Remarks by Brian Williams
- May 19, 2007
Mr.
President, members of the board, the faculty,
all the parents who are here today, and of
course the Class of 2007:
As long as I live, I don’t know if I’ll
ever figure out how it all happened. How, while
doing my job, while trying to do something for
this great city—and by extension this great
university—this great university ended up doing
so much for me. I don’t know what I did.
I do know what all of you have done. I think
it’s fair to say that not since war broke
out in the 1940s, when the wave of service and
sacrifice passed over all our nation’s
college campuses, that so much has been asked
of a graduating class as has been asked of yours.
The forces of nature swept
you away from here. And sadly, we now know,
the truth is Katrina had a lot of help. You
were failed, all of you, by grownups
at every level of government. They could’ve done more, much more. We
still wait for answers; we may never get those
answers. You didn’t wait; you all did what
you had to do. But most of all, I speak for everyone
here today, “This is why we honor you,
truly, because you came back.” You
came back to this great place. There wouldn’t
be a Tulane without New Orleans, and I am absolutely
convinced there would not be a New Orleans without
Tulane.
I have one final task to
ask of you until your job is done and you are
handed your diplomas, and I’m going to
need a little help from the house lights. Would
all the graduating seniors and students today
who volunteered in any way toward the rebuilding
of New Orleans please rise?
That’s what I mean. You
may not have known it; you probably didn’t
look at it this way in your selflessness, but
by your service you’ve already shown greater
character than so many people so many years out
of college, along with many of those leaders
I mentioned earlier. You leave here with a huge
lesson learned, as examples to offer before you
even receive your diplomas. In 2007 not a lot
of Americans can say that.
Tulane has been so kind
to me. When they awarded me the President’s
Medal, I felt like the Cowardly Lion getting
his courage. Today I feel a little bit more
like the Scarecrow getting a brain. Please
know one thing about me, and it’s true,
what you all receive here today, what you’ve
all worked so hard to earn, is something I
don’t have. And it’s
more than I ever started out with. It’s
a college degree. It’s one of the great,
great regrets of my life.
And let me invoke one more
movie since we’re
talking about The Wizard of Oz here.
How about It’s a Wonderful Life—the
great Christmas classic, black-and-white. It’s
on when you go home every year, whether you want
to see it or not. It stars Jimmy Stewart, and
it’s done by the legendary director Frank
Capra. Jimmy Stewart plays the local banker George
Bailey, and he becomes, because of bank losses,
despondent and suicidal. The only way to save
George Bailey is for an angel to say, “George,
look at what the world would’ve been like
without you in it.” So please, leave here
today looking at your time here the way the legendary
director Frank Capra would have. If you hadn’t
been in this world, if you hadn’t done
what you’ve done for this great city, if
you hadn’t gone to Tulane, this would be
a whole different place.
I arrived next door at the Superdome on a Sunday
night. It was already raining and the winds were
picking up and hundreds of people were in line
outside in the rain. They had suitcases, and
young children, and grocery bags and Hefty bags.
They were decent, they were scared, they were
tired. Some of them are now dead. They were told
the Superdome in New Orleans was the shelter
of last resort, and my friends, truer words have
never been spoken.
That next week is a blur, as it is for everybody
in here. “Split-screen America,” we
call it. On one side we were showing the live
pictures from New Orleans; on the other side
of the screen, various government officials telling
us they were happy with the response and the
resources on their way to New Orleans. It was
a disconnect.
We lived in rental cars that week, listening
to Garland Robinette on the radio. Any innocence
we had about our society was washed away. Any
beliefs I used to cling to about my children
and their counterparts in the Superdome being
equals, they were washed away that day. I would
give anything I have for all of you to not have
to learn the lessons you had to learn in that
way. It was an evil storm, it was a criminally
slow and botched response. You deserved better
and so did this great American city.
But then again, why are
we surprised? Look at what your generation
has learned already about sacrifice. In all
the time you have been here, American soldiers
have been fighting overseas. For every one
of them, there is an American family making
a towering, quiet sacrifice back at home. So
many of the men and women in that fight would
cherish what you’re about to receive today.
