Welcome to the company of educated women and men. Of all the things you could have done this year, you chose to get a good education. May I say you have chosen wisely.

The record shows that people with more education tend to live longer than people with less education; people with more education tend to get better-paying jobs than people with less education; people with more education tend to have a lower unemployment rate than people with less education; people with more education tend to vote more frequently than people with less education. In general, life tends to be better for people with more education than for people with less education.

If the only reason for obtaining more education is for the purpose of making your life better, than it would be better if you had remained illiterate, ignorant, and uneducated. While education ought to enhance each individual, it should have a purpose beyond this. Education also must advance the community. Thus, the theme of this discussion, the civic responsibility of education.

In this connection, I must tell you that education involves analysis and action--not one or the other but both. We all know people who know what is right but do not have the courage or compassion to do the right thing. If we know something is wrong then we ought to go about the business of changing it. If we know something is right then we ought to go about the business of stabilizing or perpetuating it. Education should inform our tendencies and inclinations to change that which harms any person and to stabilize that which helps all persons. This way education assumes a major responsibility of advancing the community while enhancing the individual.

My mentor and role model, Benjamin Elijah Mays, told the students at Morehouse College, my alma mater, many years ago that no person is rich enough, wise enough, or strong enough to make it on his or her own. We all are interdependent; each must depend on others for safety, security, and success.

Thus, while using your education to get ahead, you must also use your education to do the same for your neighbor. Your neighbor is anyone who is in need. If you do not help your neighbor, your neighbor will hate you. And hate, when multiplied, threatens the safety and security of all of us.

So the civic responsibility of education is to teach us how to be a person for others. To be a person for others, we must learn how to serve the community. To be a person for others, we must learn how to sacrifice on behalf of the community. To be a person for others, we must learn how to suffer with others in the community.

In summary, the civic responsibility of education teaches us to serve, sacrifice for, and suffer with people in community. And let me tell you a secret: There is no other route to personal success except this one. May you travel it with joy, knowing that you have the right stuff, a good education, that will enhance you if you also dedicate it to advancing the community. Believe me, no other course of action is viable. So I salute you as our new activists who will advance the community as you enhance yourselves.

Editor's note:
Professor Willie's address is short, but right to the point. As Dean Raymond Comeau noted at the time, the audience (Certificate graduates, friends, and families) sat mesmerized as Professor Willie spoke, and then, realizing the fundamental truth of his message--the civic responsibility of education is to teach us how to be a person for others--they applauded with vigor and enthusiasm. Bulletin readers might try reading the address out loud, for it rolls off the tongue mellifluously, and its message is exceptionally important, whether delivered on Commencement Day or read or spoken out loud in the privacy of one's home.