INAUGURAL ADDRESS
reveals the soul of our institutional identity campaign, and I can guarantee you that with a mere twenty percent of that, we can change the world better and faster than Harvard or anybody else. There is no good reason why we cannot have a large and growing endowment; a highquality and well-paid faculty; a skilled, data-driven staff bent on operational excellence; a state-of-the-art physical infrastructure; and the clear capacity to produce more of the best students in the world. There is no good reason why we cannot soon be a far more magnetic destination than we have ever been before. So, we are calling for an emancipation proclamation for Morehouse College! The world needs us to be free. Our mission demands that we be free. Capital preeminence is a freedom agenda, and it is up to us to realize it! THE IDENTITY IMPERATIVE Second, because 2013 is the 100th anniversary of the decision to change our name to “Morehouse College,” there is an identity imperative at the center of our current agenda. Just last month, at a conference in Florida, I had an encounter with David Brooks, the brilliant, conservative columnist for The New York Times, who often writes about American character. He had delivered his keynote address, and when I stood to tastefully suggest a modification of his central point, he responded by asking me, “What is a Morehouse Man?” I answered: “A Morehouse Man is one who moves through the world with obvious competence and confidence, able at once to compete and work in the world that is, and yet imagine and work for the world that must yet be.” His responsive nod was the equivalent of an affirmative action. He said: “Morehouse is in a very small group of institutions
MOREHOUSE MOREHOUSE MAGAZINE MAGAZINE
COMMEMORATIVE INAUGURATION INAUGURATION ISSUE ISSUE 2014 2014 32 COMMEMORATIVE
MORE THAN a dozen of Wilson’s classmates from the class of 1979 attended inaugural activities. Among them was Jeh Johnson,the fourth secretary of Homeland Security. Johnson also was invited to be the 2014 Commencement speaker.
ONE OF THE College’s most illustrious graduates is one of the country’s greatest citizens, as indicated by his statue on the National Mall in Washington, D.C. At Morehouse, Martin Luther King Jr. ’48 was introduced to the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi and his method of nonviolent protest.
in this country that knows who they are.” I want you to know that character preeminence is what certainty looks like in higher education. Moreover, it reveals the soul of our institutional identity. For years, we have been defined by our ability to cultivate distinctive servantleadership values, standards of excellence and high expectations in our students. What we have lacked in resources, we have more than made up for in a strong and unwavering sense of purpose. So many of our graduates have felt not merely committed, but called to make this world a better place. Think about this: institutions with multibillion-dollar endowments do not have among their alumni a mystic like Howard Thurman; a leader like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.; an Olympian like Edwin Moses; a filmmaker like Spike Lee; an eradicator of world disease like Donald Hopkins; cabinet secretaries like Lou Sullivan, Robert Mallett, Jim Shelton and Jeh Johnson; a surgeon general like David Satcher; or accomplished recent graduates like Josh Packwood, Robbie Robinson, Euclid Walker and Alex Washington. Sixteen thousand men—a collective force for good! But this world needs thousands more men like this. And in order to produce more, we must enrich, elevate and update this Morehouse experience with character preeminence foremost in mind. Renewed character preeminence is what keeps us Morehouse, and it is up to us to realize it! THE DREAM IMPERATIVE And now, finally, because 2013 is the 50th anniversary of that dream articulated on the National Mall by our most illustrious graduate, Dr. King, there is a dream imperative at the center of our current agenda. The ambitions and dreams of our forefathers have always amazed me.