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  • The President: Thank you.

  • (applause)

  • Thank you very much.

  • Thank you.

  • Thank you, Hampton.

  • Thank you, Class of 2010.

  • (cheering and applause)

  • Please, everybody, please have a seat.

  • Audience Member: I love you!

  • The President: I love you back.

  • (cheering)

  • That's why I'm here.

  • I love you guys.

  • Good morning, everybody.

  • Audience: Good morning.

  • The President: To all the mothers in the house: As somebody who is surrounded by

  • women in the White House --

  • (laughter)

  • -- grew up surrounded by women, let me take a moment just to say

  • thank you for all that you put up with each and every day.

  • We are so grateful to you, and it is fitting to have such a

  • beautiful day when we celebrate all our mothers.

  • Thank you to Hampton for allowing me to share this

  • special occasion -- to all the dignitaries who are here,

  • the trustees, the alumni, parents, grandparents, aunts,

  • uncles, cousins -- that's a cousin over there.

  • (laughter)

  • Now, before we get started, I just want to say,

  • I'm excited the Battle of the Real H.U. will be taking place

  • in Washington this year.

  • (laughter)

  • You know I am not going to pick sides.

  • (laughter)

  • But my understanding is it's been 13 years since the Pirates lost.

  • (applause)

  • As one Hampton alum on my staff put it,

  • the last time Howard beat Hampton,

  • The Fugees were still together.

  • (laughter)

  • Well, let me also say a word about President Harvey,

  • a man who bleeds Hampton blue.

  • In a single generation, Hampton has transformed from a small

  • black college into a world-class research institution.

  • (applause)

  • And that transformation has come through the efforts of many

  • people, but it has come through President Harvey's efforts,

  • in particular, and I want to commend him for his outstanding

  • leadership as well as his great friendship to me.

  • (applause)

  • Most of all, I want to congratulate all of you,

  • the Class of 2010.

  • I gather that none of you walked across Ogden Circle.

  • (laughter)

  • You did?

  • Okay.

  • You know, we meet here today, as graduating classes have met for

  • generations, not far from where it all began,

  • near that old oak tree off Emancipation Drive.

  • I know my University 101.

  • (laughter and applause)

  • There, beneath its branches, by what was then a Union garrison,

  • about 20 students gathered on September 17th, 1861.

  • Taught by a free citizen, in defiance of Virginia law,

  • the students were escaped slaves from nearby plantations,

  • who had fled to the fort seeking asylum.

  • And after the war's end, a retired Union general sought to

  • enshrine that legacy of learning.

  • So with a collection from church groups, Civil War veterans,

  • and a choir that toured Europe, Hampton Normal and Agricultural

  • Institute was founded here, by the Chesapeake --

  • a home by the sea.

  • Now, that story is no doubt familiar to many of you.

  • But it's worth reflecting on why it happened;

  • why so many people went to such trouble to found Hampton and all

  • our Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

  • The founders of these institutions knew, of course,

  • that inequality would persist long into the future.

  • They were not naïve.

  • They recognized that barriers in our laws, and in our hearts,

  • wouldn't vanish overnight.

  • But they also recognized the larger truth;

  • a distinctly American truth.

  • They recognized, Class of 2010, that the right education might

  • allow those barriers to be overcome;

  • might allow our God-given potential to be fulfilled.

  • They recognized, as Frederick Douglass once put it,

  • that "education...means emancipation."

  • They recognized that education is how America and its people

  • might fulfill our promise.

  • That recognition, that truth -- that an education can fortify us

  • to rise above any barrier, to meet any test --

  • is reflected, again and again, throughout our history.

  • In the midst of civil war, we set aside land grants for

  • schools like Hampton to teach farmers and factory-workers the

  • skills of an industrializing nation.

  • At the close of World War II, we made it possible for returning

  • GIs to attend college, building and broadening our great middle class.

  • At the Cold War's dawn, we set up Area Studies Centers on our

  • campuses to prepare graduates to understand and address the

  • global threats of our nuclear age.

  • So education is what has always allowed us to meet the

  • challenges of a changing world.

  • And Hampton, that has never been more true than it is today.

  • This class is graduating at a time of great difficulty for

  • America and for the world.

  • You're entering a job market, in an era of heightened

  • international competition, with an economy that's still

  • rebounding from the worst crisis since the Great Depression.

  • You're accepting your degrees as America still wages two wars --

  • wars that many in your generation have been fighting.

  • And meanwhile, you're coming of age in a 24/7 media environment

  • that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all

  • kinds of arguments, some of which don't always rank that

  • high on the truth meter.

