"Join the losing team": A commencement address that made me cry

Cynthia Starks:

I can't remember ever crying at a commencement speech - not one I attended and heard live and certainly not one I read after it was given.

But that changed this week when I read the commencement address given on May 22 at the University of Pennsylvania by Geoffrey Canada, president and CEO of the Harlem Children's Zone, a New York City organization devoted to breaking "the cycle of generational poverty for the thousands of children and families it serves."

Canada's speech is powerful in its honesty about the shape of the world today; it brought me to tears because of a personal story he tells; yet it remains hopeful because of the redemptive possibility with which it ends.

Canada begins his speech by telling the class of 2012 their graduation "is a great moment for you, and it could be a great moment for our country."

He explains, "You are graduating at a time when our country is desperate for highly educated women and men who will fight to see through the veils of pure self-interest and half-truths to search for what is truly moral and just."

Posted by Jim Zellmer at July 2, 2012 4:23 AM
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