Dr. James E. Cheek Inauguration Address, April 25, 197

Cheek, James E.

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Howard University: Digital Howard

New DirectionsVolume 6 | Issue 4 Article 117-1-1979To Seek a New Direction Howard in the SeventiesJames E. CheekFollow this and additional works at: http://dh.howard.edu/newdirectionsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by Digital Howard @ Howard University. It has been accepted for inclusion in New Directions byan authorized administrator of Digital Howard @ Howard University. For more information, please contact lopez.matthews@howard.edu.Recommended CitationCheek, James E. (1979) "To Seek a New Direction Howard in the Seventies," New Directions: Vol. 6: Iss. 4, Article 11.Available at: http://dh.howard.edu/newdirections/vol6/iss4/11To Seek a New Direction-Howard in the SeventiesBy James E. Cheek(IMuguration address, April 25, 1970)ur nation, just seven yearsaway from the 200th anni-versary of its revolution forfreedom and human equality,is required to fulfill for our generationand in our time the promise it made tothe world almost two centuries ago. Hav-ing fought on foreign shores several warsto defend, preserve and protect its beliefs,our nation is now required to wage aharder struggle within its borders tomake those beliefs a reality for all of itscitizens.What we do as a nation in the next sixyears will be watched around the worldby friend and foe alike to see whetherthis republic is willing and able to honorin practice what it proclaims in principle.At no other time in American historyhas the danger to the American societybeen so great.Today, the real danger to the Ameri-can ideal does not lie among the peopleon foreign shores; it lies within our ownmidst and is represented by those whoseek to preserve a system that is oppres-sive, by those who attempt to defend asociety that is fragmented and by thosewho try to preserve an ideology thatdenies human liberty.In the initial years of this new decadethe critical struggle of the nation will beat home and not abroad; and the effec-tiveness of our foreign policy will bedetermined by the character and sub-stance of our domestic practices.How a nation allocates its resourcesand to what issues it chooses to directthe people's will, reveal what a nationvalues most, what it cherishes, and whatit hopes to be.At the time when the American ideawas being created, the founding fatherscast their lot on the side of justice, free-dom and equality. In words that stillecho around the globe, they pledged anew nation to the fulfillment of man'sancient quest for human liberty. And byacts of courage and fortitude, they madeplain that the rights ofmen do not derivefrom the generosity of the state but fromthe benevolence of God.The revolutionary idea of a societywhere men would be free, where the op-portunities would be open and where thebenefits would be equitable remains to-day as an idea which generates in thehearts of men acts of courage and valor.The validity of that idea will be tested inour time in a manner it has never beentested before.In recent days, our attention has beendirected to a special problem that facesthe planet earth.Our national leadership has pledgedthe nation's resources and galvanizedthe nation's will to confront and resolvethe pollution of our physical environ-ment. We have been awakened to thedangers which our technology has cre-ated, and we are preparing to fashion atechnology to remove them.Without question, the issue of ourphysical environment is an issue of over-riding concern and demands the atten-tion it is now receiving. But the pollu-tion of our air, of our waters, of our soil,and the traffic jams of our highways arenot the issues that will decide the fateof the nation.The crises of our time and the realdangers to our national health are to befound in our social environment: in thesickness of our cities, in the failures ofour public schools, in the alienation ofthe young, in the crises between Blackand white and in the denial of equalaccess to the opportunities, rewards andbenefits of our society to one tenth ormore of our native born citizens.The noble vision which inspired theAmerican effort has become blurred, andthe gallant will to make a dream cometrue has become paralyzed.We can cleanse our air and purify ourlakes and rivers, beautify our landscapeand solve the problems of transportationand still remain a society in fragments,a people without values, and a collec-tion of states not united in will orpurpose.While we must manage knowledge tosave the environment, it is also requiredthat we create new knowledge to save 43the republic.Without a doubt, the decade of the'70s will force our nation to come toterms-perhaps once and for all-withthe issue of race and racism. At variousstages in our national history this issuehas suffered from neglect, both benignand malignant. In successive turns it hasbeen treated indifferently, hypocriticallyand cosmetically. Always manipulatedby the requirements of political expedi-ency, seldom if ever the object of politi-cal duty, the question of race now standsbefore us as that one question that maydecide the fate of the nation and pos-sibly the fate of the world.Our generation will not be privilegedto defer to the next generation the solu-tion to this problem that divides the na-tion and that now threatens to tearapart the American fabric.The gravity of this threat cannot beexaggerated and the urgency of the taskwe face cannot be overstated.One hundred and three years ago, thisuniversity was established to be one ofthe major instruments to assist in thetask of healing the wounds created bycivil strife and of righting the wrongscaused by generations of bondage.It has served our nation and our peoplewell. Those who have guided its devel-opment over more than a century-through times of tranquility and tur-bulence-never lost sight of the missionto be discharged or of the purpose to bepursued. We salute and honor with pro-found gratitude their vigilance, theirsense of duty, their sacrifices, their pa-tience in tribulation and their rejoicingin hope.Our country and our world owe tothem a lasting debt.Now we have been summoned to takeupon our shoulders the continuing taskof helping our country fulfill its promiseand of assisting our people in realizingtheir capability. Ours is a very specialcharge.In the new decade we have just en-tered, we have begun an earnest searchNEW DIRECTIONS JULY 197944 for a new direction, we have learned al-ready that Howard in this decade mustbe willing to be one of the principal ar-chitects of our