So many would love to be in your place, but for
volunteering for duty. You are free to hate this
war, of course, but having been over there with
them, having been alongside them in this fight,
I would ask you forever to show your gratitude
and your nation’s gratitude for those who
are in this fight.
And because our college
president likes a participatory Commencement,
let’s start a little bit
of that here today. Would all the veterans of
the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who are with
us today, please rise? Would all the veterans
of the U.S. Armed Forces please rise? Thank you.
It’s useful to look back
on what's happened since you’ve been here.
Not all of it’s
bad. I did some checking myself—it’s
what I do for a living.
When I’m not appearing as the “Giant
Head of Brian Williams.”
When the class
of 2007 arrived at Tulane, the top five web searches
the month you got here: “Osama bin
Laden,” “anthrax,” “Napster,” “Eminem” and “Shakira.” Among
the top five films the month you arrived here: Signs (remember
that one?), 8 Mile, and this next one
is proof that, at least as a country, we still
know and enjoy culture when we see it: Scooby
Doo. The most requested music that month:
Nelly (not Furtado), Korn, Blink 182.
So you
were the guys downloading Korn, huh? That’s
great.
The hot TV show at the time when
you all arrived at Tulane: “The Osbournes.” Remember “The
Osbournes?” Like a lifetime ago. And the
dog who did terrible things.
The computer game
that was hot at that time: The Sims.
It was all new back then.
We were all so innocent. It was a simpler time.
Remember we had encyclopedias? You’d
get up, you’d go get a big
book, you’d bring it back to where you
were working, opening it…it was unbelievable.
It was full of facts and written by experts and
learned men and women. No wonder we invented
Wikipedia.
But we were younger. I look at pictures of myself.
I had more hair. Britney Spears had hair.
I got to town yesterday. I read the Times
Picayune as I always do. I watched the
local news last night. I’m always, during
my visits here, trying to see if the news is
good. It’s like the story of the carved
sunset or sunrise on the back of the chair
in Constitution Hall in Philadelphia. During
the Constitutional Convention they used to
ask, “Is it rising or setting?” Is
the glass half empty or half full? Where is
New Orleans, exactly?
There is a new pet shelter
opening in Algiers. There are new plans for
evacuation routes, I see, and information stops
along the line for those families, who if they
have to get out again, can get out. There are
new restaurants opening up in St. Bernard Parish.
I see people out on the streets that I haven’t
seen on previous visits. And I read that Fats
Domino is playing Tipitina’s tonight.
That’s gotta
be a sign of recovery. I can almost hear Ellis
saying, “Well, let’s wait and see
if Fats shows up at Tipitina’s tonight.”
And then I came to the obituary
pages in the Times
Picayune, and I always scan the pages—I
don’t know why but I always have. And,
in part, I look at the great family names from
this part of the world: Simonet and Thibodeaux;
Honore and Villaneaux; Hebert and Bottenet;
and Bergeron and Bonaparte. I now see that
the paper no longer lists the cause of death.
I now notice it’s not just older folks
who have “gone to their great reward,” as
they put it, after a life well-lived here in
this great place. I wonder how many of them
died of a broken heart. And then I read the
ages. Two 17-year-olds. 21, 24, 29. How can
we let such great young people go?
But remember that same
phrase can be applied to all of you. How can
we let such great young people go, be released
from our grasp here in New Orleans, knowing
you’ve done so much?
We understand, though, that life awaits you.
You’ve learned far more while you’ve
been here than you were intended to—more than
any other graduating class.
You came back once. And
while we will never forget you for what you
did, I’d like to
propose a deal here today. Hear me out. There
is a state program here in Louisiana, it’s
called the “Road Home.” It’s
not intended for you; it’s for homeowners
who need money to rebuild and repair their homes.
Money that’s coming to them through the
government. But I like the way it sounds. “The
road home.” What could be better? Well, New Orleans
could be better.
Today many of you will go home,
meaning the place you associate with family,
and Thanksgiving, and Christmas and It’s
a Wonderful Life. Well you now have another
home. You helped to rebuild it. Never forget
that. While great forces tried to drive you out
of here, you pushed back. And you built something
while you were in college. So, it’s been
mentioned before here today, let me ask again:
come back to Tulane, come back to New Orleans.
Wherever else you may end up, this is the road
home. Congratulations and God bless you. |