Lynn Huntley '67: On Giving Back
In her remarks at Reunion 2007, alumna Lynn Jones Huntley ’67 emphasized that “women of color who have been privileged to receive a top quality education at Barnard College have a special obligation, indeed a mandate, to give back.” Huntley ’67 was the guest speaker at the Alumnae of Color dinner on May 31. Her remarks are presented below.
I am very glad to be back at Barnard for this special occasion, a gathering of women of color who have had the privilege of attending this august institution. Although I am one of the “oldest rats in the barn.” In fact it seems like only yesterday when I was a young girl fresh from Nashville, Tennessee, crossing through the gates of Barnard with anticipation and trepidation to begin the next phase of her education. Before coming to Barnard, I had participated in the March on Washington, and the Voting Rights Act of l965 had been enacted. But I could not have foreseen the level of energy and activism that I experienced upon entering Barnard. The campus was literally alive with women’s rights activism, speech giving and rallies. The anti-war movement was in full swing. Civil rights activism was at its height. There was always some type of meeting of Barnard women going on at which we conspired to liberate ourselves and the nation from sexism, racism, classism, and other forms of radical inequality.
My years at Barnard were full of hard work and demanding professors and homework, but they also were filled with hope and inspiration for the future. Barnard gave skills to me, and I am sure to you, and a sense of possibilities that will last for our lifetimes. So we all owe our beloved Barnard College, its faculty, professors, support personnel, trustees, and administrators a large debt of gratitude.
In preparing these brief remarks I wondered quite a bit about what I might say that those here assembled would find of interest. I found myself pondering about the framework of “women of color.” In truth, the women here at this dinner are doubtless very different in interests, professions, walks of life, race and ethnicity, culture, and even values. What is it, I thought, that we have in common?
Let me answer the question. We each have the experience of being a member of a minority group and a gender in a country that has often talked in its official documents about equality of all people, but has too often in practice betrayed that lofty sentiment. We have consciousness of these disparities, not only as an academic matter, but also in our own lives and that of others. Consciousness is what binds us together.
I learned at Barnard that the aim of education is not solely to help us gain wealth, status, and comfortable lives. We are called, I came to believe, to be and do more than that. As Dr. Benjamin E. Mays, the former president of Morehouse College, has said,
Shakespeare is not known by his wealth, but by Othello, Macbeth, Hamlet and Julius Caesar. Nobody stops to ask how much wealth Socrates had when he died; Socrates is known by dying as the first martyr for freedom of speech. Nobody cares how much wealth Booker T. Washington had when he died. Tuskegee gave him immortality. Martin Luther King, Jr., will not be known by his wealth, but as one of the greatest prophets of the 20 th century, brining hope and liberation to millions of people around the world…. Nehru was wealthy and high caste, but history knows him as one who turned his back on wealth and caste, suffered with his people and became the first Prime Minister of independent India. Gandhi is known as the 98-pound man who lifted India off its hinges through non-violent activities.
The sense of possibilities, the capacity to do good and effect change inheres in each of us. Each of us faces the challenge to become bigger than ourselves.
It is fitting that we should gather here in a place of higher education because the concluding thoughts that I wish to share relate to education, the field in which I work.
Today, there is a major fault line criss-crossing the nation. It is the fault line of education inequality. In the south, from whence I hail, evidence of the consequences of education inequality is everywhere. The region is home to 40 percent of the nation’s poor people. A majority of the nation’s African Americans and a third of America’s Latinos live in the south. A majority of public school students are poor. Most don’t have the chance to attend quality pre-school to become ready for success in school and in life. Many are held back even in kindergarten.
Imagine being made to feel like a failure when you are only four years old! Drop out rates are in many locales in excess of 40 percent. In Louisiana and Mississippi, out of every 100 ninth graders, less than 13 will finish college. Most scholarship aid is based on grades, rather than need, contributing to low rates of college attendance by low-income students. Southern students score the lowest on standardized tests, have the lowest rates of high school graduation, and the bleakest future prospects to earn livable wages or enjoy a good quality of life as a result. In many, many ways, the business of the civil rights era and the war on poverty is still unfinished.
This is the work to which the Southern Education Foundation attends. SEF is the only region-wide public charity in the south that works from pre-school through higher education to advance equity and excellence in education for the children and communities that need help the most.
Education is a tough area in which to work. Many in the old “confederacy” have a high tolerance level for poverty, especially when the people at the bottom are the people who have always been at the bottom. Many in public office would rather pander to the interests of middle class voters than make the case for greater investment in the education of the poor. Many in business benefit from a large reservoir of unskilled laborers. Most discouraging, many people see education as an individual benefit rather than a social good. Education to them is a competitive arena rather than a vehicle for creating a baseline of decent quality of life for everyone. The upper and middle classes of all races and ethnicities have abandoned the public schools, ensuring that their children have good education through private means and depriving public schools of influential advocates and supporters.
SEF seeks to combat these trends by underscoring the link between education and a healthy democracy. It works to educate the public about the consequences of lack of education on crime, imprisonment, poor health, and other such measures. It promotes awareness of how in the global economy it is no longer to anyone’s advantage to have large numbers of poorly skilled people if a decent quality of life is to be enjoyed by all. High-end jobs require advanced education and skills. Lack of a well-educated workforce retards economic growth and competitiveness in the global marketplace. SEF also works with the region’s 77 historically black colleges to help them meet accreditation standards, improve governance, and close the digital divide. SEF puts “inconvenient” information about poverty and suffering and inequality before policymakers and business, civic, community and other leaders and demands accountability. SEF is pressing to ensure that all little children have access to quality pre-kindergarten programs to ready them for success in school and in life, and so much more. This is my life’s work. This is my way of giving back.
In closing, let me say this: The women of color who have been privileged to receive a top quality education at Barnard College have a special obligation, indeed a mandate, to give back. We must support Barnard as it helps new generations of young women find their way. We must help our nation find its moral compass again and understand the national interest in helping all young people, irrespective of station in life, have access to more and better education.
As you enjoy this reunion, I hope that all those here assembled will find or make time for a bit of introspection about our life journeys. I hope that we will find time, as Dr. Howard Thurman, a theologian of color once wrote, to “center down.” He said:
- How good it is to center down!
- To sit quietly and see one’s self pass by!
- The streets of our minds seethe with endless traffic;
- Our spirits resound with clashings, with noisy silences,
- While something deep within hungers and thirsts for the still moment and the resting lull.
- With full intensity we seek, ere the quiet passes, a fresh sense of order in our living;
- A direction, a strong sure purpose that will structure our confusion and bring meaning to our chaos.
- We look at ourselves in this waiting moment—the kinds of people we are.
- The questions persist: what are we doing with our lives?—what are the motives that order our days?
- What is the end of our doings? Where are we trying to go?
- Where do we put the emphasis and where are our values focused?
- For what end do we make sacrifices? Where is my treasure and what do I love most in life?
It is my fondest hope that each of us finds worthy answers to these questions and use our education to extend to others the blessings that we now enjoy.
Lynn Jones Huntley is president of the Southern Education Foundation (SEF) and a former Barnard Trustee. A native of Petersburg, Va., Huntley is the first black woman president of SEF. She attended Fisk University and graduated with honors from Barnard College and Columbia University Law School, where she was the first black woman to earn a place on the Columbia Law Review. |
