It's my pleasure to introduce
today's This I believe

this to give you a bit more information.

Dr WALLACE of Georgia.

I think all of the liberal arts.

She holds the island in your dreams
chair in liberal arts and technology and

that's professor of English in the school
of literature media and communication.

A graduate of Spelman College in Atlanta.

The inlets are earned and

English from the University of Michigan
and her research center is on the for.

Literacy and one of the.

Areas in which she has all heard and
author of numerous articles and books and

she is the author of three books well.

And it is our pleasure.

And once you're here and

like me they actually

have a few more than three books and
I'm a curious about that.

Yes.

So thank you for I really appreciate it.

To participate in the series.

Acknowledging the honor and
the privilege however doesn't

really mediated talents of
determining which belief to share.

And that was a town in
the Treme like all of us.

I actually believe in many things.

And the challenge for this occasion with
to choose just one I labored over it for

actually but I chose a fairly basic one
to the way that I've lived my life so

I'm pleased to share with you all of my
life I've been fascinated by the human

voice and I am in fact a linguist
by training when I deeply and

sincerely believe is of the greatest gift
the universe every human to human beings.

The young life itself has the power and

capacity to express our thoughts and
feelings.

As someone who's who has apply the
knowledge that I gain about the ways that

language works.

Rhetorical studies.

I'm also fascinated by the many mechanisms
that we have invented over time and

space for
expressing itself with intention and

purpose including language music art and

various other symbolic systems that
now constitute our multimedia OTOH.

John Richard Titian in essence I believe
that these small crisis expression.

And they're having there has to be to
take into account all of our sticks in

sight smell taste touch hearing and

intuition constitute our whole
body potential for eloquence and

for actually making miracles possible and
perhaps the most ambitious miracle

of all being the persistence with which
we try to make the world a better place.

My work is through in rhetorical
studies has been about paying attention

to the power of words even
though I recognize quite

painfully sometimes that words
are indeed an imperfect medium.

I remain amazed by our capacity
to use them to great effect

to think express feelings and
insights communicate persuade and

engage actively with
the worlds that surround us.

What I appreciate most is
that our uses of language

expressively when we take
the time to do so with care.

Social Responsibility and
ethical responsibility is that language

well used has the capacity to evoke and
inspire.

Words can speak to our heads.

Hearts stomachs and backbones or
any combination of all of the above.

So today I thought that the best way for
me to demonstrate this belief

is to share with you some of the words
that have been evocative for me.

Creating often lingering effects and
inspiring me to live my

life consciously and
deliberately bringing all of my senses and

sensibilities to bear in observing
the world around me interrogating

my perceptions and
experiences reflectively reflexively and

robustly and using what I've gleaned
from such critical process sees to

understand the potential and possibilities
for what I might do with myself

over the years building these
practices as habits of mind and

action a brought to me a sense
of what my own passions are and

helps me to understand that
life is not only worth living.

But also worth living.

Well.

I start then with the words of
an a Jew you hate would Cooper.

Some of you know that I quote rather.

She is really a person that I greatly.

She was an African-American
woman who was born a slave and

Raleigh North Carolina on August
tenth eight hundred fifty eight.

She lived to be one hundred and

five years old dying on February twenty
seventh one thousand nine hundred sixty

four almost long enough to see the passing
of the Voting Rights Act in one

thousand nine hundred five during her
very long and amazingly productive life.

She went from being in to being one of
the first African American women to

earn a college degree in the United States

of being a from Open University
in eighteen eighty four.

She earned an Emmy in mathematics from
Oberlin eight hundred eighty seven and

nine hundred twenty five she became
before African-American woman in

the United States to earn a Ph D.
in French literature and

history from the University
of Paris are both.

In one nine hundred thirty she became
one of the first African American women

to be named president of a college.

Reading house and University in Washington
D.C. and across all of those years.

She was a leader an advocate for
much needed social change

in eight hundred ninety two she wrote
a book entitled A voice from the south.

The last chapter of this
book is entitled again from.

And she said it is these
magic words I believe.

That is power.

That is the stamping attribute in every
in person impressive personality.

That is the fire to the engine and

the motor force in every bad
battery that is the live coal

from the altar which at once unseen
almost the lips of the dumb.

