Remembering Harambee House at the College of Wooster

On 28th August 1963, Dr. Martin Luther King delivered that famous speech about his dream and his vision for America. Among other things, he said, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character”.

45 years later, to the day, after Barack Obamba’s historical acceptance speech in Denver, we can genuinely ask the question: “has freedom finally rung from the snow capped rockies of Colorado?”

It seems like an eternity since we were members of Harambee House more than 25 years ago. In June this year some of us returned to College for our reunion. We recalled our rites of passage and coming of age. We did spend moments looking back at what those times meant for each one as individuals; as minority students; as part of the larger world of people of color; of how we bridged divides across continents; we shared and remembered our aspirations for different world. We looked back, and then looked ahead!

It was my sophomore year (80-81) when you elected me Vice President of Harambee House. At the time, the house was seen more as a social club or the Black American (the term in vogue at the time) fraternity on campus. I challenged many of you to broaden this narrow view to include all men of color, as it were, not just American. With your support we made our voices heard on campus. We raised issues of that were neither parochial in nature, nor limited to the narrow confines of race. We tried, and to some extent succeeded, in painting a much broader canvas of topical issues of common concern to all of us. We let our voices be heard!

Let me quickly remind you of what Harambee means. It is a Swahili call to unity or, “working together for a common purpose”. And we took it to heart, allowing it to become a guiding principle that articulated our time as undergraduates. Only later did we discover how that principle helped us to navigate subsequent careers and lives, wherever we chose to go.

Wooster, in those days, was a different place. The African-American (transitioning from ‘Black’) population on campus was small, largely uncertain of how to articulate an identity post vietnam and post the hey-day of the civil rights movement. Many believed that the battle for racial equality had been won. Many believed that now was the time to join the mainstream, and slice out their section of the American dream. Because many of the overt barriers to entry had been lifted, it wasn’t a time for most of us to question the hidden legacy of inequality.

Wooster, in those days, was a different place. The international student population on campus was miniscule, living out a dream of having made it to America! Many believed that this placed them in highest percentiles of privilege and that destiny had dealt them roles of leadership when they returned to their own countries. Many were blissfully unaware of their own status as minorities in America. Most were unaware of the social and political turmoil that American society had undergone over the preceding 30 years. Most international students from what was then fashionably called the ‘third world’, found their comfort zone in mainstream white middle class Americana.

In hindsight, all students on campus, were oblivious to our own roles as eyewitnesses to the historical transitioning of America. Reagan was President; the idealism of the peanut farmer from Georgia had been crushed; evil empires needed to be dealt with; the erstwhile Soviet Union had outraged the modesty of Afghanistan by their invasion; the despotic Shah had been deposed to be replaced by a tyrannical man of the cloth; and Americans were held against their will for 444 days.

What we could not see, nestling in the events of those days, were the nascent threat that would come to haunt the entire world today: the threat of terror as the United States became a direct target.

Our responsive was charged and emotive, but I believe, profoundly telling, “Hey America, we’ve been hostages for 444 years!”. This was in no way an attempt to belittle the release of the American hostages held in Tehran for 444 days, but a simple indication that the vestiges of racial inequality were still present in different ways and forms.

You will remember how it polarized the campus. There was outright hostility, and even a very real danger to our personal safety! The house across the way put up an American flag with the slogan, “America, love it or leave”. The lesson we learnt from those events was the need to talk to one another, to dialogue!

But, as America has so often proven to itself, the American flag and all its symbolism, is far stronger and resilient to an ‘either or’ choice. We were not burning the flag; we were asking for it to fulfill its own promises of inclusion.

Later, through the formation of the Divestment Coalition, we provoked the venom of campus authorities by raising the issue of College investments in Apartheid-ruled South Africa. To continue to invest in South Africa, they told us, was the best possible instrument for change. We were looked at with scorn and derision at even thinking that dialogue was possible with the vilified Nelson Mandela! The idealistic passions of youth!

But, from those experiences, we learnt important strategic and tactical lessons. We learnt how to build consensus. We learnt how to make a compelling argument. We learnt how to better understand how our opponents and map out an action plan. The most important lesson that many of us learnt through that experience was how the world was linked. But most importantly we learnt how financial and financial decisions taken in a small liberal arts college in Ohio could be a catalyst for change in a far off land: that as the world was linked, so too were our futures interconnected.

It is ironic perhaps, that some years after leaving college, divestment in South Africa and mainstream opposition to apartheid became celebrity causes, and Mandela revered as the voice of reason!

This was our education at Wooster. We felt a call to unity and responded! Through these experiences we all grew to understand each more profoundly. International students of color came to appreciate the story of the African American: their hopes, their aspirations, their struggles, their food, their music, and yes, even their beautiful women. But their was reciprocity too. As our brothers and sisters shared their friendship, they also saw our side of a world that had many, if different, challenges. In that call to unity we became friends. Life-long friends.

As this four year cycle of American presidential election nears its climax, we can look back proudly at our time together at Wooster. We may not have made the history books, but we were agents of change in some small way.

Today an African American is the nominated candidate of a major political party for the office of the President of the Unites States. It shows us just how far we have come. Barack Obama is an exact contemporary of ours. He too, was an undergraduate at the same time and I’m sure, was confronted with many of the same challenges and issues that faced us.

As I look back at those times with great fondness, I know that we all grew in some way, believing in a dream. What Barack Obama said tonight validates so much of what we did, what we spoke about, what we dreamt about all those many years ago!

But today, my friends, it is no longer a dream. It is an historic moment. I hope you will "work together for common purpose" to make sure the right thing happens on November 4th 2008!