  • And with iPods and iPads; and Xboxes and PlayStations --

  • none of which I know how to work --

  • (laughter)

  • -- information becomes a distraction, a diversion,

  • a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment,

  • rather than the means of emancipation.

  • So all of this is not only putting pressure on you;

  • it's putting new pressure on our country and on our democracy.

  • Class of 2010, this is a period of breathtaking change,

  • like few others in our history.

  • We can't stop these changes, but we can channel them,

  • we can shape them, we can adapt to them.

  • And education is what can allow us to do so.

  • It can fortify you, as it did earlier generations,

  • to meet the tests of your own time.

  • And first and foremost, your education can fortify you

  • against the uncertainties of a 21st century economy.

  • In the 19th century, folks could get by with a few basic skills,

  • whether they learned them in a school like Hampton,

  • or picked them up along the way.

  • As long as you were willing to work,

  • for much of the 20th century, a high school diploma was a ticket

  • into a solid middle class life.

  • That is no longer the case.

  • Jobs today often require at least a bachelor's degree,

  • and that degree is even more important in tough times like these.

  • In fact, the unemployment rate for folks who've never gone to

  • college is over twice as high as for folks with a college degree or more.

  • Now, the good news is you're already ahead of the curve.

  • All those checks you or your parents wrote to Hampton will pay off.

  • (laughter)

  • You're in a strong position to outcompete workers around the world.

  • But I don't have to tell you that too many folks back home

  • aren't as well prepared.

  • Too many young people, just like you, are not as well prepared.

  • By any number of different yardsticks,

  • African Americans are being outperformed by their white

  • classmates, as are Hispanic Americans.

  • Students in well-off areas are outperforming students in poorer

  • rural or urban communities, no matter what skin color.

  • Globally, it's not even close.

  • In 8th grade science and math, for example,

  • American students are ranked about 10th overall compared to

  • top-performing countries.

  • But African Americans are ranked behind more than 20 nations,

  • lower than nearly every other developed country.

  • So all of us have a responsibility, as Americans,

  • to change this; to offer every single child in this country an

  • education that will make them competitive in our knowledge economy.

  • That is our obligation as a nation.

  • (applause)

  • But I have to say, Class of 2010,

  • all of you have a separate responsibility.

  • To be role models for your brothers and sisters.

  • To be mentors in your communities.

  • And, when the time comes, to pass that sense of an

  • education's value down to your children,

  • a sense of personal responsibility and self-respect.

  • To pass down a work ethic and an intrinsic sense of excellence

  • that made it possible for you to be here today.

  • So, allowing you to compete in the global economy is the first

  • way your education can prepare you.

  • But it can also prepare you as citizens.

  • With so many voices clamoring for attention on blogs,

  • and on cable, on talk radio, it can be difficult, at times,

  • to sift through it all; to know what to believe;

  • to figure out who's telling the truth and who's not.

  • Let's face it, even some of the craziest claims can quickly gain traction.

  • I've had some experience in that regard.

  • Fortunately, you will be well positioned to navigate this terrain.

  • Your education has honed your research abilities,

  • sharpened your analytical powers,

  • given you a context for understanding the world.

  • Those skills will come in handy.

  • But the goal was always to teach you something more.

  • Over the past four years, you've argued both sides of a debate.

  • You've read novels and histories that take different cuts at life.

  • Audience Member: Amen!

  • The President: You've discovered -- see, I got a little "Amen"

  • there, somebody --

  • (laughter)

  • -- you've discovered interests you didn't know you had.

  • You've made friends who didn't grow up the same way you did.

  • You've tried things you'd never done before,

  • including some things we won't talk about in front of your parents.

  • (laughter)

  • All of this, I hope, has had the effect of opening your mind;

  • of helping you understand what it's like to walk in somebody

  • else's shoes.

  • But now that your minds have been opened,

  • it's up to you to keep them that way.

  • It will be up to you to open minds that remain closed that

  • you meet along the way.

  • That, after all, is the elemental test of any democracy:

  • whether people with differing points of view can learn from

  • each other, and work with each other,

  • and find a way forward together.

  • And I'd add one further observation.

  • Just as your education can fortify you,

  • it can also fortify our nation, as a whole.

  • More and more, America's economic preeminence,

  • our ability to outcompete other countries,

  • will be shaped not just in our boardrooms,

  • not just on our factory floors, but in our classrooms,

  • and our schools, at universities like Hampton.

