Published by the MIT News Office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
Published by the MIT News Office at the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology, Cambridge, Mass.
AFFIRMATIVE ACTION NEEDED Echoing King, Hooks Also Sees Hope By Elizabeth A. Thomson News Office Dr. Benjamin Hooks, executive director of the NAACP, began the keynote address of MIT's 17th annual Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ceremony January 18 with a personal account of the last speech the civil rights leader made the night before his assassination. "As I sat there that night, I thought never had I heard him speak with such pathos, power, and passion," Dr. Hooks said. But Dr. King's words seemed rather strange, he said, because "this was 1968, and we thought we had come a long way. . . Yet on that night, Dr. King talked about dark and difficult days ahead. . . "But he did not leave us in despair or hopelessness," Dr. Hooks said. "Toward the end he raised that magnificent voice and declared, 'I've seen the promised land. I may not make it there with you, but I've seen the promised land.' And then as he finished that speech, with tears. . . literally running down his face . . . and wheeled to go to his chair, he quoted one of his favorite hymns, 'Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.' And without ever finishing, he took his seat. . ." The rest of Dr. Hooks' address to his Kresge audience echoed King's talk on that night in 1968: there's still a lot to be done, but there have been successes and there will be more. Continuing his address, Dr. Hooks remembered how King's words that night seemed in retrospect so prophetic. "I've thought about some of the things that we've faced since then, and [over] the years I've . . . quite often gone back down to Atlanta and stood by . . . the little crypt where the mortal remains of Dr. King rest, and said 'Doc, you didn't tell the half of it. . . " From Jesse Helms' "racist campaign in North Carolina" to racism among even our "best and brightest students" at top universities to President Bush's recent veto of a civil rights bill, there are still dark and difficult days, Dr. Hooks said. He noted that almost 30 percent of the combat troops in the Persian Gulf will be black. "Men and women who've been denied the fullest of opportunities in this country will die for it, come back in body bags, and those who live will come back to a country where the president refused to sign a simple civil rights bill," he said. He also made a strong stand for affirmative action. "I make no excuse whatsoever . . . for the fact that this nation needs affirmative action," he said. "If it spent all of these years keeping blacks and women out, it's high time that [it] spent some time bringing them in." Toward the end of his address, however, he told his audience that "In spite of the darkness, . . . in spite of the heartaches and disappointments, there is still hope. In spite of all we've gone through, I rejoice that when I go to Los Angeles, California to see the mayor, I walk into the office of a black man. . . "And when I went down to the former capitol of the Confederacy, Richmond, Virginia, and saw the grandson of a slave sworn in as Governor of Virginia, I was proud. . . "We've come a long way--7,000 elected black officials, a million black young people in post-secondary education--these are the bright spots, things that make me happy." However, he said, there are still four things that we must do. First, build coalitions. "There's no sense in people going around hating white people because they're white, or white folk hating us because we're black," Dr. Hooks said. Second, get rid of envy and jealousy. "We can't afford to get so mad that we forget the objective for which we work." Third, exhibit a sense of pride. And fourth, don't forget God. "In my life, I've seen God moving and working," he said. President Charles Vest, who also spoke, began his address by noting "the irony of celebrating a great man of peace in the days of war." But he reminded the audience that "even the shadows of warfare must not damp out the light of our days of celebration of Dr. Martin Luther King." In keeping with the theme of this year's Martin Luther King celebration- -"Linking the Civil Rights Movement to MIT and Dr. King's Dream: Reality--Closing the Gap"--Dr. Vest summarized some of MIT's lapses and achievements to that end. For example, he said, "relative to other engineering or scientific institutions, MIT has much to be proud of in Paul Gray's legacy of an undergraduate student population that is 14 percent underrepresented minorities and 34 percent women. . . When I look at our undergraduate students, I can begin to see the face of America as it will be in the 1990s and beyond." However, he continued, "I do not see that face in our faculty and graduate students." He emphasized the importance of increasing the number of African American, Latino, Native American and women graduate students "who will then become members of the professoriate in the next generation." Dr. Vest made his point by citing the following statistic: "If African American PhDs continue to graduate at the current rate from engineering schools, and if they should be dispersed uniformly across all engineering schools in this country, each engineering school could hire one African American professor every 19 years." At MIT, Dr. Vest said, over the last two months "two African Americans have accepted tenure-track appointments in the Institute, but this again is only a step along the way." Dr. Vest also addressed financial support for minority students, and drew applause when he suggested that the federal government should "clearly and forthrightly reverse the recent ruling within the Department of Education that potentially blocks a wide range of financial aid programs for minority students." Before introducing Dr. Hooks, President Vest concluded: "We each have an obligation to help make MIT a community that values . . . the full range of talents, cultures and points of view that we bring here, and that does so in a spirit of collegiality and mutual respect." Other participants in the event were: Yvonne L. Gittens of Student Financial Aid; Rev. Bernard J. Campbell, religious counselor at MIT; Khadija Brewington, a student at Cambridge Rindge and Latin School; Akintayo Adewale, a student at Boston College High School; Janae Byars, a senior in management; Reginald Parker, a junior in chemical engineering; Robin Offley and N. Charles Thomas of the Admissions Office; Linda Lifsey Hughes of the Graduate School; George Russell of the George Russell Trio, and the MIT Gospel Choir.