F&M Stories

Thank you very much everyone. Thank you.

An honorary degree … I'm going to go back to the Senate floor on Monday and tell Chuck Schumer and Mitch McConnell it's not Senator Booker, it's Doctor Booker. Wait until I tell Bob Casey. 

So, first of all, as you go on in life you're going to see some of the ridiculousness of situations like this that Mo Butler, Class of '95, would stand up here and heaps words of praise upon me when he knows the truth. Mo has been in my life for closing in on 20 years, and every major accomplishment that I often get credit for doing, he was the person by my side actually executing and getting things done. He was the leader of one of the nonprofits I founded in Newark and did extraordinary things. I often felt like a beaver standing before the Hoover Dam and saying, "Yeah, I did this."

He was my chief of staff as mayor and helped to transition Newark forward in significant ways. He was my first chief of staff when I was a United States Senator. I am honored that he is my friend. I am honored that he's my brother. And I tell you this, this community has gifted me one of the more important moments of my life, to be able to stand on a stage with him and be able to give him at least some praise that he's worthy and he's due. Would you give him a round of applause?

Secondly, another gift Mo gave to me was bringing your president to my office when I was still mayor, and I have to say, in my job I deal with presidents and he is clearly my favorite. And, I have to say — not a high bar, but you are my favorite president I deal with — it was Gwendolyn Brooks who said, "We are each other's business. We are each other's harvest. We are each other's magnitude and bond." Some profound words. But what your president does is he lives those words. He exudes that spirit. He sees everybody for who they are.

I'm the only United States Senator in our country that lives in an inner city. I live in a low-income community. But when I walk out my door I see the radiance, the beauty, the brilliance, the wealth and the worth of my community. And to have a man who understands that, who sees in all of our young people in this country this nation's greatest natural resource, not coal or gas, but the genius of our young people and then understand — yes, you can applaud that — but then, a president who understands the very important point in America that genius is equally distributed throughout our country. There's as many geniuses born in the most privileged, wealthy communities as there are born in communities like mine, from Newark to Camden … and that we have a responsibility to each other as a nation, as a people, to cultivate that genius, to nourish it and nurture it. And to see this university live those values, when I see this class and the treasure that you are, from all different backgrounds, the robust pathways that have been created from my neighborhood as well as communities all around, this is a president whose work speaks for him. I give him my love, I give him my honor, I give him my respect. Would you please give him a round of applause.

And so now, I have one goal in my remarks, which is to try to help the Class of 2018 hear to understand something that I didn't fully grasp when I was your age, when I was graduating, and it is simply this: That you are powerful, and if I can achieve this, I hope that you all tag me in some photos and say hashtag WhyItWorks … I want you to let me know that I've accomplished that because to me it is a lesson I'm still trying to learn. This idea of what power is.

If you listen to your president's remarks, he laid it out. By talking about two different résumés. I've come to learn that the things that we put on our résumés, many of the things that Mo read about me, that has nothing to do with power. Power is not in your positions, in your titles. Power, as your president put out is that other résumé. It's the things that are going on in your heart. When I was mayor of Newark, I had achieved this position I had dreamed of for years. I had fought to get to that brass ring. I had official power, statutory power, but I didn't understand fully that true power has nothing to do with those heights of attainment that the external world puts value on. But, indeed, I was seeing in my own neighborhoods, in my own communities, in the folk on my block who you'll never read about in the history books, that real power comes from within, from your character, from your heart.

I reject this Great Man theory of history that we are the great nation we are because these titans came down from Mount Olympus and led us forward and led the way. As I want to show you that the real power comes from the character of the Americans here and is us collectively, incredible souls who came before us, are the reasons why our country is here.

I found this out once in a very funny way. I was the mayor of the City of Newark and I get this call from this incredible man. He's a Harvard professor named Henry Louis Gates, and he calls me up because he has this TV show called "Finding Your Roots," where he traces the roots of famous people from Oprah to Chris Rock and traces those roots back and reveals it on a TV show, and he calls me up and says, "Hey Cory, I've got this TV show called ‘Finding Your Roots,' and I go, I know Skip. I thought he was inviting me to go see a premiere of this show on some great celebrities. I thought this was going to be fun. He goes, "No, Cory. I want you to understand something. I want you to be the subject of an episode of my show." And I was like, Oh, my gosh, this is incredible. And then he started doing what often works for politicians; we see this on the national scale, that you can really get someplace if you just massage their ego and them all the things they want to hear.