And that alone which makes
a man a positive and

not a negative quantity in
the world's arithmetic.

You see all of her disciplines
coming together in a statement.

With this potent talisman
man no longer abideth alone.

He cannot stand apart.

Coal a coal spectator of
Earth pulsing struggles

the flame must burst forth
who cheats me of this.

Robs me of both shield and

spear without them I have no
inspiration to better myself.

No inclination to help others.

Cooper reinforced for
me the notion that belief fire the soul.

And make it possible for human beings
to be steadfast in working with this

record and being a cold spectator.

Belief inspires passion and
he votes action with the hope and

expectation that both will make up.

Positive difference rather
than a negative one.

Amid the earth's pulsing
struggles a second and downfall

is from Audrey Lord renowned radical
feminist writer and civil rights activist

who made an indelible mark in the late
twentieth century before she died in one

thousand nine hundred two at fifty years
fifty eight years old from breast cancer.

The word state it.

It's not that we haven't always
been here since there was a here.

It's that the letters of our
names have been scrambled

when they were not totally erased.

And our fingerprints upon
the handles of history.

Have been called the random
brushing of birds.

These words have lingered with me for
many many years and then mine desire

to document the lives conditions and
contributions of women of African descent.

In defiance of the reality that
the contributions of African-American

women historically have been needed and
ignored these

words help to inspire the deep passion and
commitment that I have to make sure.

In any ways that I can that our
fingerprints upon the handles of

history are not so comfortably call.

The random brushing of birds.

I am an archival researcher and
I define my focus in English that is to be

the history of rhetorical practices of
women of African descent as advocates and

activists for social change as
leaders who consistently exhibit

rhetorical expertise and
eloquent eloquence and its intellectuals

who think well about problems conditions
and challenges and think equally

well about compelling opportunity to
make the play world a better place.

A third example is to.

Alice Walker and
award winning writer of poetry essays and

novels who is a longstanding
socio political activist and

living by the word one of her
collections of essays she states.

War will stop.

When we no longer praise it or
give it any attention at all.

Peace will come where it
is sincerely invite it.

Love will overflow slow
every sanctuary given at

truth will grow where
the fertilizer that nourish nurses.

It is also true faith
will be its own reward.

Only if we have reason to fear.

What is in our own hearts.

Need we fear for
the planet teach yourself peace.

Pass it on.

I am braced the notion that the making
of a better more peaceful world

demands focus and
months not simply in imagining

such a world which of course is
an important and often necessary step but

also in working with Leslie to create it.

In teaching ourselves to nurture truth.

Justice.

Courtesy compassion peace in
dedicating our energy to extra

to the exercise of these values and
not just the saying of Sam and

in committing ourselves to pass these
legacies of faith and action on.

I take my last example from
an African-American male Howard Thurman.

Dr Thurman is recognized as
one of the most eloquent and

thoughtful you know lotion of
the twentieth century a prolific author.

An educator a civil rights leader and
a mentor.

For whole generation of civil rights
leaders including Martin Luther King Jr.

In a speech in nineteen eighty one.

Dr Thurman implored his audience to add
to all of their senses to listen for

the sound of the genuine in themselves
as a member of that audience.

I took it by and
I've tried to live by this principle.

I have pushed myself to
think about what is right.

True and real in my own heart.

Head.

Dhamma and backbone.

And I've also pushed myself to act
on these truths that I have found

based on the notion as I do of
the wells that so eloquently proclaim

that knowledge in Mayence action if
you know that something is right.

True and real you must then treat it so
and act accordingly.

This point brings me back
to where I started today

to the words of energy your Cooper.

There is again from belief.

So this time I believe.

I believe in the power of the language
well used with care with social and

ethical consciousness with an eye
toward using words images and

other symbolic systems graciously and well
in order to do whatever good that I can do

in its capacity to evoke and
inspire passion and action.

Language has been for me and a blink
touchstone that has helped me to feel

that change is possible that miracles
are possible that it really is

possible to leave the spaces in the world
that we are privileged to occupy

better off than the way that we found
them that we all have the privilege.

Of being a positive force for
good in the Earth's pulsing struggles.

If indeed we choose to be over the years I

have experienced games from
this belief with one game today

being the pleasure that I have experienced
and sharing these thoughts with you.

Thank you.

Miss me.