 Gracious God, all people are your beloved across races, nationalities, religions, sexual orientations, and all the ways we are distinctive from one another. We are all manifestations of your image. We are bound together in an inescapable network of mutuality, entied to a single garment of destiny. You call us into your unending work of justice, peace, and love. In response to your grace, please let us know your presence among us now. Let us delight in our diversity that offers glimpses of the mosaic of your beauty. Strengthen us with your steadfast love and transform our despairing fatigue into hope-filled action. Under the shadow of your wings in this hour may we find rest and strength, renewal, and hope. We ask this today, inspired by the example of your disciple, Martin Luther King, Jr. Amen. Please be seated. Our reading for today is from the fifth chapter of Matthew's Gospel. You have heard that it was said, an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, but I say to you, do not resist an evil doer. But if anyone strikes you on the right cheek, turn the other also. And if anyone wants to sue you and take your coat, give your cloak as well. And if anyone forces you to go one mile, go also the second mile. Give to everyone who begs from you, and do not refuse anyone who wants to borrow from you. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy. But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Holy wisdom, holy word, thanks be to God. The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Lecture has been a tradition at Gustavus Adolphus College since 1986. Past speakers have included Pulitzer Prize-winning author Taylor Branch, philosopher and activist Cornell West, and Martin Luther King III, among others. Now in its 29th year, the lecture continues to host speakers whose work consistently reflects the late Dr. King's ethics of civil rights, non-violence, and justice. To quote Dr. King, the ultimate measure of man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. Today's speaker embodies the memory of King as he helps ordinary people recognize their potential to be extraordinary leaders in both times of comfort and controversy. As the president and founder of the Washington Consulting Group in Baltimore, Maryland, the Reverend Dr. Jamie Washington works to develop multicultural organizations through education on topics of faith, sexuality, race, and gender. He teaches groups to recognize privilege and oppression, as well as implement inclusion. As a founding member and the president of the Social Justice Training Institute, Dr. Washington aids diversity trainers in achieving their goals as social justice educators through discussion and participation in community activities. Dr. Washington himself has served as an educator and administrator in higher education for over 30 years. He served as the assistant vice president for student affairs, as well as an instructor in education, sociology, American studies, and women's studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. A graduate of Howard University School of Divinity, Dr. Washington is presently the pastor at Unity Fellowship Church of Baltimore. He holds a PhD in college student development with a concentration in multicultural education from the University of Maryland College Park. Dr. Washington works every day to help people find the best in themselves and others and believes that we can all use ourselves to be an instrument of change. He lives by the words of his favorite song. It was sung at the funeral of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. If I can help somebody as I pass along, if I can cheer somebody with a word or song, if I can show somebody that they've traveled wrong, then my living shall not be in vain. In the spirit of peacemaking and justice seeking that brings us together today, let us all give a warm round of applause for the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial lecturer for 2015, the Reverend Dr. Jamie Washington. Thank you. Then my living shall not be in vain. Thank you. And good morning. Okay, so we are in a celebration experience. We are in an experience that is about remembering. It is about celebrating where we've been. It is about looking at 50 years later the work continuing. How do we live the legacy of Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King in our own time? I am so excited to be back at Gustavus and honored to serve as your 29th speaker for this wonderful, wonderful event. As we come together today, for me, one of the things that is important about this celebration is that it is not simply a place where we just come and are able to sit and to listen, but we are able to look out and see who we are as a community that decided that this is how we wanted to spend our time. Lots of folks are doing many different things on this day and you all decided that at least for an hour or so of your day, you would come and be a part of this experience. With that named, I want you to look around the room. I want you to see the faces of people, some of whom you know and some of whom you don't know. And so before I say anything about what Dr. King stood for and what it means for us to live the legacy, I want you to greet each other. So what you're going to do in the next three minutes is you're going to say hi to four or five people. You're going to give the piece at the end. Right now what I'm talking about is saying hi to four or five people that you don't know and you're going to sit with someone that you didn't know when you came into the chapel. Go. Wonderful. Excellent. Begin to find a partner, someone you didn't know. Begin to find