115th Annual Howard University Charter Day Convocation

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. . . . us, so we need a sense of daring set once again in a climate of devotion to keep us with that steady beat so that we can march on to victory's won. Rekindle the flame of our forebears in us that we may shine bright among those dimming lights and those who seem to be tiring in their quest for freedom. We knew us with the combination of courage and compassion so that we may speak truth to power and speak that truth in love. And in all that we do, help us to let our light so shine that all men and women may see our good works and give you the glory. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Where can I can read my title clear to mansion? Where can I can read my title clear to mansions in the skies? I'll get there well to every beer and wipe my weeping eyes.

Sure, I'll get my soul engaged and hell is not be heard. Then I can smile at Satan's rage and face a frowning world. Where can I can read my title clear to mansions in the skies? Where can I can read my title clear to mansions in the skies? Where can I can read my weeping eyes?

Where can I can read my title clear to mansions in the skies? Where can I can read my title clear to mansions in the skies? Where can I can read my weeping eyes? Where can I get my soul engaged and hell is not be heard?

Where can I can read my weeping eyes? Where can I get my soul engaged and hell is not be heard? Where can I get my soul engaged and hell is not be heard? Where can I get my soul engaged and hell is not be heard?

Each year since 1943, Howard University has honored selected alumni and presented to them distinguished achievement awards at the Charter. At the dinner last evening, we continued that tradition and I have a pleasure now to introduce to you the 1982 recipients who race us with their presence here this morning. For Distinguished Service in the Fields of Dentistry and Public Service, Arnet Artis Anderson.

For Distinguished Service in the Fields of Medicine and Medical Education, Lemuel Julian Haywood. For Distinguished Service in the Fields of Law and Public Service, Gabriel Kirk McDonald. For Distinguished Service in the Fields of Business and International Service, Frank Savage. Also, the Board of Trustees has authorized presentation of special citations to individuals who have made substantial financial contributions to the university.

Last evening, the citations in the form of illuminated scrolls were presented to Dr. Marguerite Williams Foster and Dr. D. Witt T. Walton. I ask you to join with me in expressing to them our grateful applause for their generosity. Mr. President, I have a distinct pleasure and honored privilege to present to you the distinguished actress and humanitarian, Ruby Dee, to receive the degree Doctor of Humanities. Thank you very much.

Ruby Ann Wallace, or to use the name by which the world knows you, Ruby Dee. Your many dramatic roles, many of them pioneering, and your writings have made a unique and refreshing contribution to the world of the theater. The stage, screen, radio and television, and you have brought to that world not only a superb talent, but in addition a graciousness and a dignity that have given you a special place in American hearts. The interest and outstanding gifts have not fortunately for us been exclusively devoted to your profession.

You have found the time to work tirelessly and unselfishly during the past several decades for practically every worthwhile civil rights and liberation movement in our nation. Your great social compassion coupled with your charm and brilliance as a performer has made you one of the most highly respected figures on the American stage. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, you grew up in Holland under the watchful eyes of admirable parents who saw to it that their children had a decent, a disciplined, and cultural upbringing. During your student years at Hunter College, you were also an apprentice with the famous American Negro Theater, which then functioned from the basement of Harlem's Legendary 135th Street branch of the New York Public Library.

In 1943, you made your Broadway debut in a walk on part of a short live play called South Pacific, not the musical. However, in 1946, you appeared again on Broadway, not in a walk on part this time, but in the role of Libby George in Robert Audrey's drama, Jeff, a play in which Acidavis began his theatrical career. During the same year, you played the title role in the long running all Negro broadcast production of Anna Lucosta.

Although you had appeared in several Negro films earlier, the motion picture which brought you to the attention of film producers was the Jackie Robinson story in which you played the wife of Jackie. It followed an impressive number of other motion picture successes. You have made appearances on radio, perhaps the best known was the Acidavis and Ruby D study hour, which starting in 1974, ran for three years, and was heard over 65 stations across the country on the national black radio network. Your television debut was made in 1960 when you appeared in Actus Choice on Camera 3. Over the years, you have been a guest artist on several television series.

