Remarks by President Chopp
Martin Luther King, Jr. Collection
January 2012

We gather in this collection to commemorate Martin Luther King Jr. the drum major for justice, the dreamer of a world in which all men and women flourish, the prophet of our deepest values.

This is an important opportunity for us to think deeply about how our lives might effectively memorialize King and the many who marched with him, who supported him, who shared his vision.

As Donna Brazille recently said, "With millions of Americans unemployed, economic inequality on the rise, aid for the needy under threat, and the hopes of a bold economic recovery dimming, Americans are again in need of Dr. King's style of uncompromising advocacy for America's disenfranchised and economically vulnerable."

We have heard this week of shadows in America, and of the plight of those whom King represented.

I want us to think for a few minutes about liberation from the shadows and about how we educate for the liberation so desperately needed now.

We have heard about men and women incarcerated and a prison population that has nearly quadrupled in the last 25 years. America has the highest incarceration rate of any developed country. Preventive measures - education, providing basic community services, preventing teen pregnancy, lowering poverty rates - are neglected while we spend $80 billion a year on prisons. It costs $35,000 per year to imprison someone, quite a bit more than it takes to educate a child.

We have seen shadows of those not allowed the full right to health care, to education, to home ownership, and protection under the law. We have seen the undocumented thrown into the shadows and the Dream Act remains unapproved.

Other shadows lurk - the shadow of children living in poverty for example. According to the United States Department of Agriculture, the number of children dealing with shortages of food starting in 2009 rose to nearly one every hour. NBC ran a story recently indicating that 49 percent of all children born in this country are born to families who receive food supplements from the federal government's Women, Infants and Children assistance program. Children in the shadows, hungry, hurting.

In the United States, the gap between the rich, awash in bright lights, and the poor hidden in the shadows has reached record new highs since the Great Depression. At $13,450, the median net worth of black households, is one-tenth that of white households.

Even education itself, the institution of light in a democratic culture, is now cast in the shadows. The Chester-Upland school system, right next door to us, may shut down mid-year as it runs out of funds. Forty percent of the professional staff and fifty percent of the support staff have been laid off and many teachers chose to work without pay to support the children. What is our country doing about protecting the future of our children and of our country itself?

We come, in the light of King's memory, on the horizon of his dream, believing in the rightness of his principles, to see these shadows in the country he loved and the world he longed to make better.

I believe, I think most of us believe, that Swarthmore prepares people to, in our phrase, mind the light . Swarthmore's mission, in one sense, is to educate and support all of us to create communities where all may live in the light. Increasingly in our culture, many say that education should function solely as a means to obtaining a job. But historically and still today at places such as Swarthmore education is also about building beloved communities, weaving new dreams and casting new visions of hope. The social contract with our country has been about preparing people to live and lead in a democratic society.

Education creates a cultural and political capacity for the country even as it serves a personal and economic need for the individual. I believe our last, best hope to prepare the leaders for community, for justice, for liberation, for hope remains with these colleges.

Liberation, both culturally and personally, is the function of education. Indeed - though it may sound a bit trite - liberation and liberal arts share a common root - liber means free in Latin. And the mission of liberal arts is to set one free from inertia, from blindness, from willful ignorance. In King's words: "education should equip us with the power to think effectively and objectively... Education should cause us to rise beyond the horizons of legions of half-truths, prejudices and propaganda. Education should enable us to "weigh and consider," to discern the true from the false, the relevant from the irrelevant and the real from the unreal." Liberal arts education is about liberation.

Freedom in King's view of liberation and for our sense of liberal arts is not simply free from, it is always and also free for: free for realization, free to live in community, free to see the best in each other and ourselves and free to work together so that humanity and the planet may flourish.

Just as we learn how to read a text carefully, how to use a social theory artfully, how to analyze a chemical formula, we also need to learn to innovate socially and culturally. King's radical critique was also deeply connected with his vision. King drew sharp connections between racism, capitalism, and militarism. But he also articulated a vision, a powerful vision, of what life could be: "From every mountaintop, let freedom ring. When we let freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, "Free at last? Free at Last? Thank God Almighty, we are free at last."

Liberation and liberal arts must create visions, imagined communities, and pull us towards a better future. I worry that we too often hone our critiques but fail to clarify and express our visions. How do we envision justice in this society? What is the meaning of freedom for those in the shadows? What is the picture of the peaceable kingdom, the Garden of Eden, that we draw now? Critique and innovation, together, reveal and enlighten the shadows.

King reminds us to sharpen our critical tools; he models for us the power of vision, but he gives us one other gift of liberation: a gift Robert Franklin calls - leadership virtues. King believed in speaking truth to power, civilly, to practice as well as preach love and nonviolence. Franklin says: He had a profound respect for all people and for their diverse cultures, beliefs, and habits. He also had the willingness to sacrifice his personal comfort to advance the common good, the persistence not to give up when things weren't going his way, and the courage to love others even when it was unpopular.

This is freedom in action, a freedom to lead with integrity, with courage, with compassion, with hope. Seeing the light, yes, even minding the light is not just intellectual, it is deeply moral. King said it this way, "Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

May your education help you to see the shadows, mind the light and envision a new beloved community. May you do so with the courage of conviction, the compassion of love, and the power of justice.