someone you didn't know and have a sneak. Make a new friend. Excellent. Perfect. Thank you so much. And I'm going to move into my remarks in just a moment, but what my experience has been and I've been doing these kinds of talks for nearly 20 years and every time I go into a space it's a wonderful group of folks who come together and we often go in and we sit next to the people that we know and the folks that we know we wanted to come with and we leave the space and there's very little community built. There's very little connection built around why it is that you came and why it is that I came and what we see and how can we be in community together to continue the work and the legacy of the Reverend Dr. Mark Youth the King and all those who were with him and those who went before him. And so I don't start any of my talks without creating an opportunity for community so that you know I'm not just trying to fill time. I'm a black preacher. I don't have a problem filling time. Okay. There I can go an hour hour and a half whatever you need me to do. But what my intention is in this moment is for us as the Gustavus community to come together. And so before I start my remarks, I'm just going to give you about three minutes just with your new partner just to introduce yourself. And then I want you to have a quick conversation. I want you to talk for a moment about why you came and what you see as you look around that has it necessary for this work to continue. What do you see as you look around that has it necessary for this work to continue? You've got about three minutes. Have a conversation. One more minute. All right. Excellent. Let's begin to wrap our comments and focus back this way. Thank you so much. Give your partner a high five. High five them. Yeah, that's it. That's it. Exactly. Wonderful. This is your living the legacy high five buddy. So anytime you see this person anywhere on campus, you run up to him and give him a high five. Remind them of the importance of living the legacy. Even if you can't get to them, give them a air high five, right? So just let them know it will help you remember in the tough times and when we're not in this kind of moment that the work continues. Thank you so much for starting in that way. My hope is that now as I move into my comments, you are sitting in the energy of why you're in the room. It doesn't matter so much that just that I'm here and that it's this day, the 29th anniversary of the celebration. I'm so proud to say that Gustavus has been doing this since the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Holiday has been an annual holiday in 1986. But it does matter what we are doing here together today. And so I want to acknowledge Jordan. I thank you for Jordan for that wonderful introduction and for the leadership of this fine institution, for the committee that has worked so hard to make sure that I got here and all the emails and things back and forth that we did to make that happen. And my dear friend and colleague, Pearl Leonard Rock, who is my and yeah, we can clap for her. Yes, we can. And so I'm so grateful for the work that she does. She is a living legacy. I also want to honor as I start today, I want to honor the ancestors, the nails we can name and those that we can't name. I want to honor, particularly today, the shoulders that I stand on and that of my parents, my mother and that Washington and father, James Washington, they taught me what it meant to leave a legacy. It is in their memory that I share these words today. They taught me to walk in purpose and on purpose. And so I'm excited about this opportunity to share with you. And so I just put my watch up here. As I get started, I'm reminded of my time. I often start with sharing this story about an African American man and who had a very dear white friend and took him to his church for the first time. And when they got to church together, the white friend asked the black friend some questions. So what does it mean when they hold their finger up just before they get ready to move? And he shared with them that that's a way of asking for permission and not being interrupting of the service. What does it mean that there is an, after the offering is taken, there's an extra plate that's left at the altar and that sometimes people come up and put more money in that. And that's a sacrificial offering that sometimes folks will share based upon the message or whatever is happening. And then he said, well, what does it mean when the preacher takes off his watch and puts it on the top of the pulpit? And he said, absolutely nothing. And so today I know that I have a limited amount of time. I can get going and get really excited, particularly as I come together in community with folks on this day around this topic, around what I really in many ways feel like I have been positioned on the earth to do. And so every year at this time, you can count on hearing on the radio, on television, on the web, on YouTube, that I have a dream speech. A speech that has been deemed one of the best ever written in American history. Speech that spoke truth to power, that offered a message of hope and a picture of the future. You know the speech, the famous words, I have a dream. Dr. King dreamed of a world that he did not yet see where blacks and whites and Jews and Gentiles and Catholics and Protestants could all be seen and valued and respected as all a part of the divine creation. This dream, in fact, is a vision. For it did contain the major components of a vision, that a vision is bold, that is future driven, it's compelling, it's service oriented, and it's expandable. The challenge is, my friends, that