And so here he was, "Oh, you're great. You're this up-and-coming leader." And I was like, Oh yes, yes, tell me more. And as he's building me up in my mind with all those external résumé things, he then says to me, "Hey, and Cory, we're going to pair you with somebody," and I got quiet. I thought maybe he was going to pair me with another young, up-and-coming elected leader, and I say, "Who are you going to pair me with?" And then he gets quiet, there's a pause, and then he says two words very slowly. He says, "I'm going to pair you with… John Lewis." And suddenly, I got quiet. Because immediately I realized, John Lewis is a Congressman today. He is one of the titans in America. He is one of the legends in our nation. This guy, when he was in his early 20s, left college to dive into the Civil Rights Movement. He was one of the original people who was leading Freedom Rides. They call him the bravest person in the Civil Rights Movement because he was beaten so many times. He was the leader of an organization called the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. I knew this guy's history. He led one of the most famous marches in American history from Selma to Montgomery across the Edmund Pettus Bridge, where again he was beaten bloody by Alabama State Troopers. This man was incredible and here he's now telling me that "my show"—of course I said "my"—was going to be shared with John Lewis!

I'm like just 10 years out of college. And he says to me, "Cory, don't worry. It's going to be great." But in my mind I knew exactly how the show would begin, and this, in essence, is how it began. It began by telling our two stories, it had to go give our biographies. And so the announcer goes, "John Lewis, hero of the Civil Rights Movement, marching across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. He bled the southern soil red for freedom." And then it goes to my introduction: "Cory Booker, riding his Big Wheel in suburban New Jersey." He fell off, skinned his knee, bled the northern soil red for something…

I got the chance to meet John Lewis and get to know him. In fact, in a very important way, he filled a void in my life, because months after that TV show in a special election in New Jersey, I would be elected to be the United States Senator. It was in October and that month of a great victory in a Senate election was also great pain because my dad died six days before I was elected. And my mom and I were hurting and here were now going to Washington, D.C., to be sworn in and my staff and my mother were smart. They said before you go to the Senate floor and get sworn in by Joe Biden, why don't you go and have the last thing you do before you become a United States Senator, go sit with John Lewis.

And so I'll never forget … My mom and I go to his office and his office is incredible. It's a humble Capitol office but on the wall are all these pictures. It looks like a museum to the Civil Rights Movement, except for he's in every picture. And we sit there and the first thing that struck me about John Lewis was how profoundly humble this man was. That when he looked at you, the world disappears. He was focused on you, me and my mom. He wouldn't even let us get up to serve ourselves. He literally was bringing us food to eat and trying to communicate to me what it meant to him to have me ascend to the United States Senate as only the fourth popularly elected African American in the history of our country. He talked to me about his dreams and his hopes being made manifest in what I was doing. By the time we left there my mom was on fire. I don't think there's ever been—and somebody should fact check me on this —I don't think there's ever been a United States senator going to get sworn in that the entire time walking through the hallways of the Capitol they're being lectured by their mother the entire time.

My mom couldn't contain herself. She's like, "Boy, don't you forget where you came from. Don't forget the blood, sweat, and tears of your ancestors." All the way there she's finally saying to me, "Boy, don't forget that the title doesn't make the man. The man must make the title."

I got to where Joe Biden was swearing me in, I turned to my mom, I go, "Mom, you can stop now. I'm coming back. This is not the last time you're going to see me."

I'm now John Lewis' colleague. And these lessons about power … he has been one of my greatest life professors. I watch him on how he deals with people from all different backgrounds, Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, liberals, libertarians, vegetarians. He treats everyone with the same kindness. He sees you. He understands that in life, someone who's nice to you but rude to the waiter is not a nice person. Everybody he talks to, I watch his grace in how he's reinforcing that simple lesson that, hey, you don't have to attend to every argument that you're invited to. I see his power redefining the ideals of patriotism, which is not something that's braggadocious, not just about symbols. It's about love. Patriotism is love of country, and you cannot love your country unless you love your countrymen and women. I see in him reinforcing the ideal that you can't lead the people if you don't love the people.

I see that he has taught me that the most important language we can speak is not English or French or Spanish or Chinese, but that universal language that is still so needed that is just the language of kindness.

And so, I remember on a particularly tough day in Washington, meeting with him and others around the Congressional Black Caucus, talking with him as we were getting our food and preparing to sit down. I realized that this is a guy who goes through the day not collecting complaints or gathering grievances. He just kept talking about kindness; he was cultivating kindness and every day exuding gratitude. He literally had the ability to change my attitude and to help me understand that life shouldn't be confusing. It's not about celebrity; it's about significance. It's not about wealth; it's about worth. It's not about external charisma; it's about internal character.

