'You can't do this alone,' Booker tells Class of 2013
By Nancy Doolittle
With blustery, cool winds and cloudy skies above Senior Convocation, Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, N.J., turned up the heat in an address that focused on the power of people coming together to create change and ended by calling for the Class of 2013 to “put aloft again the greatest flames of the world – the very torch of hope of the American dream.”
For his address May 25 in Schoellkopf Stadium to an audience of more than 11,500, Booker took as his inspiration the words of a Newark tenant’s rights leader whom he got to know during the eight years he lived in public housing projects: “Understand this please,” said Ms. Jones when Booker was at his most discouraged, “you can’t do this alone. You need other people.”
He talked of progress made in Newark since he was elected mayor, progress that he says would not have happened if people had not come together. A third of all development in New Jersey last year happened in Newark, he said, noting that Panasonic and Manischewitz have relocated their headquarters to Newark.
But, he said, there is still much to do. He shared two stories that illustrate how he combats discouragement.
A self-confessed emotional eater, Booker was eating ice cream and watching TV after a particularly bad day and caught Conan O’Brien disparaging Newark on his talk show. That began an online war of words between Booker and O’Brien that went viral until then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton stepped in, asking the two to “just get along,” Booker said. O’Brien then asked Booker on his show, apologized and gave $100,000 to charity in Newark.
No matter how great your power as individuals, Booker said to the Class of 2013, true power – the power to deal with intractable problems – lies in your ability to connect to other people.
His second story illustrated that point. Booker said his first year on the Newark city council was his worst year, and he and the then mayor were at odds. A different tenant’s rights leader called Booker, asking him to help with the crime and violence in her tenements, and he told her he was powerless to help. But Jones again advised him, so Booker set up a tent in front of the tenements, called a press conference and went on a 10-day hunger strike.
Soon others joined him – police, students, business people – and eventually the mayor. The lesson for Booker came not in the 10 days of fasting but in the last day of prayer, when the group supporting him had grown from four to 200 people.
“I tell you now …your generation will be determined by how you come together as lovers – lovers of peace, lovers of justice,” Booker challenged the seniors. “The fires that must be burning are the fires of love and justice, the fires of our hearts and our compassion, the little fires of individual actions that every day add up to an inferno of change.”
For ongoing coverage of Commencement weekend, including information and announcements, follow #Cornell13 on Twitter.
Also at Convocation, Senior Class President Anna Fowler spoke of the breadth of studies Cornellians pursue, of the learning that takes place outside the classroom, of the many clubs and opportunities Cornell made available to her class.
Senior class campaign co-presidents Jonathan Weinberg ’13 and Fiona Ismail ’13 announced the results of the senior class campaign, which raised more than $51,000 from about 1,200 seniors. Like Booker, they stressed the importance of personal connections. They attributed their class’s record high level of individual participation to their class’s philanthropic spirit and to a challenge posed by an anonymous donor to give $25 toward undergraduate scholarships for each senior who made a gift.
Next year, two students will receive Class of 2013 scholarships thanks to that anonymous donor and Vice President Susan Murphy, who motivated the class to meet the challenge, they said.
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