we face in 2015 is that many of us are still stuck in the 1963 dream. Many of us believe that because we can sit in an auditorium, sit in a beautiful sanctuary like this, where we see blacks and whites and Jews and Gentiles and Muslims and gays and straights, because we see us together, that all is done, all is well. And so each generation will have its work to do. Each generation will have its work to do, to hold us true to what we say we value. Reverend Dr. King and those that went before him and those who were with him worked hard to tear down the legal barriers. I got to share at breakfast this morning, that was a particular space in time and while Dr. King became the icon of that era, it was not him alone, he didn't start it and it wasn't just him who did the work. My generation and the generations that came after me have benefited from the tearing down of those walls. We got to work through some of what the first round of the dream looked like. The next round of the work, which we are all in now, is to figure out now how we live together and continue to fight for liberty and justice for all. In the year 2015, how many of you would agree that there's still groups of people who get treated here and groups of people who get treated here? Seeing, heard, valued, respected differently than others. How many folks agree that's still alive and well, right? And if you agree that that's alive and well in order for us to live the legacy in the present time, we must have a problem with that. It is not enough simply to know that there is injustice. We have to be upset by that. We have to be willing to look at what's our part in that. Once we have all agreed, as many of you did in the room, that this is alive and well, you must then own that sometimes I'm a member of this group, and sometimes I'm a member of this group. And what do I do on a daily basis to keep this alive and well? And when I use this imagery, folks, I'm talking about the dynamics of oppression, the dynamics of exclusion that still exist in our world. And so when I begin to own that I'm sometimes a member of this group and sometimes a member of this group, that I then must begin to think about what is my vision for a greater and more inclusive world? What does it look like? What would be happening in this world? We must look out and envision that which we don't see as Dr. King named. We must be willing to own our part in maintaining status quo. And as long as we show up in the world in a way that has us not engage the dynamics of difference, we serve to keep this dynamic alive and well. We cannot simply say I have friends who are. We cannot simply say I've dated someone who is. We cannot simply say my grandchildren are. We cannot simply say I've wrote a book or I've taught a class. Therefore, I have done the work to shift the dynamic. How am I living in relationship to the dynamic of injustice and oppression that is alive and well today? And so for many of us, this conversation is one that we are comfortable talking about our individual successes, what I do at the individual level, who I'm in relationship with at the individual level, who I have community with at the individual level. And sometimes even in those individual level conversations, we're not talking about difference. We're also comfortable talking about organization, systems, and society. We are able to engage that this systematic oppression is alive and well. And so we can talk about the legal system being unjust. We can talk about medical systems being unjust. We can talk about education being unjust. And so we make our individual selves good and the systems bad. And as long as we do that, then we can abdicate our responsibility because the system is too big for us to fix. I want to challenge you today to not just look at yourself as an individual, but also own that you are a member of multiple groups. And you have to own your group membership as a member of this group or this group or the blending and not so easily binary understanding of it. So you can begin to see what is my responsibility in helping to change. I entered this conversation many years ago as a member of these groups, really focusing on my minoritized space where I experience pain and where I experience struggle and wanting the world to be better for me and those who are like me. And that was an important piece of the work. But as long as I only focused on my minoritized identities, I served to keep this alive and well. It requires that I also own my places of power and privilege. It also requires that I own the places of entitlement. And if I don't own my group identities in those spaces, again, I serve to show up in some of the dark side of that. And so when I began to own male privilege, I began to see a different dynamic. When I began to own Christian dominance and Christian privilege, I began to see some different dynamics. When I began to own my able-bodied privilege, I began to see some different dynamics. And I also began to show up with some more compassion. Because when I realized the same thing that I was asking of white people, women were asking of me, I was like, ooh, that's what's going on. When I realized that there was some space for some grace and some patience around ability, I began to show up in a very different way in the conversation. So for me, the notion of living the legacy requires that I own my full self. Now for many of us, this whole notion of understanding, exploring, and engaging our full identities may be a new thing. We may just be starting. For some of us, we've been in it for a long time. And my hope is that the last parts of my remarks will help you to continue to