A Sense of Justice

A Sense of Justice

"It's midnight, and I'm standing in "the yard" after a powerful speech at Memorial Church just a few hours ago. The night is chilly, and I unravel the sweater from around my waist and place it upon my shoulders. As I stand freezing in the yard, a steady stream of friends and associates pass by me offering "congratulations". A short time before, I had delivered the introductory speech for our Black History Month campus guest speaker, Johnny Cochran. As I stood freezing in the yard, I was humbled. Cochran's message that night was that vigilant and systemic protest has profound power and can help deliver social justice. His message rang as true as Malcolm X's call to social action from the same podium more than thirty years before. And, now, as the stars lit the yard electric, Cochran's words took me back to the first time I understood what "protest" meant to me and my sense of justice.

It was my first year at the most venerable institution in the world, and my high-school dreams had been achieved. Yet, that fall, I was feeling empty inside. As I drowned my sorrows in a latte at Au Bon Pain near the "T" entrance, I noticed a large crowd gathering outside. I later learned that a short time before, an undergraduate running to the co-op had carelessly knocked a homeless man to the ground. As I looked up from my latte, I saw a homeless man crawling around the sidewalk, yelling something about being

unable to see and cursing profusely. Nearby, I saw a woman I recognized as a senior, crawling around on the ground with him. Finally, she stood up, with a pair of broken glasses in hand. "You bastard!" she screamed at the retreating undergraduate. I didn't know what to think. I had never seen a white homeless person before, and certainly not one being helped by a black woman.

I approached the woman and told her my name. She was still clearly flustered and angry, her brown eyes flashing amid an expanse of curly hair. "They just don't get it!" she grumbled angrily. I silently looked down. Suddenly, she turned to me. "Sometimes, we've got to sit down and stand up for the dignity of human kind. Sometimes, we've got to do what's right." Silently, I nodded my head.