[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
Good afternoon, everybody.
Can you hear me?
Is that better?
I don't know.
OK.
I think we got it in the back.
I want to thank you--
good afternoon, everybody.
I want to thank Dean Stubbs
for that introduction.
He is a force for good and
everything we're trying to do.
And I will tell you more about
what we're trying to do here
at Harvard University.
I also have some very special
thanks to Bonita [? Wolfe. ?]
Where are you, Bonita?
She shepherded me
here and I really
appreciate everything you did.
I just want to give you a sense
of a different kind of Dr.
King, you know.
My purpose today is to meet
the challenge of every King Day
speaker.
And that is to honor
Dr. King by ushering you
to a higher, deeper
perspective on him and on life.
And that's what I intend to do.
With that in mind,
this afternoon
I want to do three things.
First, I want us to focus
on a different Dr. King,
what I call the Post Dream King.
Second, I want to illuminate
a choice that this post dream
King gave us and its relevance
to what we're trying to do now
here at Harvard University.
And finally, I want to
suggest how the FAS Science
Division might make the
choice that he gave us all.
So I want to do
those three things
in a reasonable period of time.
Let me just check and make
sure I stay on schedule.
You know, in most King
remembrances worldwide,
they tend to focus on the
I Have a Dream Dr. King.
This is the one who
articulated his dream
that he said was deeply
rooted in the American dream.
There's no need
for me to quote it.
You have heard it
a million times.
You probably know it quite well.
But there is a more
mature Post Dream King
that I think we
all tend to ignore.
He shared that dream in 1963.
But he was not assassinated
until April of 1968.
And in those five years,
a lot happened to him
and to his own development.
A lot happened in this world.
It was just a few weeks after
he articulated his dream
that four little girls
were in Sunday school
in a church in Birmingham.
And a bomb went off
and took their lives.
President Kennedy was shot
and killed in the fall of '63.
Just a few months
after the Dream.
Chaney, Goodman, and Schwerner
were lynched in Mississippi
in '64.
Malcolm X was
gunned down in '65.
And the Black Panthers first
cried "black power" in '66.
And so then in '67 with all
that as backdrop and with bombs
raining down in Vietnam,
there was violence everywhere
it seemed.
And King did
something different.
He stepped out of the frame
and he took center stage
at the Riverside Church in
New York City on April 4, 1967
to deliver a speech that
made him very controversial.
It was called Beyond Vietnam.
And this was one year to the day
before he was shot and killed.
Dr. King was under
serious pressure.
He had a lot of critics.
A lot of people were being
lynched in the south.
And they were demanding
that their leaders
assert self-defense.
And they wanted
to arm themselves.
But he stood fast to his own
philosophy and, at one point,
he said this--
I'm tired of the war in Vietnam.
I'm tired of war and
conflict in the world.
I'm tired of shooting.
I'm tired of hate.
I'm tired of selfishness.
I'm tired of evil.
I'm not going to use violence
no matter who says that.
Dr. King obviously angry with
America when he said this--
The Other thing I
want you to understand
is this, that it didn't
cost the nation one penny
to integrate lunch counters.
It didn't cost the
nation one penny
to guarantee the right to vote.
Now we are dealing with
issues that can not
be solved without the nation
spending billions of dollars
and undergoing a
radical redistribution
of economic power.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Now King said that years ago,
obviously well before the news
came out of Davos just
a couple weeks ago
that roughly 2,100
billionaires in the world
have more wealth than
over half of humanity.
Have more wealth than
4.6 billion people.
This was a post dream King
pointing things like that out.
This was King-- these
clips are from King
in the last year of his life.
This is a King who said
we need a reconstruction
of the entire society.
We need a revolution of values.
This is a King who
said America is
much sicker than I
realized in 1955 when
I started all this work.
Our democracy is flawed.
Not superficially,
but systemically.
This is the King who
said the greatest
purveyor of violence
in the world today
is my own government.
And he did not like
what was going on
in America at this point.
He said this, too.
They make you think
that God chose America
as his divine
messianic force to be.
A sort of policeman
of the whole world.
God has a way of standing before
the nations with judgment.
And it seems that I can
hear God thing to America,
you are too arrogant.