stay in it and for those of us who are new to see what we need to do to fully be in it. And so it's 2015 and the work continues. We can come together today and we can look out on the world and we can see the dynamics that have happened in our country in just the last year. We can look at what's happened in the world beyond that time. And it's easy for us to get centered and focused on just those incidents and events. Those incidents and events, I would say, are reminders for us that the work continues. It helps us when we've lulled ourselves into a false sense of security. And because the world that we travel in or the space that we share with others here at Gustavus might be that liberal or the honest space or the space where we don't have the Ferguson incidents, because we know better than to respond in some of those ways, we can lull ourselves into a false sense of security. I want to challenge you to recognize the Ferguson's that are happening right around you. How they're happening in our communities, on our campuses, in our residence halls every day. And the work that is needed to move beyond simply putting band-aids on or simply paying attention to our intentions and simply MLK celebrations requires that we slow ourselves down and begin to do the following. The first is communities are built through building relationships of commitment and trust. Are we working together to build a community of commitment and trust? A community where we can say what we need to say, where we can ask what we need to ask, where we can begin to fail what it means to be together and trust that we're going to hang in there with each other, even when it doesn't feel good. Do I trust that you will have my back when I disagree with you? Do I trust that I can give you the feedback about the way you treated me or about what you said that showed up very much as a microaggression? It didn't come out in this absolute way, but that you won't spend all of your time letting me know what your intention was, but you will spend time hearing the impact of your statement. Communities are built through building relationships of commitment and trust. The first thing that that requires folks is that we talk about the difference. We cannot do that if we just pretend that the difference does not exist. The notion of color blindness or difference blindness does not serve us in this current state. In the current age, if we're to move forward, the blindness in fact does take away from our humanity, takes away from our real lived experience. I share this example all the time that I had friends when I was younger who would say to me, Jamie, you know I don't even see you as black and in 2015, I still have friends who say to me, Jamie, I don't see you as black. Now, while I know that the intention in that statement isn't to do me harm, what happens when that statement is made, it is an acknowledgement that you don't see my lived experience. Because guess what folks, every day, 24 hours a day and twice on Sundays, that's exactly who I am. And so my first hope is that if we're going to build communities and relationships of commitment and trust, is that we can hold each other in our diversity and engage authentically in that. The next thing that I need us to do is to know that we all are doing the best we can most of the time. That we show up in understanding that for the most part, none of us get up in the morning saying, I'm looking to mess up today. I think I'll do some racism. You know, no, it's Wednesday. It's homophobia. I think I'm going to go out and do some sexism. I don't experience most of us getting up trying to do that. Now, that doesn't mean that our best can't look pretty pitiful. So it doesn't mean just because you're doing your best that you can't do better. And so I want us to begin to meet people with the energy that you're probably doing the best you can, but here's some feedback. Here's some information that I need to share so that, again, because we're in community together, you can be better. Connected to that, then, is that we don't know all there is to know. None of us are finished, whether we identify as boomers who marched with King or whether we are millennials or whether we are Gen Xers, whether we're faculty, whether we're students, whether we're administration, whether we're support. All of us still have space to learn. When we show up, having been finished around things, there's no space to learn. And so I want us to check ourselves. Do we show up at these events? Do we look at the opportunities to continue to be engaged in community and decide not to do it? Because we already know that. We already know everything. And so when we don't show up and we don't engage, it then replicates the dynamic of exclusion. Just because you are doesn't mean you understand. It does not serve us to think that I tell folks I've been black all my life, far as I know. But just because I'd been black didn't mean I knew what it meant to be black. Didn't mean I knew what it meant when blackness entered the room, how it informed the space, or how I showed up in that experience. And so what I mean in that statement is I challenge you, particularly as college students and those of you who have not necessarily done this work, to figure out what it means to be you and the dynamics of difference and how that shows up. How is it that I show up as male in a space? And how does my maleness impact this dynamic and keep it alive and well? Am I conscious of that? Am I aware of that? Just because you are doesn't mean you understand. I challenge you to engage that. The next thing then, oppression is pervasive and it impacts us all. We know that