In the
spring of 1968, appearing before a group composed largely of medical students
at Indiana State University Robert Kennedy, campaigning for the presidency, gave
an impassioned speech about the need to make this a better country. Citing statistics concerning urban and rural
poverty, the need to expand the food stamp program, and especially the need for
a national health care, Kennedy knew that this largely white middle class
audience was not his natural constituency.
The poor had, by this time, largely come to be seen by white America as
a ‘black’ problem. The majority of the poor had always been white in America,
but in the minds of most white Americans, especially those in suburban and
rural America, when they saw in their minds the face of poverty, it didn’t look
anything like what they saw in the mirror.
Kennedy
spoke from conviction on that bright spring day. When he finished speaking one of the students
raised his hand. When asked to speak the
young man asked the Senator “Whose going to pay for all this?”
“You are”,
replied Kennedy, who then went about explaining the responsibility that those
who are blessed have to the less fortunate.
By most accounts, the message was not received with the enthusiasm of
the usual campaign event, but that was not the Senator’s purpose. There is more to campaigning for the
presidency that rallying support.
To lead
is to teach, and campaigning for the nation’s highest office presents an excellent
opportunity to teach the nation lessons it may not want to confront. It presents an opportunity to jog people out
of their false sense of security and their deeply ingrained certitudes. It presents an opportunity to begin a
dialogue with those with whom one does not necessarily agree and create the
conditions for the long and arduous process of breaking down social barriers
and creating a common ground upon which all parties can reach a workable
compromise.
It is a
function of a university in a republic to bring together those of opposing
views providing a place for the civil advocacy and exchange of ideas. Indiana
State University, in the heart of conservative Hoosier country, knew that inviting
the junior Senator from New York would serve the purpose of stretching the
horizons of many of those in attendance.
And Kennedy, addressing an audience that at the time was not old enough
to vote and from which he probably wouldn’t recruit a great many campaign
workers, nevertheless took the opportunity to appear before the assembled
students; for here was a chance to talk to the next generation; here was a
chance to teach; here was a chance to make perhaps the campaigns most
significant and lasting impact.
This
week found Bernie Sanders standing before a large and attentive audience in Lynchburg,
Virginia at perhaps America’s most conservative fundamentalist institution of higher
learning. Before an audience of perhaps
ten thousand or more in the field house at Jerry Falwell’s Liberty University,
Sanders began his remarks by acknowledging that much of what he represents
would find little favor here. “We are
different”, he began. But, he continued,
there is much more common ground than one might think between this white Jewish
liberal Senator from a northeast state and the convictions taught at one of
evangelism’s most celebrated universities.
Calling inequality ‘immoral’ and the moral imperative of meeting the
needs of the least among us, Sanders spoke at length about the common ground upon
which they could perhaps reach consensus.
By most
observers, the reception given the Senator was polite, respectful and
reserved. Still, in post-event
interviews with those in attendance the audience was not entirely dismissive
with some expressing agreement with the senator on several issues.
Reporters
asked the respondents if they were likely to vote for the Senator or join the
campaign. The response was tepid, only a
few expressing outright support.
But this
is not the issue. By taking his campaign
and his message into the precincts where the pundits would least expect him to
go, Sanders is not only working to create a truly national movement, but more
importantly is beginning the dialogue necessary to prepare the ground upon
which the future can be built.
The
story isn’t, as the press would have it, that Sander’s is here exhibiting the
courage of Daniel by going into the proverbial Lion’s Den. Nor is the story that he had
failed in his effort to convert the assembled to liberalism. It is that in the context of today’s bitterly
partisan political climate Liberty University provided a much needed public
service by hosting a forum in which a reasoned, civil discussion of our
agreements as well as our disagreements can take place. Jerry Falwell would have every reason to be
proud; and so should the nation.
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