You received an immunomination for your performance in one episode of the East Side West Side series. And you were the first black actress to perform on the highly popular serial Peyton Place. In February of last year, you and your husband launched a new diversified and fascinating series with Asi and Ruby celebrating the arts of life, which is currently being carried on public broadcasting. Whenever there was a cause to be defended or a battle to be fought in the interest of civil rights or black liberation, whether with modern Luther King or Malcolm X, whether the national association for the advancement of colored people or the student nonviolent coordinating committee, you and Asi were there. You have also toured numerous college campuses, dramatizing black literature, and in 1970, the New York Urban League gave you its Frederick Douglass Award for bringing a sense of pride to countless millions.

Throughout your highly successful career, you never became a primordana. In short, you never left the people. And that is why all of us love you. Ruby, because of your positive position as one of the nation's theatrical greats, because of the superlative artistry you bring to that position, because of the important part you have played in elevating the tone of black portrayal on the American stage. And because of your unswerving and deep rooted dedication to the cause of human rights, Howard University takes enormous pride and pleasure in honoring you.

Therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Board of Trustees of Howard University, I do now confer upon you the degree Doctor of Humanities honoris causa and admit you to all the rights and privileges pertaining thereto. I direct that you be invested with the hood appropriate to this high degree, and I present you with this diploma. Thank you. Madam Chairman, members of the Board of Trustees, my fellow administrative and faculty colleagues, my fellow students, alumni of Howard, and friends of this university.

It is my pleasure to present to you for the address for this convocation, Dr. Ruby D. Oh, my, my, my. This is such a day.

Yes, and good morning, good morning to, to Dr. James E. Cheap, president, to Dr. Geraldine Pittman Woods, chairman of the board, to the faculty, the staff, the alumni. And most of all, to the student body of this great university, to my family, my friends, my dear husband, and to the distinguished ladies and gentlemen gathered here today, and to the founders in memoriam and their descendant generations upon whose shoulders we now stand. First, my congratulations to all past and present, present, alumni awardees, especially to the writers, Zora Neohurston, and Tony Morrison.

And then my deepest thanks, thanks to the Howard University Committee for conferring upon me this degree, which I shall ever cherish. And for the honor of being chosen, your first woman, orator of the day. Gwendolyn Brooks, Pulitzer Prize poet, has written a poem, Intribute to Paul Robeson, and I think the last three lines might serve as a theme for what I would like to express here. And they go, we are each others harvest, we are each others business, we are each others magnitude and bond.

I didn't go to a college like Howard, and everything happens as it should, I think, some of the time. And I remember, but fortunately I remember taking piano lessons and violin lessons, and I remember learning to write poetry because when company came to our house, before we could be excused to go on about our business, my two sisters and my brother, we had to either play the violin or the piano or recite a poem. You know, this was pre-radio, pre-television, sounds like pre-time, anyhow. So even when radio came on, we didn't have a radio in our house, that's how very dedicated my mother was to this business of development and learning and writing.

And it was due to her very special efforts that I developed in a particular direction. She was determined to see us through four children that she had adopted through marriage, which made me know that giving birth is one thing and being apparent is another. At any rate. Then I majored in languages where I was going to be an interpreter, you know, and I studied French and Spanish and German, and of course English literature. And I glored in the word and the thought and the idea and the poets, but there was something missing. There was a kind of hole in my life, and was after I got out of Hunter College that my education really began, because then I discovered the world of black American literature. And it was those writers who enhanced what I had learned previously, who put me in context and showed me ways and gave me direction and told me who I was and comforted me.

And so I appreciated them. And I don't see how one can be black in America and not know the literature. Our writers are so too neglected, I think. At any rate, one of the poets I learned about in that I learned to love in college was Walter Benton. I think all the girls loved him because he wrote a book called This Is My Beloved. And I'm going to take a liberty here, a couple of liberties. I'm going to change, go from the subjective to the collective in terms of the love poetry because there's something I want to share with you because hate is legislated. And then into the primer and testament, shot into our blood and brains like vaccine or vitamins.