Dr. King's work and gets coded as a raced conversation. Some of us know that his work was beyond race, that he was looking at injustice in many different ways. He looked at the Vietnam War. He looked at labor issues. He looked at lots of different things. And we have the opportunity and responsibility today to look at how this dynamic is pervasive and it's not only impacting those who are marginalized or minoritized, but it is also impacting those of us who live with power, privilege, and entitlement on that particular social identity. And so I want us to understand that all lives matter. And while the movement after Ferguson was a reminder that black lives matter and the importance of us paying attention to an anti-black dynamic that resides within lots of us and in the U.S., it is important that we move the conversation of race beyond black and white, that we move the conversation of race beyond the mono-racial conversation, that we move the conversation of diversity and inclusion beyond the raced conversation. And if we are, in fact, to live in the legacy, we will work to shift this dynamic for all places that injustice shows up. It's not our faults, folks, and I just want to turn to your partner and tell them it's not your fault. Just tell them. Right, right. Just remind them that it's not your fault, right? I hear so often that I didn't do it. I'm tired of being blamed. It's not my fault. I didn't make it happen. No, we know you weren't there. We know you didn't create it. None of us in this space created this dynamic. But we must accept responsibility for what our part is in moving forward, in living the legacy and helping to create change. And so if I get stuck in a fault, guilt, shame, blame space, then I'm not likely to show up as an empowered ally. I'm not likely to show up as an empowered, minoritized person so that we can move forward. It's not our faults, but we must accept responsibility. I have a few more things I want to name if we are to live the legacy. And the next major thing that I want you to get old of is that conflict and discomfort are a part of the process. I'm often invited in to work with groups in the being places and they say, Jamie, well we've had some stuff happen here and we need you to come in and we need you to help us fix this problem and nobody can be uncomfortable. There should be no conflict. Everything should go smoothly. And folks, I want you to know conflict and discomfort are a part of growth and a part of change. And if you are not willing to engage your conflict aversion, you can't effectively live the legacy. Resistance is a part of the culture change process. So anybody who is thinking about change and wanting to have change with no resistance, what you are going to get most likely is potentially a temporary fix. No real culture has ever shifted without resistance. It is a dynamic of the culture change process. And so we invite you, I invite you today, to hold instead of when you are meeting resistance as this horrible thing, why are these people here? Why are they making this happen? To recognize that you are doing great work if you are meeting resistance because the culture change process involves resistance. It's important for us in that space to seek to understand, to not be shut down by resistance, but to seek to understand what is the value that people are trying to hold onto? What is it that they feel like is going to be lost if we include people in this way, if we change the culture in this way? What is their investment in maintaining status quo? And as you begin to understand that, then you can help to move forward. You can begin to bring those who resist into community with you. Now I'm not saying, I'm not Polly Anish, and I've been in this work long enough to know that everybody is not going to see it the same way. That's some of the beauty of our human experience. However, some of the time we are not able to move each other and people and our movements forward because we don't know how to effectively engage resistance. And so I want to offer you some last comments that are primarily about your mindset and what you need to do to live the legacy. The first one is we must practice forgiveness and letting go. I'm not saying that we excuse or justify behaviors of injustice, but I am saying that if I am holding on to unforgiveness and that all of my energy is wrapped up in what you did to me 15 years ago or what someone like you did to me 10 years ago, then I can't live the legacy and move forward. We must do our self-work and healing so that we can live in a way that is accepting and loving of ourselves first and then others. Self-work and healing is necessary for self-love and acceptance of others. The last things are acknowledge, celebrate, and appreciate progress. Acknowledge, celebrate, and appreciate progress. One of the challenges that I face as I work with folks who were there in 1964 and folks who weren't even thought of in 1964, who are working in agencies and organizations and on campuses together, is that the dynamic of recognizing the progress and the shoulders that we stand on is often present in the room. And so I want to say to my young people, your voice matters and it is so important that you speak what you see today and the current dynamics that are alive and well. And I want to say to you, it didn't start with you and it won't end with you. So it is important that you don't show up as if no one knew anything before you got to the room. And to my folks who were there in 1964 and before, who have done the work, who have been a part of the legacy for many years, we do say thank you. We honor and appreciate the labor that you've