And so I want you to understand that this character on the inside of you, that second résumé that the president talked about, that should be the part of you that is directly in line with how you act in this world. Because those are the actions and that is the source of your power to actually make a difference in this world. Paulo Coelho said it very simply, "The world is changed by your example, not by your opinion." We are a nation that does not understand fully the power of those everyday actions. It's not about what we read in the news. It's not about what some elected official in an office on high does. It's about what we do every single day.

We have a choice in every moment of our lives—to accept things as they are or take responsibility for changing them. And this comes to that power, this underestimation we have of those small, daily acts we do that speak our truth. We need to understand that; most days of my life, I realize that the biggest thing that you can do in any given day is most often a small act of kindness, of decency or love.

Let me sum it all to you with this simple story that, to me, it's a story that for most of my life, I only knew the first half of the story. And it's a story of power. I grew up in New Jersey. You see, my parents came from tough backgrounds, from poverty. If you listened to my dad, he said, "Son, I was too poor to be poor. I was just 'po' because I couldn't afford the other two letters." But through incredible movements in this country, doors started opening up.

Both my parents were among the first black executives hired by IBM. My dad was the first black salesman in the entire Virginia area. They started doing well. They got promotions; next thing you know, they're off to live in Manhattan. They wanted to live in New Jersey, and they began looking for homes in the northeastern New Jersey suburbs. But here in 1969, everywhere they looked, when they would show up at a home, they would be told by the real-estate agent, "Oh, I'm so sorry; this home has been pulled off the market." Or "Oh, I'm so sorry; this house has been sold." And it was because they were a black family; my parents, my brother was 2 years old, me in 1969 that month I was just a month or two old.

And they finally found this incredible group. This young woman named Miss Lee Porter leading this group called the New Jersey Fair Housing Council with a group of incredible activist lawyers. They decided to set up this sting operation, so every time that my parents would go to for a house, they would be told that was sold, there would be a white couple coming right behind them, and inevitably, they'd find out the house was still for sale. And this one great house in this incredible community called Harrington Park, N.J., my parents found this house—I know that there are some of my fellow Harrington Park/Northern Valley/Golden Knights forever here…

In this community, my parents found the house that I would grow up in, but they were told that it had sold. They leave; the white couple comes; the house is still for sale; the white couple puts in a bid on the house as if they're my parents. The bid is accepted. Papers are drawn up. And then, on the day of the closing, the white couple doesn't show up. My father does and a volunteer lawyer. And here they walk into the real-estate agent's office and the real-estate agent looks at them surprised to see my dad and this lawyer. And they confront him and they say you're in violation of New Jersey fair housing law, and they go on and on and on, but the agent doesn't give up, he doesn't admit his fault. He just stands up angrily and punches my dad's lawyer in the face and sics a dog on my dad. And I'm going to tell you this right now: every time my dad would tell this story as I was growing up, the dog would get bigger. Eventually, when I was 18 years old and heading off to college, he looked at me and said, "Boy, don't walk around this house like you hit a triple. You were born on third base. You need to remember, boy, I had to fight a pack of wolves to get you in this home. You better appreciate what you have."

And this is the story I knew all my life. But now, I'm in the Senate. And like many senators who have a high self-regard, I decided to write a book. But if you have a dad like me, you've got to go back and fact-check every story. I mean, how big was the dog actually?

And so now I've got the challenge to find first-person witnesses to all these things. And now I'm searching for the head of the Fair Housing Council. And Miss Lee Porter she was easy to find—because she is still the head of the Fair Housing Council today! She is 92 years old and still working in northern New Jersey. And now, she isn't just the head of the Fair Housing Council representing African Americans, she also represents same-sex couples and Muslim couples and who are experiencing housing discrimination.

I brought her to my office, and I'm embarrassed to tell you this—don't make the same mistakes I have—because here I am, in my 40s, and I had never said, "Thank you," to this amazing woman. So I'm not exaggerating, I got on my knees in front of her to thank her. I asked her about these lawyers, because I needed to understand how big that dog was, and she said, "Cory, let me tell you about one of those lawyers. He's a great man; you can find him; he's retired now."

So I call this man named Arthur Lessman and this was one of the more incredible conversations of my life. Arthur Lessman was a retired judge and he was in his 80s. And thank God I called him because unfortunately he would pass away just a couple of years later. I introduced myself and he said, "I know who you are." I complimented him on his activism and he started telling me the stories. He confirmed that it was not a pack of wolves; it was a dog. And he tells me the details of the sting operation, how they set it up. It was an incredible story of a guy I didn't know and of his activism and how it made a difference.