We need love more than ever now. We need each other's love. We need love more than hope or money, wisdom or a drink. So slow negative death withers the world. And only yes, yes, yes, can turn the tide. And of course, in school, I got my glimpse of the black poets, Paul Lawrence Dunbar. And but my mother's favorite was as poem by Langston called Mother to Son. I like to share it with you. I say this to my son, all my sons. Well, son, I tell you, a life for me ain't been no crystal star.

It's had tax in it and splinters and boards torn up in places with no carpet on the floor bare. But all the time, I've been a climbing on and reaching landers and turning corners. And sometimes going in the dark wasn't even no light. So boy, don't you turn back. Don't you sit out on the steps because you find it kind of hard. Don't you fall now. But I still climb in honey. I still go in and life for me ain't been no crystal star. Another one of my very favorite authors is Tony Morrison. And when I think of how much we owe to our mothers and our fathers. And I enter the land too, from which we came.

And this isn't I'd like to share with you an excerpt because we find readings everywhere, including the paper on the bathroom for, you know. And especially in the dentist's office. And this is from her book Song of Solomon. He had come out of nowhere as ignorant as a hammer and broke as a convict with nothing but free papers, a Bible, and a pretty black head wife. And in one year, he'd leased 10 acres the next 10 more. 16 years later, he had one of the best farms in Montour County, a farm that colored their lives like a paintbrush and spoke to them like a sermon. You see the farm said to them, see what you can do. Never mind you can't tell one letter from another. Never mind you born a slave. Never mind you lose your name.

Never mind nothing here. This here is what a man can do if he puts his mind to it and is back in it. Stop sniveling, it said. Stop picking around the edges of the world. We live here on this planet, in this nation, in this county, right here, nowhere else. We got a home in this rock, don't you see? Nobody's starving in my home. And if I got a home, you got one too. Grab it, grab this land, take it, hold it my brothers, make it my brothers, shake it, squeeze it, turn it, twist it, beat it, kick it, kiss it, whip it, stomp it, dig it, plow it, seed it, reap it, rent it, buy it, sell it, own it, build it, multiply it, and pass it on. Can you hear me? Pass it on. But they shut the top of his head off and ate his fine Georgia peaches. And even as boys, these men began to die and are dying still.

Another one of the women I love, the poets, and I love a lot of the men too, is Carolyn M. Rogers, but the kind of, one of the poets that I wish I needed in college, you know, I needed that kind of sharing and insight. And Carolyn M. Rogers, this is from her book, how I got over, and she writes it, this particular piece, and calls it for our fathers. The wind blew my father from the south to the north. He came with a heart as deep and as wide as a tunnel. He came with a dream and a hope for a beautiful, harmonious future.

A dream, daddy was a prayer, a jitterbug, him, a colored cornbread, sweet potato, green country's song. The wind sifted him like wheat from chaff, like corn from husks, and the wind that blew him here blew him down, blew him around while the flashing lights glazed his eyes and re-channeled his heart in a new direction. He became a new dimension. He learned how to lock and close doors and bar windows. He bought dogs, not for love, but for protection. He learned to carry guns, not for harmless hunting, but for restraining men. He learned how to be cool, not country, to be stiff and serious and silent, laughter was reserved for home and home bodies, home folk. He was a tree with cautious and displaced roots, walking the streets with feet that hurt, that tapped the rhythm of concrete, and not the loving crush of green grass.

The history, the root, the strength of my father is the strength we now rest on. Like rocks, our fathers and their brothers came and sweated in factories, prowled the streets for day labor. Their card playing and drinking was their bomb in an evil gillian. Their God was their strength, their pride, their purpose, their faith. And no one had to tell them they were black, they graced their mirrors every morning and did what they could to retain some love, some dignity, some honor, while they lost their sons to wild city streets and wars. Their women to white men's kitchens and corners. They gave to us a portion of their grace. They gave to us a legacy of hope.