put in, that you have shown up in such that we could even have a room that looked like this today and know that your perspective is not the only perspective, that there are young people who are coming behind you who have something to say and to offer to the movement and so that we together can live the legacy and create the change. Folks, there are no quick fixes. When I was at Slippery Rock State College as an undergraduate student back in 19, I was committed to ending racism. I was going to end it before I left. Well, so much for that, right? Then I left Slippery Rock and I went to Indiana University for graduate school and discovered sexism. Who knew, right? And I was committed to ending sexism before I left there. And I'm still working that dynamic every day of my life, how sexism shows up in me, how male privilege as a system in the patriarchy is alive and well, still doing the work. So I realized today, folks, that there are no quick fixes. And as a result, we have to live in a way that has us take care of ourselves so that we can be resilient for the long haul. That we will have our Ferguson moments. We will have our trauma, our disappointing moments, but we must stay in the work, know that we might have small victories, that we will have some votes and some things will get turned over and things will happen, but nothing in and of itself is going to be quick. Note that any election that we have, whether it's about same sex marriage, whether it's about equal rights, none of that happened overnight. There was work and many people involved in it. And so finally I share with you the importance of this truth. And it lives for me. And as I see you in the room, I know it to be true. Individuals, organizations, communities do grow and change. There is hope. I live every day in knowing that there is hope, even when I have the rough moments, even when I have the disappointing days, even when I sit with students who are crying, who are struggling, when I'm sitting with faculty members and staff who have not yet gotten tenure, again, who have gone to, who have dropped out of doctoral programs, again, who are dealing with violence, again, even when I have those moments. I still know that there is hope. Because I can look out on an audience like you, see that you all decided to be here. I can sit with grandchildren and young people who are clear about the next round, who are open to seeing people and engaging with people and challenging the status quo. And I can know that we can all still make a difference. When I started this work many years ago, there was a poem that was shared. And it was a poem that sat deeply in my spirit as one of encouragement. Because there's no quick fix, I often felt like, who am I? I'm not Dr. King. What am I going to do? I don't have the power of Amalcom X or I don't have the power of a sojourner truth. I don't walk in that same kind of knowing. What am I going to do? How can I impact this world? I'm only one person. So I share this poem with you as encouragement to live the legacy. I'm only one person. What can one person do? Rosa Parks was one person. She said one word. She said it on December 1st, 1955. One person said one word. She said it on a bus. She said it to a bus driver on Cleveland Street in Montgomery, Alabama. The bus driver said to her, stand up, nigger woman, and give your seat to this white man. Rosa Parks, one person, said one word. That one word was no. One woman said one word, and the nation blushed. One woman said one word, and the world talked. One woman said one word, and the Supreme Court acted. One woman said one word, and the buses were desegregated. I'm only one person. What can one person do? I believe we can do whatever we want to do. I want you to know that as I share that poem, I know that Rosa Parks was one person, but she wasn't alone. She did it with the support and the courage and the strategy of others, but she had to say no. And so you will have your Rosa Parks moments. Those moments may be at lunch. They may be at dinner. They may be in the classroom. They may be on your job, where you're the one person who can speak up and say, this is not okay. Where you're the one person that says, why isn't this happening? Can I get a group of people together that's going to work with me to make it happen? And so as I said earlier, my intention was to end racism. My intention was to end sexism. And as I got clearer about the multiple ways that we show up with these dynamics, my intention has been to end depression. But there's a beautiful thing about being over 50. You learn some stuff, hopefully. And so today I show up in a room and I'm really clear that mine may not be to fix it or to end it. Mine may simply be to leave it better than I found it. I wish to leave a legacy of hope and justice and liberty and justice for all. Thank you so much. Thank you. We do now have some time for questions and responses. And so if you have a question that you would like to ask, please raise your hand. And I will come and bring the microphone to you and we'll spend some time in conversation. Questions? I have a question in regard to you know, what's been happening the last four, five, six months, I guess, in our country with the Ferguson's, you've mentioned that, but and then more close to home here at the Mall of America, the MOA situation and the legal system, the lawsuits that then come after such demonstrations. And it seems like, yeah, that you talk about change. I don't, my question is, in our system that we have and where we see the white dominate the courts and the juries and the judges and that, and then the system that you can take lawsuits and kind