment of peoples, a disparity in the opportunities and attitudes and lives of black and white in Georgia and in the nation as a whole. We have made great strides, but we are not there. Not yet. But we can get there.
I do not believe in despair. I do believe in hope. And there is hope, and the best part about it is this hope is alive and well right here in Barnesville. We have the means of bridging this gap between peoples. We have the tools at our fingertips if we will only take advantage of them. We have an equalizer. What is it?
It is education. Education is the bridge between despair and hope, for it allows everyone, regardless of their background, to achieve on the basis of merit. And that is the best equalizer. It is the opportunity to compete for jobs on an equal basis, the chance to be judged not by the color of our skins but by what we can do, that makes us all equals. And the best thing is, with Gordon College right here just a few blocks away, this great equalizer is available to everyone in this town. But we have work to do.
Did you know that for every one hundred eighth-graders in Georgia, forty-eight will not graduate from High school? From high school! We cannot make a change in opportunities if we do not address this terrible statistic. The great American author James Baldwin once wrote: Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced. We must face this problem in our state, a problem that is just as big a problem in our community as it is anywhere else in the state of Georgia.
As an educator, I have a special obligation to try to make a difference in this area, and I promise to you that I will do that. Last year, we invited every sixth-grader in Lamar County to the college where we showed them what it was like to be at college and we ended with every last one of these children promising me that they were going to college. I vow to you that we will continue this program and we will look for other ways to help encourage these young people to value education and the opportunities it provides. And I know that our teachers and principals also support our children's education.
But the honest truth is that educators can only do so much. Until we begin to push these young people to obtain an education as a community, we will not be able to bridge this gap. Keeping our children in school, and ensuring that they go to college, will take everyone's effort. Mothers and father, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, must all be involved in making sure an education is valued.
But it goes even beyond that, beyond the family and the schools. We have to value an education as a community, across all boundaries, if we will make a difference. When I was growing up in Kentucky, I lived in a neighborhood in a small town, and every mom and dad in the neighborhood was looking after me. If I misbehaved, my father knew about it. If I performed a good deed, he also knew about it. We have moved away from that kind of interconnectedness in our times I'm afraid. But we have the great fortune of being in a small town, and as I've discovered since I've been here, everyone knows everyone else (and may well be related to everyone else). That kind of closeness gives us the chance to do what a larger town might not be able to: pull together. If we will each do our share to push our children to succeed, to expect them to succeed, then I think we have a real chance to see Dr. King's dream come even closer to reality. When we do that, we will see just how good we really are.
Thank you.