They pushed us out, us kicking and screaming through repacious schools, hoping that somehow an education for us would write the wrongs for them. And we grew loud and bold and stupidly brave and taught ourselves to call them weak and useless as the Holocaust of the 60s began. We blamed them for surviving, for living as best they could. We blamed them for what history did not allow them or even us to do. Never remembering that the love we had for ourselves was the love they gave us. When I was a child, my father was the fixeth man. Everything that went wrong in our house, my father could fix. I thought my father could fix everything. I had a puppy and because we had rats in our house, my mother laid poisoning on our part, dirt, potlenolium, floors, and my puppy being animal, being stupid, being curious, ate the poison and died. The puppy died and my mother tried to throw him out. But I was a child, a child who believed in daddy, a big black daddy, a fixeth man. And I would not let my mother throw my puppy away because I believe that when my daddy came over and worked, he could fix that dead dog.

The 60s stripped us of such love and trust and we ran naked in the streets, changing our hair, our food, our God, our dress, and condemning our elders and screaming obscenities in each other in the name of revolution, in the name of positive change. We stripped ourselves of our heritage, of tradition, of the strength of old wise men who were our cushions of love, who gave us extravagant care, who were our rocks in this weary land. Now I am no longer a child and I have seen my father's son, my brother shot down in the night by black men and I have seen my father's heart that tunnel of love turn into a sieve of dust.

And at my brother's grave side, I watched my father, your father, or our fathers sit stiff and strong, brave and proud and ramrod it in grief. I saw the Jesus in my father's hands, saw the doctor, lawyer, preacher in his face, saw the construction worker in his back, saw his actual hair turn white in gray. I saw him fold into himself, his body limp like some autumn leaf opening and closing in the beating rain. I saw him and all our fathers and you, we must look to our old men, look to them for strength, for knowledge, for direction and learn what they have always known. That love and respect is our beginning.

Love and respect is our end. We must learn how to love, to protect, to cherish our young, our old, our own. That was Carol M. Rogers, we are each others harvest, we are each others business, we are each others magnitude and bond. I received a paper from the third world's women alliance, a little throw away it was and it inspired something. Calling all women, calling all women, calling all righteous women, calling all sisters, calling all righteous sisters, to steal away to our secret place, have a meeting face to face. Look at the facts and determine our pace.

We want to reach first and second and third world women, come together, women in and outside the power structure, working women, welfare women, women who feel alienated and isolated, women who are all frustrated, who have given up women, women, questioning women, women, unpolarized and unorganized, ostracized, tired of being penalized. Come, help us start to bridge the gaps, racial, cultural, or generation, we want action and generation. These men, these men, they're just ain't doing it, they've had hundreds of years, not about to ruin it, kitchen, office, ex-prison women, singing, dancing, sight-bring women, old and young and middle-aged women, make this scene, oh yes, and bring your lunch. Problems, problems, problems, problems, problems, common problems that we make and cause each other, sister, daughter, old grandmother, female child, you can bring your little brother, silent you, grab a cab, bike it, limo, or pick him up and lay him down, democracy or socialism, lesbianism, anarchism, feminism, here and now, futurism, we just can't afford a schism, we got to get together or die.

Now is the time for evolution, let's all session find, solution for how we will make that next revolution or die. Oh yes, and don't forget your lunch. One of the things that I knew that I was to receive this honor, you know, it kind of changed me for weeks here and I was reading and you know, you read a lot of stuff and you only come away with a couple of pages. And I renewed my interest in the deep, that is Howard, in the profound structure here. And I came across an article that was written in 1930. In 1930, Howard University, under the presidency of Dr. Mordecai Johnson, saw a fit to award Dr. W. E. B. Du Bois, an honorary doctorate, and what he had to say to the graduating students, some 50 years ago, seems to me to be just as pertinent today, so allow me to quote in part from that prophetic speech.

Some day, every human being will have college training. Today, some must stop with the grades and some with high school and only a few reach college. It is of the utmost importance then and the essential condition of our survival and advance that those chosen for college be our best and not simply our richest or most idle. But even this growth must be led, it must be guided by ideals. We have lost something, brothers and sisters, wandering in a strange land. We have lost our ideals. We have come to a generation which seeks advance without ideals, discovery without stars. It cannot be done. Certain great landmarks and guiding facts must stand eternally before us.