of put in jail the people that lead the, like at the Mall of America, those people, the ring leaders, so-called, by white society and our media, which is largely white. Boy, we've got a long ways from 64. And I don't know, I'm old enough to have experienced 64. So I guess I'm, I'm just, I think it's great. I mean, I think it's great that we've had the Ferguson demonstrations and ongoing, ongoing things, but I'm, I'm like a lot of things, I wonder, but I guess, I guess in your speech, I'm just wondering, I didn't, what do you think of marches and demonstrations, I guess is my question. So the question around marches and demonstrations, and I think that, you know, that there are, as we are in the next round, there's going to take all kinds of interventions, right. And so there's no one right or wrong way. And so our marches away, absolutely. And so demonstrations are a way to raise consciousness, to have people see a visible support for, against this injustice, right. And so, and that part of what must be understood in that for those who are marching is that there's a cost to showing up and using your voice, right. And that you could be on the front line. And it may mean that you might have to get arrested or, you know, that that's a part of change. That's what resistance looks like. And so a willingness to understand that that's a part of the dynamic. And the important other side of that is that that's not the only way we've got to be in this, right. So simply showing up at the mall or simply showing up in the marches or in the other ways of resistance is not going to be enough, right. It is going to create some stir. It's going to create some change and may have some impact, but it's not the only way. Some folks are doing those kinds of coming together over Twitter, right. Some folks are doing Facebook campaigns. Some folks are coming together in their faith communities for a day of prayer, right. My church community right now is looking at doing a day of prayer and how is prayer and marching and Twitter and all of it and sitting down and having different kinds of conversations with my family at dinner, all of it mattering, right. And so I think again as I help to prepare the next generation of change agents, we must hold the multiple ways we must attack this giant of oppression that no one way is going to do it. Yeah. Thank you, Jamie for your words. Here's my question. Do I have to like the other activists in the world to inflict change? Do I have to like the other activists? You have to like me. Do I have to like the other activists in the world? It's a wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. So I don't have to like, I don't even have to agree with their method, right. But one of the things that I have to do, what I do think is important is that I have to be willing to know what my not liking them is about. Right. And so that I'm doing, I'm always doing the work, right. And so is that not liking them about some unconscious internalized bias that I might be carrying around who gets to do the work and who gets to define how the work is to be done, right. So that's the work, right. So I don't have to like them, but I have to get in touch with what's going on that has me not like them, right. I do that work and then I get to not like you and not get in the way of you doing the work, right. Now, if I feel like your work, your way of doing the work is creating harm, then I need to be able to engage that. But I don't have to like you or agree with your method or see your method as my method in order to be in the work. Yeah, absolutely not. Yeah, thanks. Yeah. There's a hand there and one in the back. Hi, Jamie. You talked about the Ferguson's here on our campus and how they can happen in the dorms. They can happen in the, you know, the cafeteria. They can happen on our campus. What does that look like and how can we improve as a community? I know we had a demonstration last semester on race and racism and stuff and people, some people just don't believe that it happens here at GATT. So some of those Ferguson's that are happening here, what does those look like? How do you deal with that? Yeah, so that's really good. And I think that that is, you know, as we talk about programmatic efforts and conversations beyond the coming together in the beautiful space, right, for the day and being able to walk out and say, yeah, I went, I went, right? We can, we can sit this on our desk and everybody can know we, we good, right? You know, we went to the MLK thing, right? Good for us. But beyond that, what it looks like is then maybe we are having the community conversations around. What does Ferguson look like here? What's a many Ferguson looking like? What, what are the injustices? What, where, where are the Michael Brown kind of situations happening, right? And, and so when I talk about the Ferguson's, I'm not talking. And so we might not have the kinds of uprisings here and speaking out and demonstrations here on that kind of scale. But there might be some dorm room or residence hall rooms where we have in that, we have in them kind of conversations and, you know, talking about wanting to but living in what that might cost us so we don't. So we create that space so we can do our own self healing or at least have, break down the isolation of being alone in that. And so in terms of what I see on many college campuses, Ferguson's look like justification for exclusion. Ferguson looks like there's not enough of them here for it to matter, right? Ferguson's can look like focusing on our intention and not our impact, right? And staying in that space. And so I would invite us to talk about what