If you don't change
your ways, I will
rise up and break the
backbone of your power,
and I'll place it in the hands
of a nation that doesn't even
know my name.
Be still and know that I'm God.
This is a post dream King.
He's the one who called his
assistant hours before he died
and he said, the title of
my sermon on Sunday will be,
Why America May Go to Hell.
You don't hear that
about that King, do you?
That's not the King who
got a national holiday.
As America's embrace
of chaos tightened,
a skeptical King looked back
on the I have a dream King
of '63, and he said this--
That dream that I had that
day has at many points
turned into a nightmare.
So it was a dream in '63.
And it was a nightmare
a nightmare by '68.
What a transition.
It's quite a transition for him.
In the last year of his life,
he developed this beautiful,
this elegant outrage.
He was outraged.
He had a righteous
indignation and a moral fury.
It was a very powerful anger.
But it was not mean.
It was not mean spirited.
And I insist to you, we don't
hear too much about this King
and we don't talk
too much about him.
But I think this is the real
King that we need to focus on.
And this King would
be angry today.
And that is for sure.
Now it's already clear
that I have a tendency
to use film clips to make
a few of my key points.
I hope you don't mind that.
But I learned that at Harvard.
Not while I was in
grad school here, but--
even though I served
as a teaching fellow
in the Afro-American
Studies Department.
We did a course, a couple of
runs through, on black film.
But I learned it while I was
co-teaching here in the '90s.
In 1991, this professor
named Skip Gates
came to Harvard to stand up
the Afro-American Studies
Department.
And that was his mission.
Well, the first person he
hired when he came in '91,
I think by '92 he hired
this guy, Spike Lee.
Now spike and I met
during freshman week
at Morehouse College.
We were in the same class.
And fast forward,
he goes to NYU.
And while I was a
teaching fellow at Harvard
in courses on film, I was
sending him everything I could
because of his dream.
I wanted to keep
that dream alive.
And when Skip
called him to say, I
want you to come here and
teach a course on film,
a course on screenwriting,
few other things,
Spike said to him, I'll come.
But John's got to be
my teaching fellow.
I was right down
the street at MIT.
And so I, for
about four years, I
came up the street
on Friday afternoons
to help Spike to
run this course.
And Spike's most important
lesson was, show.
Don't tell.
He said, John, people don't
want to sit-in the classroom
or in a lecture hall or anywhere
and listen somebody just
talk for 45 minutes or an hour.
You got to punctuate what
you're trying to convey and show
people what you're
talking about.
Because, really,
that's how they get it.
Show.
Don't tell.
And so let me frame the rest
of this talk about Dr. King
by showing you one of the best
scenes that Spike ever shot.
It's from his 1989 film
called Do the Right Thing.
I hope some of you have seen it.
But this is one of the
better scenes from that film.
And it will frame
the rest of my talk.
[INAUDIBLE] Let me tell you the
story of right hand, left hand.
A tale of good and evil.
Hate.
It was with this hand than
Cain iced his brother.
Love.
These five fingers, they go
straight to the soul of man.
The right hand.
The hand of love.
The story life is this, static.
One hand is always
fighting the other hand.
And left hand is
kicking much ass.
I mean, it looks like the
right hand, love, is finished.
But, hold on.
Stop the presses.
The right hand's coming back.
Yeah.
He got the left hand
on the ropes now.
That's right.
Yeah.
Ooh, it's the devastating
right and hate is down.
Ooh.
Ooh.
Left hand, hate, KO'd by love.
All right.
By the way, that's Bill Nunn.
He was in class of
'79 at Morehouse, too.
And he was acting in plays
then with a guy named Samuel L.
Jackson.
Morehouse just a
little ahead of us
and the highest grossing actor
of all time, male or female,
black or white.
Spike employed Bill Nunn
and Samuel L. Jackson
early in his films.
And this scene right here
is really Spike's view
of life and living.
It's called the
Story of Life scene.
It conveys that your every
decision, your every word, your
every deed makes you either
a force for love or force
for hate in this world.
You're either a force
for good or for evil.
And because I attended, when I
first came up here, the Harvard
Divinity School, I
know that all religions
agree on the central
point of that scene.
That in the end, love wins.