At the risk of moralizing, I must end by emphasizing this matter of ideals of Negro students and graduates. The ideal of poverty, this is the direct antithesis of the present American ideal of wealth. We cannot all be wealthy. We should not all be wealthy. An ideal industrial organization in such no person should have an income which he does not personally need nor wield a power solely for his own whim. If civilization is to turn out millionaires, it will also turn out beggars and prostitutes. A simple healthy life on limited income is the only responsible ideal of civilized folk. The ideal of work, not idleness, not dawdling, but hard continuous effort at something worth doing by a person supremely interested in doing it and who knows how it ought to be done and is willing to take infinite pains doing it. The ideal of knowledge, not guesswork, not mere careless theory, not inherited religious dogma clung to because of fear and inertia and in spite of logic but critically tested and laboriously gathered fact, martyled under scientific law and feeding rather than choking the glorious world of fancy and imagination of poetry and art of beauty and deep culture.

Finally and especially the ideal of sacrifice. I almost hesitate to mention this. So much sentimental twaddle has been written of it. But when I say sacrifice, I mean sacrifice. I mean a real and definite surrender of personal ease and satisfaction. I embellish it with no theological fairy tales of a rewarding God or a milk and honey heaven. I am not trying to scare you into the duty of sacrifice by the fires of a mythical hell. I am repeating the stark fact of survival of life and culture on this earth. Thou shalt foregoal. Thou shalt do without.

We American Negroes are not a happy people. We feel perhaps as never before the sting and bitterness of our struggle. Our little victories one here and there serve but to reveal the shame of our continuing semi-slavery and social cast. We are torn asunder within our group because of the rasping pressure of the struggle without. We are as a race not simply dissatisfied. We are embodied dissatisfaction. To increase abiding satisfaction for the mass of our people and for all people. Someone must sacrifice something of his own happiness. The larger the number ready to sacrifice the smaller the total sacrifice necessary. It is silly to tell intelligent human beings be good and you will be happy. The truth is today be good be decent be honorable and self-sacrificing and you will not always be happy. You will often be desperately unhappy. You may even be crucified.

If you are dead and buried and the third day you will be just as dead as the first but with the death of your happiness may easily come increased happiness and satisfaction and fulfillment for other people, strangers, unborn babes, uncreated worlds. If therefore real sacrifice for others in your life work appeals to you. Here it is. Here is the chance to build an industrial organization on a basis of logic and ethics such as is almost wholly lacking in the modern world. It is a tremendous task and it is the task equally and at once of Howard and Tuskegee of Hampton and Fisk of the college and of the industrial school. Our real schools must become centers of this vast crusade. With the faculty in the student body girding themselves for this new and greater education, the major part of the responsibility will still fall upon those who have already done their schoolwork and that means upon the alumni who like you have become graduates of an institution of learning.

Unless the vision comes to you and comes quickly of the educational and economic problem before the American Negro, that problem will not be solved. You not only enter therefore the worshipful company of that vast body of people upon whom a great center of learning with ancient ceremony and colorful trappings has put the accolade of intellectual knighthood but of people who have become the unselfish thinkers and planners. Of a group of people in whose hands lies the economic and social destiny of the darker peoples of the world and by that token of the world itself. That was W.E.B. Du Bois. I would like to conclude my offering inspired by the Reverend Jesse Jackson's chant, I am somebody.

I am somebody because you make me somebody because you are part of because you you share the loneliness of me. When you laugh, you make my lips a part of laughter. When you cry, tension pulls me from inside. When you are hungry, my food turns to poison makes me burst. Bony fingers clutch my tongue when I when I know your thirst because you are part of because you you share the

loneliness of me. When I see your precious blood out of place, your bones exposed in death, my blood, my blood chills and stops as I try to give you breath, I must keep you from all fear and danger. I must rule your peace of mind, help you, help you find joy, help you, help you find release because because you are part of because you you share the loneliness of me. I cannot own that which you cannot also possess. Your crime is mine and from now on I'll confess because because you are part of because you you share the loneliness of me, you, you, you, you, you are at the other end of the steel spring of hate. So I cannot hate. When you know my love, my love will warm you, cleansing deep.