Ferguson's, you know, if we want to kind of use that. Again, it's an iconic moment, right? Might look like for us. That's an important thing. And what I want to say folks is that when I say that even, I want you to get in your head who you think that conversation needs to be with. And so when I say that, I know that automatically some folks are saying, well, we have to talk to the students of color or we have to talk to the LGBT. We have to talk to the minoritized communities. Not so. That would assume that everyone else doesn't see things. And so when we're talking about what does Ferguson look like in the context of gender or sexuality or faith or race, right? When we're talking about that, we need to be talking to everyone because we all see stuff and we all know stuff. And if we're not invited to say what we see and know, we feel like it's not about us. I think there was one more. Right there. Hi, Reverend. Thank you for your talk again. You noted during your speech that conflict and feelings of uncomfortability is important in working through social change. However, I'm wondering if you can elaborate a little bit on that. For those of us who are trying to have those conversations on this campus, what are some pointers that you can give us for facilitating a space where students can work through conflict in a way that is productive and where we can be uncomfortable even while continuing to grow individually in those groups? That's great. Thank you. So, and that's a biggie, right? Because I think that, you know, that's not just something that's in the context of this conversation. The whole notion of conflict and engaging conflict is a big one for us as human beings. You know, folks like stuff nice. Let's get along, right? Let's don't worry, be happy. Let's just kind of be in that space. And there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, I like being comfortable as much as anybody, right? And the call to justice for me is bigger than my own comfort, right? And so what that means is even as you are in the space to help students and help others move through the conflict and discomfort, you must first be willing to be in discomfort yourself, right? And so, as a facilitator, I had to get clear, as a leader, I had to get clear of what was it that I was uncomfortable about? What was I afraid of? What do I think is going to happen if they don't agree, right? What do I think is going to happen if somebody starts to cry, right? What's my worst fear? I have to work through my own stuff around that first. And once I get through my own stuff, then I can lead a, you can't teach what you don't know, and you can't lead where you won't go. I wish I had said that, but Malcolm said it first. And so that's an important piece. So many times we're trying to lead people into conflict and discomfort, and we ain't never been there. Like we've never been in a space where we have been okay in a conflict and discomfort space. So what often happens, I had this experience, and this will be my last comment. So a few years ago, I was at an elite, private K through 12 school for women in Baltimore. And they had brought me in because there had been some racial tensions and conflict. And so I started the conversation by saying, so we've got eight through 12th graders in the room, started the conversation by saying, inviting them into a conversation with each other. And I said, what does liberty and justice for all mean? Right? So had them partner up and share some things. Then I asked for some responses from the students and the women and young women in the audience. And so a young African American woman said, liberty and justice doesn't mean anything. It's not real. It's just it's fake. It's not real. Young white woman came behind her and said, it's just a way for people to try to get stuff they don't deserve. And so just like you're just so just like, do you feel that energy? Just like just like that, that happened in the room. And so the young white woman is sitting here and the young African American woman is sitting here. And then and I said, take a deep breath. So the first thing in the space of conflict and discomfort is breathing. Just invite the people to breathe. In the meantime, you're breathing too. Right? Just breathe. Just breathe. And so what I said was, say some more about that. Okay. Say some more about that. And as they did, they hurt each other. They understood each other at a whole different level. I'm not saying they came to agreement with each other, but the big deal was after that, the teachers ran up to me and said, how did you do that? I said, how did I do what? And so what I was reminded of and I do teacher education programs all the time is that if we are not preparing our teachers to be in classrooms where students can say the real stuff, they're not prepared to engage in conflict. They shut it down and no learning happens. Right? And so it is critical that you all are getting prepared to navigate the places of discomfort and conflict if you're going to live the legacy. Thanks so much for your time. Appreciate you. Thank you. Thank you. Let us join our hearts and our minds together in a closing moment of reflection. As we have gathered here in this space on this day, may we leave stirred to engage in the process of self-reflection. May we go forth moved and re-energized to build community with one another in this place. And may we each be inspired to join in on the dynamic adventure of continuing to live the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in our own day, in our own time. Amen. And now as we leave, I invite you to stand and greet those around you with a word of peace.