(audience applauding)
- Good morning!
Thank you so much for that very kind introduction.
I can't tell you how excited I am
to be here with you today,
but in case you are wondering,
I'm not that black guy who gave the commencement speech
at Morehouse College last month.
(audience laughs)
If you haven't heard, Robert Smith pledged $40 million
in his speech to clear the educational debts
of the nearly 400 students in the 2019 graduating class.
(audience applauds)
Talk about the graduation speech
to end all graduation speeches!
The only thing that I can pledge is that in comparison,
you will feel extremely ripped off
at the end of this speech.
(audience laughs)
First, let me start by congratulating the class of 2019
on this wonderful achievement.
I don't just imagine the blood, the sweat,
the tears, and the immense amount of time
that you've put into arriving at this point
in your careers and in your lives.
I actually experienced it firsthand
as a graduate student here at MIT
between 1987 and 1994.
I can remember vividly the day
that I completed and defended my dissertation
and walking through the halls of MIT
with a big grin on my face
to get it signed by all the appropriate people,
each of whom extended a hand to congratulate me.
It was then that I realized, with a smile,
that I had completed a major goal in my life
and was eager to embrace
what the future had in store for me.
But when I was called last December
and asked to speak at today's ceremony,
my initial reaction was is this man serious?
And then, as I spoke, I pivoted the phone
about 180 degrees around my ear
to place the mic above my head
while whispering in a low voice,
"I wonder if he has me confused with someone else."
And after it became clear that he didn't,
I finally settled on,
well, maybe no one else on their top 50 list
of candidates was actually able to make it today.
Surely, I thought, what is it that I,
a pretty average guy from southeast Texas,
can offer graduates of such high caliber and high promise?
Some of the most frequent topics
that you'll hear in a graduation speech are
opportunity, initiative, creativity,
confidence, passion, and perseverance, among others.
All are immensely important
and have contributed to my own success.
However, on a more personal note,
I'd like to talk particularly about opportunity,
which I believe has largely shaped
the current professional and academic landscape
with respect to race, ethnicity, and gender.
Without opportunity, the other attributes
don't really have the opportunity to stand out.
So, I grew up in Beaumont,
a segregated city in southeast Texas,
nestled 25 miles from the Louisiana border
and 25 miles from the Gulf of Mexico.
I was raised by my grandmother,
who assumed the role of a single parent at the age of 65
after raising 11 children of her own.
My father was unknown at the time,
and my mother, who had moved to the Bay area of California,
was not quite prepared for the constraints
associated with child-rearing.
Many kids in my surroundings had similar stories,
but I, unlike most others, was fortunate
to have three uncles who lived in Beaumont
who served as mentors and role models
and who kept me off the streets.
As an African-American kid growing up in Beaumont,
or perhaps anywhere in southeast Texas,
a career in science was
about as likely as winning the lottery,
largely
because there were virtually no role models
in the field to encourage students
to pursue science-based careers
or to show that one could actually
make a decent living as a scientist.
No one really knew what a scientist did
on a day-to-day basis,
except from what was shown occasionally on television.
Moreover, it was not uncommon for some of our teachers
to utter blanket statements like,
"Black people can't do physics,"
which, for some students,
was an affirmation of what they already believed.
And so, they would simply cross physicist
off their list as a career to aspire to.
Indeed, science was as segregated
as the city of Beaumont itself.
Outside of George Washington Carver,
none of us knew much about any African-American scientist,
other than the handful of inventors
who were perfunctorily showcased
during Black History Month.
Moreover, science and the African-American community
have had a bit of a contentious relationship.
At the turn of the century
and during the early and mid-1900s,
there were a number of truly great
African-American scientists who struggled
for recognition in their fields because of race.
I was never aware of this issue
until I came to MIT in 1986
as a participant in its very first
minority summer science research program,
which began as an institutional effort
to address the issue of underrepresentation
in the sciences,
and it was there that I listened to a talk
by MIT professor Kenneth Manning,
who had just published a prize-winning book
a few years earlier
on the life of Ernest Everett Just
titled "Black Apollo of Science."
And in that book, he described
how this young African-American kid
who was raised by a single mother
in Charleston, South Carolina,
rose to be a giant in the field of reproductive zoology,
despite overt bigotry and a lack of opportunity.
Because education for black students
down south was generally inferior,
his mother sent him to Kimball Union Academy,
an exclusive boarding school not far
from Hanover, New Hampshire.
There, he graduated at the top of his class
before moving on to Dartmouth University,
where he won almost every prestigious
academic award available
and was the only magna cum laude or higher
graduate in his class.