All religions agree on that.
Good conquers evil.
Right over wrong.
In the end, truth defeats lies
and ushers all of humanity
into a promised land.
All religions agree
on that point.
Humanity shall have
a happy ending.
Well, the post dream King
saw the world that same way.
But King saw it not as
inevitable, but as a choice.
He thought it was a choice.
And he took the time
to clarify that choice
in the final year of his life.
That's when Dr. King secluded
himself for four or five weeks.
And he wrote his
fourth and final book.
And like Spike's
love versus hate,
King captured the
choice that we all have
right in the title of his book.
The title of his last
book is, Where Do We Go
From Here: Chaos or Community.
Chaos or community.
So now I want to
talk about Harvard.
Because twice in the
last half century,
Harvard has stood at the
crossroads of those two
choices.
Chaos or community.
I spoke to this division,
a sub-population
in MCB, molecular and cellular
biology back in November.
And I referenced Dr. King then.
I explained how Harvard's
initial surge toward diversity
was triggered by the
assassination of Dr. King.
You all need to know this story.
When Dr. King is shot
on April 4, 1968,
Harvard and most
of higher education
had just admitted
their classes that
would enter in September '68.
And so out of pangs of
conscience for the next year,
they started recruiting
in cities and in schools
that they had never
been in before.
And so that's why
by September of '69
there's a 10X increase
in the enrollment
of African-Americans, not
just at Harvard, but at Yale,
at Stanford.
Mostly the Ivy League and
the big state schools.
Because they were all
impacted by Dr. King's death.
Well that was choice number one.
Harvard made the
choice and led the way.
And others made it, as well.
When we stood at the
crossroads between chaos
and communication, and
community, I'm sorry,
we chose community.
As a matter of fact, we
chose communication, too.
We chose community.
Well fast forward.
In 2016, almost 50
years on this pathway,
on this investment in diversity,
with Drew Faust serving
as president, Harvard again
stood at the intersection
of those two roads.
Chaos or community.
And it was stimulated
largely by four forces.
And the four forces were there.
You ask Drew Faust,
as I did, what
led you to create
this task force
to take a look at how things
were going with diversity?
And she said, well, around that
time four things were going on.
We had a big controversy
at the law school.
Controversy over at SEAL.
That happened on campus.
But in Charleston, guy
walked into a church
and killed everyone
in a Bible study.
On campus we had an I,
Too, Am Harvard movement
where a lot of our
students of color
felt the need to assert
that I, too, am Harvard.
They were legitimate
Harvard students
but felt the need
to assert that.
And then there was the Black
Lives Matter movement happening
in the larger context.
So those four events
stimulated a concern
on the part of Drew Faust
and her senior team.
And I was an
overseer at the time.
And they noticed that many
in the Harvard community
seemed to be less able
to thrive than others.
And it seemed that those
less able to thrive
tended to be from, what they
called, groups previously
excluded.
Groups previously excluded.
And they decided that the
focus of this task force
report, this focus
was going to be
on groups previously excluded.
Now very simply,
when you recognize
that people are
less able to thrive,
you can either ignore that--
that would be chaos.
Or you could pay attention
to it and try to figure out
why it is and try to fix it.
That would be community.
And Drew Faust and her
team chose community.
She set up this task force.
They spent a year
trying to understand
what was going on there.
And they wrote this
task force report.
And they came up with a new
vision for Harvard University.
And the best line in the report,
I'd say it again and again,
the intellectual
fruits of diversity
do not harvest themselves.
There are things
that we have to do
beyond the admissions
and hiring decisions
to make sure that
everybody thrives.
Drew Faust said
that this work is
pursuant to realizing the full
promise of Harvard University.
Harvard cannot be Harvard
until we get this right.
Larry Bacow comes
in office and says,
this work is about achieving
true excellence involving
our full distribution of talent.
That's a powerful vision.
That vision was
not alive and well
when I was here at
Harvard in the '80s.
I wanted, I yearned for the
leadership to assert like that,
to recognize that Harvard had
been built for one profile,
for 333 years,
just that profile.
And then people of color come.
And the non-merger merge with
Radcliffe brings women more
fully into this environment.