national destiny and oneof the major engineers of our society'schange.We understand very well the bold de-mand that universities remain aloof fromthe great issues and questions of socialchange, social goals and social purposes.Those who make such a demand insistthat universities maintain a posture ofinterested detachment in order to pre-serve their academic freedom.But while at Howard "academic free-dom" is to be cherished and valued,human freedom is cherished and valuedmore. Hence we cannot stand aloof,morally neutral and socially passive. Forus the business of education must beconducted not in the atmosphere of themuseum where men are gathered to con-template the past, but in the atmosphereof the true university where men aregathered to create the future.In every discipline that we shall offer,the knowledge we transmit, the truthwe pursue, and the public service werender, will be guided by a profound un-derstanding of the value and worth ofhumanli£e.we shall strive to fashion the educa-tion we offer into a force for social re-generation marching hand in hand withthe living and creative forces of the so-cialorder.As a university, we may not add muchto the world's understanding of how bestto navigate the distance of space inman's reach for the stars, but we surelycan and must add mightily to the world'sunderstanding of how man can best re-move the distance between peoples andraces in our search for peace and justiceon earth.We can bring to the new decade beforeus a profoundly new sense of man'sworth and ultimate nobility, and build-ing upon that create for ourselves andfuture generations a new humanismwhich may help to prevent the destruc-NEW DIRECTIONS JULY 19791969 Phototion of man and of mankind by thecreations of his own mind and by theinstruments of his own hands.This, Howard is able to do.In the liberal arts, we must seek andfind wholly new ground on which tofashion an aristocracy of knowledge andon which to create an aristocracy ofleadership which will not be the exclu-sive possession of a particular race of oneethnic group. We shall use the liberal artstruly to liberate and from that experi-ence our students will know more pro-foundly the character of the quarry fromwhich they have been dug and the na-ture of the rock from which they havebeen hewn. They shall have a pride thatno man dare ridicule and they shall pos-sess a dignity that no man dare dishonor.Inthe fine arts, we shall honor andcelebrate the peculiar genius thatlong s,uffering and great oppressionhave fashioned as one of history'sgreatest gifts to man's understanding ofhuman experience. In the visual and per-forming arts and in the inspired musicdrawn from the soul of a people we shallexhibit to the world a culture that noman can call deprived.We shall train in our School of Law anew generation of jurists: men and wom-en who will use the law to seek the endsof social justice and thereby preservefor both Black and white human liberty.In our Colleges of Medicine and Den-tistry and the related schools of thehealth professions, we shall try as dili-gently as we can to produce men andwomen who will regard a healthy bodyand a healthy mind as a human right andnot a privilege. By the examples of theirteachers as well as by their precepts, weshall endow our students with the spiritof human compassion and with a pro-round regard for the sacredness of humanlife. We shall seek to inspire them toLake their art and science into the deltasof Mississippi, into the rural country-side and into the urban jungles of ourcities to practice that art and sciencenot for economic profit but for humanwell-being.In all of our other professional schools-Engineering, Architecture, Business,Education, Religion and Social Work-we shall begin the development of thenew know ledge and the fashioning of thenew social technology that will raise upnew kinds of social engineers, techni-cally competent and morally committedto the special needs of Black Americans,the institutions which serve them andthe communities which they inhabit.And in the new schools and collegesthat we shall create, and in the specialinstitutes we shall establish, we shallseek to formulate new norms of excel-lence and more effective methods ofextending the university beyond thecampus to enhance the communitywhich is our home as well as the com-munity across the seas. We shall seek tolead and not to imitate, and in all weundertake to do we shall try to fashiona community of scholars where all thestudents are teachers and all the instruc-tors are learners. By such an example, wehope to help the academic world towardthat reform the times demand.We shall try to withhold prior judge-ment on who can be educated and whocan profit from the experiences we offer.We shall establish an eliteness based up-on what we graduate rather than uponwhat and whom we admit.The national interest dictates thatthere be at least one university in thisland unashamedly devoted-in its pub-lic service-to the special problems andspecial issues which the legacy of racehas created. Howard is commanded tobe such a university.In our effort to help our nation renewitself, we must stand before our country-men and before the world as a bold andvivid contradiction to the belief thatBlack men and the institutions whicherve them are inherently, intrinsicallyand generically inferior.By thelabor of this institution in thedecade of the '70s, we shall try to de-stroy the myth of white supremacy andexalt the reality of human equality.Without apology for our origin, withoutshame for our character and withoutequivocation about our purpose, weshall try to help our nation take an hon-orable change of direction.The hazards of the course we have setare well-known to us i the dangers in thistask are both vivid and real. But eachgeneration of men must confront thetasks it has been assigned.Ours is no easy assignment, but itmust be done. How well it is dischargedwill depend in large measure upon thewillingness of all of us to take up eachother's burdens in order that the op-pressed may go free.With the hand of God to guide ourfootsteps and the torch of right and jus-tice to light our way, we pledge our bestefforts and our best energies to the serv-ice of our people on behalf of our na-tion's future. D45NEW DIRECTIONS JULY 197946... with Geraldine P. Woods, chairman of the Boar;of Trustees and U.N. Ambassador Andrew Young,a graduate of Howard.

To Seek a New Direction
Howard in the Seventies

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To Seek a New Direction Howard in the Seventies

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