Despite his stellar academic track record,
Just, like many other African-Americans at that time,
was unable to find employment outside of teaching
at a historically black college.
And the very best, like Just,
ended up typically teaching at Howard University
in Washington, D.C.
And while there, he spent most of his summers
conducting research at Woods Hole
and was able to earn a PhD in zoology
from the University of Chicago.
He was a rising star in the area of fertilization
and highly acclaimed and respected in Europe
but was unable to secure an academic appointment
at a major institution in the United States.
Therefore, in the last decade or so of his life,
he was forced to retreat
to highly prestigious institutions in Europe
to conduct his research,
eventually being captured in France in 1940
when the Germans invaded
and spending time in a prisoner-of-war camp
before being allowed to return home to the United States,
where he died shortly after.
And I was struck by how similar this story was
to that of another African-American scientist,
Percy Julian, an organic chemist.
Julian was raised in Alabama,
but his parents sent him to DePauw University in Indiana,
where he graduated valedictorian of his class.
It was his dream to pursue a PhD
but was unable to do so
because of a lack of teaching fellowships
for African-Americans.
He then moved to Fisk,
another highly prestigious historically black college
at that time,
where he was a chemistry instructor.
After earning a Master's degree in chemistry from Harvard,
he moved to Howard as an instructor
and then on to the University of Vienna,
where he earned his PhD in chemistry.
He returned to Howard University,
where he became department head,
but because of personal circumstances,
he resigned from that position
and returned to DePauw University
but only as an instructor in organic chemistry.
And there, he directed research projects
for senior chemistry majors.
At DePauw, he and a colleague from Vienna
that he helped immigrate to the United States
completed the total synthesis of physostigmine,
a complex natural product used
for the treatment of glaucoma.
This achievement was recognized
as a milestone in synthetic organic chemistry.
Both he and his European colleague
were offered jobs at DuPont,
but his job was rescinded when he showed up
because they didn't know he was black.
He was offered a job at the Institute of Paper Chemistry
in Appleton, Wisconsin,
but turned that down after finding out
that Appleton was a sundown city,
where blacks weren't allowed after dark.
He was finally able to secure a position
at a company called Glidden,
where he made impressive advances
in the synthesis and isolation
of steroid hormones and plant sterols
before starting his company,
which he sold for millions of dollars.
He was an absolute pioneer in natural products
but couldn't get a professorship
at a major research institution in the United States.
And for his contributions to science,
he was inducted into the National Academy of Sciences
in 1973, only the second African-American scientist
and first African-American chemist to have that distinction.
And I could go on
and tell a number of other similar stories,
and for every story about an African-American
who has been disenfranchised in science,
there are, unfortunately, many more involving women.
And if you look at the academic landscape today,
you'll find that we're still trying to recover
from the bigotry and misogyny of the past,
some of which still exists,
but we're sometimes afraid to make meaningful change.
We still have highly acclaimed scientists,
even Nobel Prize winners,
who publicly proclaim that black people can't do science
and who make similarly disparaging comments about women.
Statements like these have no value,
and they dangerously creep unsuspectingly
into the heads of decision-makers.
In 2008, 66 years after Ernest Just's death,
I became the first African-American to be on the faculty
in the department of chemistry at Penn State.
That it took so long is completely tragic,
and many chemistry departments across the country
are still waiting to get their first.
But back in 1986, MIT gave me my first real opportunity
to explore scientific research
and realize my passion for discovery
and for working with people from all over the world
to solve problems.
And the MIT chemistry department
and particularly my doctoral advisor, JoAnne Stubbe,
have been an ardent supporter ever since,
helping me to achieve goals that I didn't even know existed
when I first undertook this journey
or goals that I didn't even have for myself.
I can honestly say that my cup runneth over today.
So, as I look out among you today,
what I'll leave you with is the notion
that almost anyone can excel if given a chance.
Take advantage of opportunities,
and make the most of it.
But also, work to provide opportunities for others.
That's how you will grow as a future leader.
America's strength is its people,
and there is so much untapped potential
in people who have been traditionally disenfranchised,
including people of color,
women,
the LBGTQ community,
and the disabled.
In fact, first-generation white students
or students from modest socioeconomic backgrounds
are the ones that I have impacted the greatest
directly at Penn State,
and you can't imagine how appreciative they have been
to have been given a chance and some direction.
Again, let me leave you with
I'm just an average guy from southeast Texas,
no different from anyone else,
except for the fact that someone gave me an opportunity
to make a change in the direction that I was going,
and that has made all the difference.
Thank you so much!
(audience applauds)