The Commencement Address Harvard Needs*

By W. F. Twyman, Jr.

[*Inspired by this morning’s The Commencement Address Harvard Needs essay by Jack Butler in National Review.]

Good morning Crimson graduates! Before I begin, please take a moment to scream and shout and scream some more! [Pandemonium ensues for a minute or two]

I applaud the courage of the Harvard Corporation for this gracious invitation to address you all. As an American native to Virginia, I should say “y’all” for effect but “y’all” would be extra to lift a phrase from my daughter. I have been critical of Harvard in the past and I remain skeptical of Harvard today.

It should not be this way. Of all people, I should feel natural affection for an institution that captured my imagination at a tender age. It was not on the banks of the Charles River or the squash courts at the gym when Harvard first caught my eye. The idea occurred to me in the hallways of Webber Memorial Baptist Church, a southern Baptist church in Southside Richmond, Virginia that Harvard was for me. I had learned about all of the U.S. Presidents and, deluded with the outsized dreams of a junior high schooler, decided I must attend Harvard since this was the most popular university for U.S. Presidents. I recount their august names, names forever more on the honored rolls of our best graduates — President John Adams, Class of 1755; President John Quincy Adams, Class of 1781; President Rutherford B. Hayes, Class of 1846; President Theodore Roosevelt, Class of 1880; President Franklin D. Roosevelt, Class of 1903; President John F. Kennedy, Class of 1940; President George W. Bush, Class of 1975; President Barack Obama, Class of 1991.

Ambition and high aim led me to rejection by the College and acceptance on February 9, 1983 at the Law School. A little kid from a southern, small-town with big city dreams that came true one day as I opened up a fat letter of admissions. All praise to the American Dream! Ain’t that America?

Just last night over dinner, my cousin said my family always viewed me as our Barack Obama.

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Where did we go wrong? Where did Harvard go wrong?

I grew up in a place where our English roots run back to the year 1611. Earlier this week, I found myself attending to my father who is suffering from dementia. He is losing memories of his lifetime. I showed my Dad pictures of my children, my mother-in-law, my wife and me. He asked me to identify each person. The loss of memory was palatable. His wife asked my Dad if he recognized me. For two long minutes, he thought about it. Is he related to you, my step mother-in-law asked? Finally, my Dad said, “Son.”

I was not the same for the rest of the day.

And so it is my felt duty to remember what escapes my Dad now in these trying times. I showed my Dad my book Letters in Black and White: A New Correspondence on Race in America. My book is dedicated to my Dad. He did not recognize his full name. Nor did he recognize his Mom’s name or the name of our founding ancestor, Daniel Brown, who purchased acres and acres of land as a former slave in our home county.

I thought about memory of our long past on this ground we called home for centuries, Chesterfield County, Virginia. I remembered childhood memories of riding my bicycle for three miles through the oak tree forest, up Jeff Davis Highway and to Drewry’s Bluff. Like many institutions, Harvard has done you all a disservice with the memory of history. You remember the Tusla Race Riot and not the Black Wall Street of Durham, North Carolina. You remember slavery but not the vibrant free black community right here in Boston. How many of you remember the phrase Black is Beautiful? Raise your hands. [nearly every hand is raised] You can lower your hands. Now, how many remember the name of the creator of that phrase? [a hand or two is raised out of thousands] Pioneer Black Lawyer and doctor John S. Rock coined the phrase in an abolitionist speech before the Civil War right here in Boston. You were not taught this history at Harvard. You were kept from this American history by Harvard because it doesn’t fit a narrative of Blackness is Oppression. Nothing Else Matters.

You learn of reparations for American Slavery and not Howard University.

As I rode my bicycle up Jeff Davis and turned right towards the Confederate fort, I felt the wind in my face, the thrill of exploration as a kid. I was nine years old and enthralled with history. There were oak trees all around as I burrowed deeper and deeper into the forest on the edge of the James River. Allow me to quote from the signpost at Drewry’s Bluff:

The concentration of Civil War resources found in the Richmond area is unparalleled. The National Park Service manages 13 sites, giving visitors an opportunity to examine the battlefield landscapes, to hear the stories of the combatants and civilian residents, and to understand the complex reasons why Richmond came to symbolize the heart and soul of the Confederacy.

As I made it to the cannon at the the top of the fort on the cliff, I looked out over the motionless James River and imagined history, how the Union ships came up the river with a clear shot at Richmond but were stopped in their tracks by soldiers on the cliff. A raging river battle for our future. And I lived minutes from this battle place.

This Sunday, I was four miles from the genesis of our English-speaking nation. In 1611, the Virginia Colony sent Sir Thomas Dale on a mission to find a better settlement site for colonists. Jamestown was way too swampy for a suitable existence. Sir Dale would travel 80 miles up the James River and settle upon Henricus. Henricus.com Sir Thomas Dale is credited with creating the American Dream. I graduated from Thomas Dale High School up the road from Henricus.

My ancestors have been in this county since 1622.

So, when Harvard accepts the founding date of 1619 and the 1619 Project as the beginning of our American story, Harvard has lost its way. Harvard has lost memory of America like my Dad is losing his memory of us.

