Grads hold ‘keys to the gates of justice’

Grads
hold ‘keys to the gates of justice’
…………………………………………………………………

BY DANA BENSON
Rice News Staff

In his commencement
address, civil rights attorney Morris Dees implored the
1,230 Rice graduates not to be satisfied with the economic
success that lies ahead for them, but always to look out
for America’s less fortunate.

“The degrees
that you will walk away with here will be the keys that
will open many doors,” Dees said. “But also remember
that you, as the brightest among us, hold the keys to the
gates of justice. And therein lies a grave responsibility.”

Dees delivered
his speech at Rice’s 88th commencement, held May 12.
A total of 721 undergraduate and 509 graduate diplomas were
awarded.

The founder
of the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala.,
Dees specializes in lawsuits involving civil rights violations
and racially motivated crimes. He has won landmark trials,
including a $37.8 million verdict against the Christian
Knights of the Ku Klux Klan for the burning of the Macedonia
Baptist Church in South Carolina and a $12.5 million verdict
for the family of an Ethiopian man beaten to death by a
group of skinheads in Portland, Ore.

Dees noted that
Tom Brokaw’s book “The Greatest Generation”
tells the story of his time. The men and women of his generation
had the courage to fight World War II, the humility to admit
the mistakes made in Vietnam, the industry to fight diseases
and put man on the moon and the passion to launch America’s
civil rights movement.

The book about
today’s generation of college graduates hasn’t
been written yet, Dees said. “The slate is clean,”
he said, while suggesting to Rice’s graduates that
they turn to his generation for examples of how to raise
the “gross national consciousness.” He cited President
Franklin Roosevelt, who lifted the country out of despair
when he said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear
itself,” President Kennedy, who urged responsibility
when he told citizens to ask what they can give for their
country, and President Nixon, who extended the country’s
hand in friendship to China in the name of peace.

“But the
greatest person to raise our conscious in my generation
was the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,” Dees said.
“He in his way set about to make us realize the dreams
of equality set forth in our Constitution. And he understood
something very powerful when he walked among us — a
time when America had turned its back on millions of its
citizens, treated them less than second-class. He understood
the power of justice.”

As he traveled
across the country talking about justice, King often recalled
the people of Israel in 900 B.C., Dees explained to the
Rice audience. After having been slaves in Egypt, the children
of Israel finally settled near present-day Jerusalem, and
they were very successful and prosperous. But a local farmer
noticed men and women gathered at the gates to the marketplace
begging for food. He learned that not everybody was treated
the same, and he urged the town’s leaders to give everyone
equal opportunity.

“You know
this farmer,” Dees said. “He was the prophet Amos.
And he spoke the same words that the Rev. Dr. King spoke
to us at a time when our country also had wandered from
its principles. He said, ‘Don’t be satisfied until
justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a
mighty stream.”

Dees told the
graduates to do the same as the prophet Amos and King.

“It is
so important that when you are working to build our gross
national product, to make sure that your 401(k) plans are
adequate to support you and your children and your families
in the future, when you educate your families, when you
buy your homes and your automobiles, that you also do not
forget the least among us. Because without justice there
can be no peace among us,” he said.

Dees said that
“when the book about your generation is published,
and it might be written by one of you, I think it, too,
will be entitled ‘The Greatest Generation.’

“And I
know that each of you will not be satisfied with your life,
your country and with your contribution to this nation.
I know that you’ll not be satisfied until justice rolls
down like waters.”