Race and Class Discourse from an Ivory Tower in Connecticut

Next month will mark the 46 anniversary of one the greatest civil rights speeches ever given by an American President. On June 4, 1965, President Lyndon Baines Johnson delivered the Commencement Address at Howard University. The name of his address was, To Fulfill These Rights . Speaking nearly a year after the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and less than a month before he would sign the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law, President Johnson proudly hailed the legal freedoms blacks would gain because of these two landmark pieces of legislation, but he added, "freedom is not enough." The president continued: "You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to go where you want, and do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please." "You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, 'you are free to compete with all the others,'...

"What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?" – Mahatma Ghandi – A few days after President Obama ordered the extra-judicial execution of Osama bin Laden by a Navy Seal Team in Abbottabad – not too far from the headquarters of the elite Pakistan Military Academy for young cadets and a short trip to the country's capital, Islamabad – I sat in the green room of a local television station, Fox 61, pondering what I would say about bin Laden's death while waiting to tape an appearance on the Stan Simpson Show. The other guest for the show was a retired U.S. Army Colonel, and former CIA Operations Officer and Republican U.S. Congressman from Connecticut, Rob Simmons. Even though Simmons and I disagreed on most things we discussed while waiting in the green room – such as, whether to release a graphic "bullet to the head" ph...