Excerpts & Quotations
Institutions serving primarily black Americans were created in response to American racism—a racism so thoroughly entrenched in our nation’s mentality and so deeply engraved in our national social consciousness that it could be summed in the words of Chief Justice Taney of the United States Supreme Court in the Dred Scot decision “that the Negro is so far inferior that he has no rights that a white man is bound to respect.” ...
During the institution of slavery, and shortly after its abolition, the black colleges and universities were created to provide, through education, the development of leadership and equality to serve as instruments for the liberation of a people subjected to a “bondage of the flesh” as well as to a “bondage of the spirit.” ...
In the national atmosphere in which we must carry on our work, Howard University—as has occurred so frequently in the past—will be looked upon to provide a haven and a sanctuary; to demonstrate both leadership and vision, to defend with courage and to protect with diligence, to chart and navigate a course that will cause our nation to unloose the yoke of bondage in order that the oppressed go free.
As always, from the time of our founding, in the endeavors in which we have engaged, we had few friends but many adversaries, weak supporters but strong opponents, little understanding but much confusion, few advocates but numerous detractors.
During the years that I have been here, I have come strongly to believe that the mission and purpose of this institution are inextricably bound up with the future of the American nation as a free society. And it is abundantly clear to me that the future of black people will influence decisively the destiny of this republic.
---Excerpted from James E. Cheek’s address at Howard University’s 113th Opening Convocation, September 26, 1980
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Famous quotes containing the word quotations:
“Reading any collection of a man’s quotations is like eating the ingredients that go into a stew instead of cooking them together in the pot. You eat all the carrots, then all the potatoes, then the meat. You won’t go away hungry, but it’s not quite satisfying. Only a biography, or autobiography, gives you the hot meal.”
—Christopher Buckley, U.S. author. A review of three books of quotations from Newt Gingrich. “Newtie’s Greatest Hits,” The New York Times Book Review (March 12, 1995)