Breaking the Barriers of Race Prejudice

I believe this is the first time in my life that I have ever made a commencement address. The invitations I have had I have refused until now because it has always seemed to me presumptuous to offer advice or even to forecast for those who have not yet entered in the sort of life that lies ahead of college. Life is so individual a thing in ordinary times, so much depends on the person who is to live it, that all I have ever felt I could say was easily said in a sentence-the only way to find out anything about life is to begin to live it as heartily as you can. So what was the use of making a speech about what could be said in one sentence? But I accepted the invitation this particular year to this particular university for a very special reason. These are not ordinary times, and this is no ordinary graduating class. Today the individual has to contribute to the human demand of our times or he misses the meaning of his life today. You are not only a group of individuals beginning your individual lives in a country which is more or less of a democracy. You are a specially privileged group not even because of the education which you have begun here under such excellent circumstances. But you are privileged because at this moment in human history you are a group with a special opportunity and a special duty to the times

Prejudice (legal term) · Race (biology) · Racial bias · Sociology · Diverse Educational Innovations Studies · Gender Studies · Psychology · Social Psychology