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Central to the American Dream has been the idea that one can disagree without being disagreeable. The most painful exception would be the Civil War which was fought minutes from my house. I think southerners are gracious because we understand how a breakdown in civility can reverberate across the generations. Did you know that southerners today are some of the most color indifferent people on the planet? It is true but one wouldn’t learn that reality here at Harvard. One learns color consciousness as America’s original sin.

But view the South today through my eyes. I have seen white grandmothers and mixed grandchildren, black dads and white moms and mixed children, and there is general color indifference in Richmond and Chesterfield County, Virginia. This was not always the case in my lifetime but no one seems to care today and this is a constructive good. Are these positive changes taught in Black Studies or is Afro-Pessisism taught?

There is a Lee Highway in Northern Virginia, a Robert Carter road in the Richmond area and a Jefferson Davis Highway no more in Chester. Are these examples of southern change for the better taught in Critical Race Theory classes?

Where has Harvard gone wrong? I suggest Harvard has developed racial dementia. Fragments of reality are discarded while dogma and slogan words remain to explain race and Blackness. And this is unacceptable for me, for most southerners and for our country. Why isn’t the heroic settlement of Henricus and birth of the American Dream in 1611 as remembered as the arrival of twenty Africans in Jamestown in 1619?

It is unclear to me whether these twenty Africans were treated as slaves under colonial law between 1619 and 1655. But their treatment was not permanent as evidenced by the rise of Anthony Johnson to a status as property owner. I suspect people were just trying to survive in the early 1600s in Chesterfield, regardless of race.

In any event, I was never a slave. I was a product of the American Dream which was Harvard at its best. I do not see much celebration of the American Dream these days at Harvard.

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Central to the American Dream for me is the ability to disagree without being disagreeable. Sometime around the year 2019, a fellow Harvard Law School graduate proposed that the two of us address the Harvard Club of San Diego about Blackness. I was not enthused as I had many obligations and responsibilities on my plate. Nonetheless, I felt a sense of civic duty to the Crimson. I remembered fondly my days at Austin Hall and consented to talk about race.

To my great dismay, my friend was told us we could not talk because I might deviate from dogma. Harvard is not a church. Why must I subscribe to dogma before I can speak? I felt like I had been called the N word for the first time. My cherished Harvard had offended me in the greatest possible way. I must be stripped of creative expression before I could open my mouth.

Oh Harvard

This was not the Harvard of the Adams, the Roosevelts, and the Kennedys. This Harvard was an alien presence. And so I separated myself from Harvard. I began to ignore notices from Harvard. I declined to participate in Harvard alumni activities. I discarded ballots in the mail for Harvard positions. I wrote essays against any Harvard support for reparations for American slavery.

I expressed my embarrassment that a plagiarist and bookless soul occupied the prestigious office of President at Harvard. Further evidence that Harvard had gone wrong.

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Antisemitism should be shamed. There is no place for prejudice against anyone due to faith and ethnic origin. To the extent those who hold animus in their hearts against Jewish Americans walk the grounds of the Yard, those bigots should be cast out. Bigots must be shunned. Anything less is a betrayal of human dignity at Harvard.

A good friend, Harvard College and Harvard Law School, called me the other day. She was concerned about the pressure being applied to Harvard across the board. And I was honest with my friend of nearly forty years. I said, I could not get excited because Harvard had censored me as I might deviate from dogma. The suppression hurt. My affection for Harvard waned.

My friend heard me out but she was so concerned about all of the consequences descending upon Harvard. I replied, well, if Harvard chose to gag good-faith opinions and views, I don’t have much use for the institution. She was an open-minded friend and I could be honest. I no longer have those feelings for Harvard. Harvard is neither open-minded nor an honest place.

Conclusion: Do I miss the Harvard of my childhood? The Harvard of my American Dreams? Yes, I do. Like I miss my Dad.

I will conclude this commencement address with a tale. Just a snapshot of life. I dined for breakfast earlier this week at the Brickhouse Diner in Midlothian, Chesterfield County. I have always sought out Midlothian when back home. The diner was packed. Mindful that I was back home in the South, I observed that the hostess was an attractive black woman of possible mixed heritage. There were 100-150 people in the restaurant. I saw only one other black person. He and his white wife and mixed child were dining.

I turned off my color consciousness switch and enjoyed a southern plate of pancakes and patties and baked apples.

As I left the restaurant and stepped to my car, I noticed a white guy with a St. Catherine’s shirt. St. Catherine’s School is a top private school in Richmond. I asked if his daughter attended St. Catherine’s. He said, yes, and launched into a long story about how he pulled his daughter out of Powhatan High School, enrolled her in St. Catherine’s School and how she blossomed. She became a volleyball champ in high school and a national volleyball champion in college.

We exchanged pedigrees as I was wearing my UVA hat. I never wear my Harvard hat anymore. He said he was born at Yale and attended a New England boarding school. His parents both graduated from Cornell. I replied, that my older son graduated from Stanford, my younger son from San Diego State University, and my daughter from Yale. I added that my wife graduated from Yale. And then I trailed off with an imperceptible mention of Harvard Law School.

Harvard will never be great again until we ditch the dogma, until we ditch the slogan words, until we shame those who are antisemitic, until we recover from our racial dementia about the fullness of our American past.

I Miss You, Harvard