So let me let me take your hand. Let me let me touch your fingers. Feed your face. No, no, your heart beat and all your doubts erase because because you are part of because you you share the loneliness of me. We are each others harvest. We are each others business. We are each others magnitude and bond. I thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. From many dangers, toys and smiths, I have a rooted crime.

I have a rooted crime. I have a rooted crime. I have a rooted crime. I have a rooted crime. I have a rooted crime.

I have a rooted crime. I have a rooted crime. I have a rooted crime. Thank you.

Dr. D, we cannot thank you enough for sharing with us a symbol in this room. We cannot thank you enough for sharing with us a symbol in this room. We cannot thank you enough for sharing with us a symbol in this room. We cannot thank you enough for sharing with us a symbol in this room.

We cannot thank you enough for sharing with us a symbol in this room. We cannot thank you enough for sharing with us a symbol in this room. We cannot thank you enough for sharing with us a symbol in this room. We cannot thank you enough for sharing with us a symbol in this room.

We cannot thank you enough for sharing with us a symbol in this room. We cannot thank you enough for sharing with us a symbol in this room. We cannot thank you enough for sharing with us a symbol in this room. We cannot thank you enough for sharing with us a symbol in this room. We cannot thank you enough for sharing with us a symbol in this room.

We cannot thank you enough for sharing with us a symbol in this room. We cannot thank you enough for sharing with us a symbol in this room. We cannot thank you enough for sharing with us a symbol in this room. We cannot thank you enough for sharing with us a symbol in this room.

We have learned there is no hiding place and no resting place. We take a moment to acknowledge certain specific individuals or groups of individuals who join us for this occasion and who come together to celebrate another important moment in the history of our country and in the history of this institution. I so call their names and ask them to stand and be recognized.

It is pointless for me to ask that you refrain from applauding. Dr. Geraldine Pittman Woods, the chairman of our Board of Trustees. Members of the Board of Trustees and Trustees Emeriti. Dr. James M. Nebrit Jr., President Emeritus. Dr. Aura Chester Redhead, the chairman of the 1982 Charter Day Dinner. Relatives and friends of the Charter Day Award recipients.

Mr. Tito Howard, the great grandson of General Oliver Howard, for whom this institution is made. Members of the diplomatic corps. Members of Congress who are present. The International Sponsors Council.

Members of the President's Administrative Cabinet. The Vice President's Emeriti. Mr. Clifton H. Kerney, President of the Howard University Alumni Association. Dr. Herbert O'Reade, chairman of the University Senate. The deans and directors of our institution. The distinguished members of the 17 faculties of Howard University.

University Administrative Staff Personnel. Mr. Walter J. Woods, President of the Howard University Student Association. All of the members of the Howard Student Party. The relatives and friends of Dr. Rubidi.

The Eminent and Distinguished Dr. Asi Davis. The retired members of the Howard University family. Mrs. James E. Cheek.

When I decided to get married, I decided before I got married, so it would be a unilateral decision. My wife and I would have two children, a boy first and a girl second. The boy was to be named James Edward Cheek Jr. The girl was to be named James Sina Edwardine. When my daughter was born in 1963, it was my misfortune to be in Memphis, Tennessee.

When I returned home, my daughter had named her Janet Elizabeth. This is the first occasion that I have been privileged to present her formally to an audience at Howard. It is appropriate that I do so now because it is her intention of being a Howard freshman. I wish you to know that a delayed telecast of this convocation will be aired on Howard's station WHMM-TV channel 32. This evening at 6 o'clock p.m. This will be the second time in the history of this institution

that our chartered convocation exercises will have been telecast and by our own station. We invite you to watch. This has been a great and glorious occasion for all of us and we thank all of you who have contributed to making it a success. We ask that you stand and join in the singing of the alma mater. But before we begin to do so, let us express our profound thanks and eternal gratitude to the university choir and Dr. Nars. Thank you.

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