From Our Board: A Speech by Dr. Freeman Hrabowski, III, President, University of Maryland, Baltimore County

"The Power and Promise of Philanthropy in the Lives of Vulnerable Children, Youth, and Families"
Delivered to the 18th Annual Conference of Grantmakers for Children, Youth and Families
Detroit Michigan, October, 2003

Part I: The Value of Dreams

In many ways, the first decade of this century has become a defining period in the evolution of our nation. On the one hand, we see more Americans thriving, more scientific breakthroughs, and more indices of human progress than ever before; on the other hand, we find millions of children and families in poverty. In the wake of September 11th, 2001, we all live in great uncertainty, but these are particularly trying times for our nation’s vulnerable children and families. Never has education been more critical to shaping values and determining the future of our nation; never have the power and promise of philanthropy been more important.

Each of us has stories from our past that can inspire us at different moments in our lives, particularly at times likes these. I often tell the story of my mother, who grew up in rural Alabama (Wetumpka) during the 1920s and '30s. From age twelve through her high school graduation, she worked as a maid in the home of a wealthy white family in order to help her family meet its basic needs. She said this experience taught her two important lessons – first, that she did not want to be a maid all her life, for obvious reasons, and second, the value of reading. The one advantage of working in this home was that the woman of the house offered her the chance to spend time in the library and read books after she finished her work. At that time, few homes had any books besides the Bible, and there were no public libraries. My mother told me that having the chance to read allowed her to forget that she was poor. More important, it allowed her to think about her future and about the possibilities that led her to dream of becoming a teacher of literature. To her there was no more noble profession. It is a rich American story that for over 40 years, from the mid-1930s to the late '70s, my mother was privileged to teach thousands of children. As she always said, “We, the teachers, touch them all...” (As an aside, I earned my worst grades in my mother’s eighth-grade class, and when I was upset with my grades from her, she looked at me and simply said, “Always remember, you are special, and you can be even better.”)

Those of you here today who work in philanthropy and in human and social services also touch many lives, working to reduce and ultimately eliminate the gap between the haves and the have-nots, whether in education, healthcare, or economic status. We are all working to empower, inspire, and give hope to others. We are working to transform lives and to move children and families out of poverty.

I am inspired by people who overcome the odds everyday. One such person is one of my students in the Meyerhoff Scholars Program for talented African Americans in science and engineering on my campus. In fact, her story is so compelling that my research colleagues and I began our book about these courageous young women by quoting her. She told us,

“Your uncle’s hooked on crack” says my mother as we park in front of his house. As I walk towards his house, I look to my right and see a couple of drug addicts sitting on what used to be my aunt’s favorite couch and enjoying the comforts of her once humble abode. On the steps, there sits a high-school dropout, no older than 17, counting the money he earned from selling drugs. At the corner, the mother of a local drug kingpin took on his responsibility after he was killed in cold blood.

My parents always stressed the importance of a good education and taught me to strive to be the best…I have witnessed the effects of alcohol and drugs firsthand, and it has taught me that drugs are not the way to deal with life’s bleak realities. I use society as my motivation to excel in all that I do because as a teenage Black female, I am not expected to do well. There is a sense of satisfaction in knowing I achieved more than was expected, but more important, I achieved more than I expected. My hard work paid off…”

This young woman is a senior carrying a 3.9 grade point average and is preparing to pursue a Ph.D. in computer engineering. She has big dreams.

One of my mother’s heroes was Zora Neale Hurston, whose book, Their Eyes Were Watching God, was published during the Harlem Renaissance–the same period in the 1930s when my mother began teaching. Hurston begins her book,

Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some, they come in with the tide. For others, they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never landing until the watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked to death by time. That is the life of men [and women].

Hurston is one of many American writers who focus on wishes or dreams. Her contemporary, Langston Hughes, seems to have been obsessed with the question of dreams: “What becomes of a dream deferred?” he asks. “Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?” I often have my students think about their own goals and dreams and have them recite with me from Hughes:

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

The themes of my talk today are, first, that our dreams and values shape who we are as a society and as individuals, and second, that foundations have the leveraging power to focus this nation’s attention and resources on children and families.

It is important to talk about dreams because all of us – we and those we serve – need something toward which to strive. All families, regardless of their means, want their children to have a good education – acquiring the skills and values they need to get a job and have the promise of a satisfying life. It sounds simple, but we know it’s very difficult. In fact, throughout the 20th century, especially the latter half, millions of Americans became the first in their families to go to college, and the result was a vastly growing American middle class. For most of us, we can point to a time in the past when our families were poor, either during the Great Depression or even years after. Because of education, many families have moved out of poverty and raised their standard of living higher than ever. But today, we find vast numbers of families, children, and youth in poverty and without hope of living better lives than those who came before them in earlier generations. This is why the work of our foundations, schools, and social service groups is more important than ever.

We all know that poor children and youth across America, especially minorities, face a stiff challenge in beating the odds and moving out of poverty to live rewarding and productive lives. In fact, I recently spoke at the Center for Creative Leadership at Wake Forest University about promoting high achievement among minority students, and during my talk I applauded the Supreme Court’s recent decision involving the University of Michigan, affirming diversity’s importance on America’s college campuses and in admissions decisions. I also noted Justice Sandra Day O’Connor’s powerful statement on this point: “In order to cultivate a set of leaders with legitimacy in the eyes of the citizenry,” she said, “it is necessary that the path to leadership be visibly open to talented and qualified individuals of every race and ethnicity.” But she also expressed the expectation that “25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary.” But surely anyone who looks carefully at the reading and math skills of minority children and the requirements of the nation’s No Child Left Behind Act realizes that this goal will challenge us all. Sadly, this is the case because nearly 50 years after Brown vs. Board of Education, patterns of segregation continue for too many black and Latino children who attend schools that are underfunded, underachieving, and unequal.

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