So isn't it logical that after
three and a half centuries,
the place would be hardwired
to focus on one group?
It might take some work to
focus on everybody else.
That's what we're
talking about here.
And here's the thing about it.
This task force
recommended a survey.
And we conducted this survey.
Turned out to be the biggest
survey in the history
of Harvard University.
Raise your hand if you filled
out the survey, the Pulse
Survey.
Good.
I see most hands up.
24,000 people filled this out.
Most in Harvard's history.
And guess what the major
finding of the survey headline--
Drew Faust and her
team were right
when they suspected
that a lot of people
are less able to thrive.
All you have to do is
look at this finding.
If you consider the profile of
those who expressed the highest
amount of agreement
with the statement,
I feel like I belong.
There you see.
White males, heterosexual,
not first gen, US citizens,
standard politics,
Christian or Jewish.
With the exception
of Jewish, that
fits the profile of who Harvard
was founded for in 1636.
And focused on pretty
much almost exclusively
for three and a half centuries.
Conversely those with
the lowest agreement
are those pretty much the
opposite of that profile.
So now we have data.
We can see.
We know what we're solving for.
We have to figure out
what the institution has
to do to ensure that
everybody thrives.
Let me tell you why there's
so much at stake here.
There's so much at stake
because demographers tell us
that by 2042, the
profile of America
is going to look like this.
That's the racial
profile of America.
Now, you look at the last two
classes Harvard has admitted,
and this is to our
great advantage.
Our recent freshmen
classes resemble the world
that they, as Harvard
graduates, will be leading
20 to 30 years from now.
Advantage Harvard.
Right.
Because if you can
experience the kind of mix
of the world that's going to
be real, in America at least,
by the time you assume
leadership roles 20,
30 years from now,
you'll be advantage
because you were enriched
at Harvey university.
That's if we do the right
things on this campus.
Man.
This is hard work.
It's really important work.
But you know what?
It's crazy to think that
everybody favors this.
Even after Judge Burroughs
reaffirmed diversity
as constitutional
just last October,
not everybody agrees that
this is a good thing.
Not everybody agrees.
I can see that.
Let me frame the
questions more directly.
Let me say this, some are
whispering, is this progress?
Well, let's just ask a question.
Were 1969, when
diversity started,
and 2018, when Drew decided
that we need to figure out
how everybody can
thrive, were they
major steps toward or
from Harvard's highest
quality of existence?
That's the question.
That's a good question.
All right.
And what happens when a critical
mass of people in a community
are convinced that progress is
in a direction that is opposite
where we are headed?
That creates debate, doesn't it?
You know, I'm reminded of
one of my favorite films.
You all are mostly
young in here.
It's called the
Poseidon Adventure.
The Poseidon-- it's
about a big ship sinking.
I don't know if you heard of
an actor named Gene Hackman.
He was quite good.
He wasn't on the map
until he did this film.
And regarding this question we
have, which way is progress?
They had the same
question in that film.
And I think it just captures
the point precisely.
So I'm going to show it to you
and then we'll go from there.
Look.
My God.
There are other
people still alive.
All right.
You stay here.
Help the others out.
I'll see where they're going.
Where are you going?
We're following the doctor.
Doctor.
Doctor.
You're going the wrong way.
You're going towards the bow.
That's right, Reverend.
Wait.
Wait.
You can't get out that way.
Why not?
Because we're
settling by the bow.
The bow's underwater.
If you have to go anywhere,
go back toward the stern.
You'll get out through
the engine room.
All right?
The engine room is gone.
How do you know that?
The explosions.
You must have felt them.
The only way out is forward.
Did you-- did you
check the engine room?
Did you see it?
I don't have to.
We're going forward.
Please.
Come with us, Reverend.
You're going the
wrong way, damn it.
[LAUGHTER]
You're going the wrong way.
What do you do when
one way is chaos
and another way is
community or deliverance?
You have to choose well.
I want everyone in
here to know that we
are confident that the decision
to more intentionally harvest
the intellectual fruits of
diversity, that's the right way
to go.
It's the right way to go.
We're convinced of this.
And that's why our vision
is, Harvard University
will be the world's recognized
leader in sustainable inclusive
excellence by fostering
a campus culture
where everyone can thrive.
