NAACP interim president urges
Cathedral students to uphold values
Click here to see pictures from the event
By Brandon A. Evans
Dennis Courtland Hayes, interim president and chief executive officer of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), was the featured speaker at a Jan. 14 celebration honoring the life of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at Cathedral High School in Indianapolis.
The NAACP, which consists of more than 500,000 members, was founded to help eliminate racial discrimination from all facets of American life—to give all men and women that chance at freedom.
The organization, Hayes said, is “here until we work ourselves out of business.”
We’re not there yet, he said, but we’re getting there.
Events like the arrest of Edgar Ray Killen for a role he allegedly played in a 1964 civil rights killing in Mississippi, Hayes said after his presentation, show that racial justice is never too impossible to fight for—and it shows our commitment as Americans to be faithful to the law.
A new generation of young people is also showing hope by going out and combating the ways in which racism tries to creep back into American life, such as through the trend of resegregation.
Hayes is an Indianapolis native who attended Indiana University in Bloomington and received his jurist doctorate from the Indiana University School of Law in Indianapolis in 1977.
He currently also serves as the general counsel for the NAACP.
Hayes spoke to a full gymnasium, which included Cathedral students and visitors, about the importance of values and volunteerism.
“This is the time for volunteerism,” he said, and not for the compromise of values.
“[Volunteerism] allows us to finish important work left undone,” he said—and it is something that we have a common wisdom about.
It is a wisdom that, for many people, he said, is rooted in the words of the Gospel that call Christians to be servants.
Hayes told the students that as they look to the future, “whatever you decide to do, volunteerism is important to society and to you, personally.
“Just trying to address a need or fighting for a cause can be a satisfying end in itself, regardless of the ultimate outcome,” he said. “Volunteerism brings people out of their isolation and it puts them in touch with others to share their concerns and their interests.”
Hayes also spoke of how volunteerism gives people the power to become freer by linking their destiny more closely to their own will.
“Instead of waiting for government to respond … and provide needed services,” he said, “or hoping that business will meet the demand, individuals who form volunteer groups can take steps to meet their own needs.”
In the final minutes of his presentation, which included a historical—and also modern—look at how the government has restricted the rights of some people, Hayes reminded the students that some of the most brilliant people in U.S. history were responsible for horrible legislation or court rulings.
“You as students should never be too impressed with how brilliant your classmates are, or how intelligent one of your classmates is,” he said. “You ultimately will not be judged on whether you attended the right school or obtained the right degrees. Instead, you’ll be measured by the degree to which you were honest [and] trustworthy.”
Ultimately, Hayes said, you’ll be judged by your character. †