But then, this is what blew me away. I asked him what his motivation was. Why would this white guy in the 1960s help black families integrate his neighborhood? Why would he do it? And he said to me, "I remember the day that I made the decision—it was a Monday." And I asked, "How do you remember that it was a Monday?" He said, "Cory, I know it was a Monday because the previous day, I was watching a movie." This was back when America had like three TV channels and most of the country was watching this movie about the trials at Nuremberg. It was 1965; he was sitting comfortably on his couch. Suddenly, the news breaks in and interrupts this movie about Nazis and the Holocaust, a story from years earlier. But now, suddenly he is shocked to see the news story. It's about these people who started marching in Selma and were trying to march to Montgomery on a Sunday that has become known as "Bloody Sunday."

He said, "Cory, I watched these marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge and I saw them get confronted by Alabama state troopers with billy clubs and weapons. They had this standoff, and then, right before the marchers were going to turn around, when they were kneeling down to pray, at that point, the Alabama state troopers stormed into the crowd, shooting gas at them, beating them with billy clubs. One woman, Miss Boynton, got knocked unconscious; another young man in his 20s named John Lewis had his head cracked open."

Here Arthur Lessman was, comfortable in his New Jersey home, watching this news, and he was so horrified that he went to work the next day and sat with his law partner and said, "We've got to go to Alabama." And then they laughed—not because it was funny, but because it was preposterous. This was just a new start-up business; they didn't have the money to even afford a plane ticket, let alone close their office doors. So they just sat there and thought to themselves. They decided they couldn't do everything. They didn't allow their inability to do everything to undermine their determination to do something. They didn't sit comfortably in a state of sedentary agitation, where they were so upset at the world, but they did nothing.

They decided, in essence, that they would do the best they could with what they had where they were, that their values and circumstances may not push them to great acts or great moments, but they could get on the phone and call around, as they did, to ask who might need an hour of legal work here or there that could maybe make a difference. And suddenly they found this young woman named Miss Lee Porter, who was desperate for legal help. They began slowly working with her, and then four years later, Arthur Lessman gets this case file with the names on it of Cary and Carolyn Booker.

We don't realize what King said. In a jail in Birmingham, he wrote, "We are all caught in a network of inescapable mutuality tied in a common garment of destiny." Every one of us is interwoven and intertwined. In intricate ways, we are a human lattice; one action on one part of the fabric in line with strong moral fiber—one tug, one action—cascades into the whole.

Here are some folks on a bridge in Alabama in 1965. They didn't even make it to their destination. They weren't even successful in getting to Montgomery. They were beaten, bloodied, battered and driven back, but on that day, when they stood up for patriotism, for love of their countrymen and women, for love of their ideals, they stood up in that one instant and released a force, an energy that instantaneously leapt a thousand miles and changed the attitude of a person sitting on a couch in New Jersey, who would then go on and change the outcomes of generations not yet born.

That is the power that we all have. Alice Walker said the most common way that people give up their power is not realizing they have it in the first place. Every day of our lives, every moment when we make that decision not to accept things as they are but to take responsibility, when we don't just put our hands on our hearts and pledge allegiance to the flag but outstretch our hands to another American as a demonstration of our values, when we understand as a nation that people who claim faith understand that before you tell me about your religion, show it to me in how you treat other people.

Every second of our lives, every moment the smile we give to stranger, every moment the helping hand we give someone, defending someone, putting kind words into the world, into the Internet, all of those things make a difference. No action, no matter how small, that is resonant with your values and your ideals, the best of who you are, has power.

And so Class of 2018, my message is simple: You are powerful. Your spirit, your heart, your faith even the size of mustard seeds can move mountains. You are powerful. You are your ancestors wildest dreams, ones whose names you don't even know. Those folks who sweat for you and bled for you and scrubbed toilets for you, who waited tables for you, who plowed the earth with their hands for you, you are a manifestation of their conspiracy of love.

Class of 2018, you are powerful. Your actions aligned with your values, your courage, your compassion, your enduring empathy, your undeniable, indomitable love will make a difference. Class of 2018, I promise you, with all of my heart I promise you, that if you help, if you heal, if you embrace, if you serve, if you love and love your family, love your friends, if you love those who disagree with you, if you love those of different parties, if you love those who are bullied, if you love those who are immigrants, if you love I promise you—not tomorrow, not next month, not when you fill your résumé—I promise you your power will shape this world beyond your dreams. You will effect outcomes far from you. You will change the destiny for generations not yet born.

I promise you, if you love like that and give like that and live like that, then we will come closer to the calling of our country to be a nation that truly is one for liberty and justice for all.

Thank you, and congratulations.

U.S. Senator Cory Booker