That's what the work is.
That's what the work is
that we're doing right now.
So then, what about the
FAS Science Division?
Now I'm going to bring it home.
All right.
What about this division
at Harvard University?
This is a good question.
I want you to know that
I feel very comfortable
in this sciences division.
As Dean Stubbs mentioned, I've
been around STEM this or that
for most of my life and career.
Two weeks after I
finished my program here,
I got married to
Carol Espy, who just
finished a PhD in electrical
engineering at MIT.
And we decided to
make a life here.
And we were both working
and living down at MIT.
I was a House Master,
is what we ironically
called a house master, in
a residence hall at MIT.
My wife and I. And
so we were living,
immersed in the life
of MIT for 16 years.
We raised three STEM kids.
We have one daughter
who finished Stanford
in physics and philosophy.
Have a son who finished
Princeton in philosophy.
And a daughter who finished
right here at Harvard
in applied math.
Now I know that's
not science division.
It's Seas.
But she did well and out there.
She just got a PhD
in applied math
from Berkeley, from
Michael Jordan.
She had a good time in math.
She is a mathematician.
I've been around STEM
just about all my life.
All right.
So I'm very comfortable here.
I looked you up.
I looked up this division.
And I know you've had some
remarkable points of pride.
You do pioneering, world class
work in genetics and in physics
and astronomy and astrophysics.
Yet, beside those
points of pride,
there's also some points
of pain and challenge.
I became aware of
a faculty survey
focused on the internal
climate and collegiality.
And I know it
focused on one area.
But it's believed to be
true for some other areas
that there was evidence
of mistreatment,
and harassment, and
maybe some bullying.
All this stuff that I'm familiar
with in a weed out culture.
All right.
The hierarchies and
things like that.
And it turns out that in
this particular study,
Harvard ranked 18th out of
20 compared to our peers.
18th out of 20.
I want you to know
that Harvard should not
be anywhere near the bottom
10% of anything we do.
We would not tolerate it if
we were near the bottom 10%
in genetics, or , astrophysics
or any other area.
And we should not
tolerate it when it comes
to climate and collegiality.
I'm just going to
assert that as true.
So the question is, what
are we going to do about it?
What can we do about it?
Our agenda at
Harvard University,
right now, is about diversity,
inclusion, and belonging.
They are the keys to
getting our climate
and our collegiality right.
They are the keys to
positioning everyone to thrive.
Which is the goal.
Everybody needs to thrive.
Here's what you need to know.
Diversity is quantitative.
Inclusion is behavioral.
And belonging is emotional.
You get that?
I want to give you three what
ifs to close this talk out.
Three what ifs in
each of those areas
as an advisory to FAS Science.
OK.
Each of these what ifs
with Dr. King in mind.
One in the area of
diversity, quantitative.
Another in the area of
inclusion, behavioral.
Third in the area of
belonging, which is emotional.
The first what if is
kind of foundational.
You know, basically, what if
the composition of FAS Sciences
began to resemble America 2042?
Or what if it began to resemble,
which it has a chance to,
the last couple of freshman
classes we just admitted?
What if we gradually
went in that direction
and started looking
like the world
that they will see and lead
when they come out of here?
That's a quantitative what if.
Simply affirming diversity,
making the decision
here that Harvard
University has already made.
So all you have to do is look
around the freshman class
and draw people this way.
And they will be drawn if we get
better at climate collegiality.
Now my son and grandson and
great grandson are preachers.
And when we pause like that,
you're supposed say, amen.
That's a joke, OK.
[LAUGHTER]
But that's the first what if.
Just imagine.
And these stubs kind
of refer to this,
that this is a challenge area.
You can't harvest diversity
that you don't have.
All right.
So why don't we start
moving that direction?
The second what if that
I want to deal with
has to do with leveraging
a science based
point made in history.
Not many people know
this, but science
drove one of the most important
Supreme Court decisions
ever made.
Two people who see up
here are doctor's Kenneth
and Mamie Clark.
They both went to Howard
University back in the '40s.
And they each got a PhD in
psychology from Columbia.
He was the first
African-American male
to get one.
And she was the first
African-American woman
to get one.
They both got it from Columbia.
