Remarks to Michigan State Uni graduating class

I first learned about the transforming power of education from stories about my paternal grandfather. Granddaddy Rice was a poor farmer’s son in Ewtah, Alabama. One day, he decided to get book-learning. And so he asked, in the language of the day, where a colored man could go to school. They said that a little Presbyterian school, Stillman College, was only about 50 miles away ... Despite all that my grandfather had to endure - including poverty and segregation - he understood that education is a privilege. And with privilege comes responsibility. Read on. (Lansing State Journal, 8 May 2004)