  • It will be determined by how well all of us,

  • and especially our parents, educate our sons and daughters.

  • What's at stake is more than our ability to outcompete other nations.

  • It's our ability to make democracy work in our own nation.

  • Now, years after he left office, decades after he penned the

  • Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson sat down,

  • a few hours' drive from here, in Monticello,

  • and wrote a letter to a longtime legislator,

  • urging him to do more on education.

  • And Jefferson gave one principal reason --

  • the one, perhaps, he found most compelling.

  • "If a nation expects to be ignorant and free," he wrote,

  • "it expects what never was and never will be."

  • What Jefferson recognized, like the rest of that gifted founding

  • generation, was that in the long run,

  • their improbable experiment -- called America --

  • wouldn't work if its citizens were uninformed,

  • if its citizens were apathetic, if its citizens checked out,

  • and left democracy who those -- to those who didn't have the

  • best interests of all the people at heart.

  • It could only work if each of us stayed informed and engaged;

  • if we held our government accountable;

  • if we fulfilled the obligations of citizenship.

  • The success of their experiment, they understood,

  • depended on the participation of its people --

  • the participation of Americans like all of you.

  • The participation of all those who have ever sought to perfect

  • our union.

  • I had a great honor of delivering a tribute to one of

  • those Americans last week, an American named Dorothy Height.

  • (applause)

  • And as you probably know, Dr. Height passed away the other

  • week at the age of 98.

  • One of the speakers at this memorial was her nephew who was 88.

  • And I said that's a sign of a full life when your nephew is 88.

  • Dr. Height had been on the firing line for every fight from

  • lynching to desegregation to the battle for health care reform.

  • She was with Eleanor Roosevelt and she was with Michelle Obama.

  • She lived a singular life; one of the giants upon whose

  • shoulders I stand.

  • But she started out just like you,

  • understanding that to make something of herself,

  • she needed a college degree.

  • So, she applied to Barnard College -- and she got in.

  • Except, when she showed up, they discovered she wasn't white as

  • they had believed.

  • And they had already given their two slots for African Americans

  • to other individuals.

  • Those slots, two, had already been filled.

  • But Dr. Height was not discouraged.

  • She was not deterred.

  • She stood up, straight-backed, and with Barnard's acceptance

  • letter in hand, she marched down to New York University,

  • and said, "Let me in."

  • And she was admitted right away.

  • I want all of you to think about this, Class of 2010,

  • because you've gone through some hardships, undoubtedly,

  • in arriving to where you are today.

  • There have been some hard days, and hard exams,

  • and you felt put upon.

  • And undoubtedly you will face other challenges in the future.

  • But I want you to think about Ms. Dorothy Height,

  • a black woman, in 1929, refusing to be denied her dream of a

  • college education.

  • Refusing to be denied her rights.

  • Refusing to be denied her dignity.

  • Refusing to be denied her place in America,

  • her piece of America's promise.

  • Refusing to let any barriers of injustice or ignorance or

  • inequality or unfairness stand in her way.

  • (applause)

  • That refusal to accept a lesser fate;

  • that insistence on a better life, that, ultimately,

  • is the secret not only of African American survival and

  • success, it has been the secret of America's survival and success.

  • (applause)

  • So, yes, an education can fortify us to meet the tests of

  • our economy, the tests of our citizenship,

  • and the tests of our times.

  • But what ultimately makes us American,

  • quintessentially American, is something that can't be taught

  • -- a stubborn insistence on pursuing our dreams.

  • It's the same insistence that led a band of patriots to

  • overthrow an empire.

  • That fired the passions of union troops to free the slaves and

  • union veterans to found schools like Hampton.

  • That led foot-soldiers the same age as you to brave fire-hoses

  • on the streets of Birmingham and billy clubs on a bridge in Selma.

  • That led generation after generation of Americans to toil

  • away, quietly, your parents and grandparents and

  • great-grandparents and great-great grandparents,

  • without complaint, in the hopes of a better life for their

  • children and grandchildren.

  • That is what makes us who we are.

  • A dream of brighter days ahead, a faith in things not seen,

  • a belief that here, in this country,

  • we are the authors of our own destiny.

  • That is what Hampton is all about.

  • And it now falls to you, the Class of 2010,

  • to write the next great chapter in America's story;

  • to meet the tests of your own time;

  • to take up the ongoing work of fulfilling our founding promise.

  • I'm looking forward to watching.

  • Thank you, God bless you, and may God bless the United States

  • of America.

  • (applause)

The President: Thank you.

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