And they started taking
a look at the effect
of racism on young kids.
They did a famous doll study.
And their research
in the '40s ended up
being cited by the Supreme
Court in its 1954 Brown v Board
decision that led to
the desegregation of K
through 12 education in America.
It was a landmark decision.
And these two were heroes to
Dr. Martin Luther King, Junior.
And when Kenneth Clark was asked
about his life's work in 1978,
after King is long gone,
he made this comment.
He said, we had a shared faith
that the truths of science
and the goals of justice and
equality were consistent.
All right.
So here's the second what if.
What if the graduates
of this division
became the world's
best at connecting
the truths of science
to the goals of justice?
That's just a what if.
That's a Morehouse
style question.
That's a King style question.
What if?
What if we became the
best at using science
to literally change
human behavior?
What if, as we solve our
climate problems on campus,
the graduates from this
division can take lead
in solving our climate
change problems globally?
That's a big what if.
And what if our graduates
became the leaders
in the war against inequity
and inequality in this world?
This little boy was on the
cover of The Economist magazine
back in 2007.
You can see in his hand he has a
cell phone that he made of mud.
The article cover story was
about the digital divide
which is still with us.
That's a what if.
Because science can be used
to change human behavior
and bring about more
equality, less inequity.
But finally, beyond the
quantitative and behavioral
is the emotional.
Belonging.
Diversity, inclusion,
and belonging.
Belonging is a-- it's a feeling.
And I need you to understand
that if Harvard can finally
make people, perhaps from
groups previously excluded,
feel like they belong, make
them feel it in their gut,
then we will be fulfilling
the full promise of Harvard
University.
We'll be at our highest stage
of development institutionally.
You know, when people feel
they belong, they thrive.
All right.
They work better.
They work smarter.
They work harder.
They produce more.
It is the definition
of community.
So to make this
final point, I just
want to underscore something.
You see this man right here.
I've gotten to know him--
I got to know him
from a distance,
but got to know
him close up when
I came here to work at Harvard.
Dr. Paul Farmer's PhD
is from Harvard FAS.
And his life and
career have made
him a general in the war
between love and hate,
in the war between
chaos and community.
And if you have any sense of
his story, and you should,
he's written a number of books.
Imagine making people feel like
they belong just by showing up.
But rather than recite the
difference he has made,
I remember Spike
said, John, show.
Don't tell.
I'm just going to
give you one scene
that I think captures his life.
And a life that I think
is a model for us all.
Here's a one quick scene.
15 seconds.
[FOREIGN LANGUAGE]
[FOREIGN LANGUAGE] You're
not going to die yet.
You're not going to die yet.
Dr. Paul Farmer is here.
I want you to stand,
Dr. Farmer, please.
Let's give him a hand.
[APPLAUSE]
I want you to hear this.
What if the graduates
of this division,
based on what they learn here
and the way they learn it,
became the recognized
leaders in using science
to effectively assure
people on this planet,
you're not going to die yet?
What if they became
the recognized
leader in telling
the planet itself,
you're not going to die yet?
This kind of approach to
life is worthy of emulation.
And guess what?
It just so happens to be a
great way to honor Dr. King.
So in the spirit of Dr.
King and in his memory,
I am convinced that choosing to
be a community where everyone
thrives is going the right way.
It is the same as
choosing love over hate,
and community over chaos.
It is the same as choosing a
happy ending over a sad one.
And speaking of happy endings,
I close by showing you the gift
that Dr. King gave us all
on the night before he died.
What will happen now?
We've got some
difficult days ahead.
But it really doesn't
matter with me now.
Because I've been
to the mountaintop.
[CHEERING]
And I don't mind.
Like anybody, I would
like to live a long life.
Longevity has its place.
But I'm not concerned
about that now.
I just want to do God's will.
And he has allowed me to
go up to the mountain.
I've looked over and I've
seen the promised land.
I may not get there with you.
But I want you to know the
night that we as a people
will get to the promised land.
[CHEERING]
So I'm happy tonight.
I'm not worried about anything.
I'm not fearing any man.
Mine eyes have seen the glory
of the coming of the Lord.
Thank you very much.
[APPLAUSE]
Thank you.
Thank you.
