“Tell your story and your journey, not to say that you’re so great, but rather to say, you are so blessed,” taught Dr. Freeman Hrabowski, president emeritus of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County, in Tuesday’s forum.
Noting how faith-inspired education motivates and prepares students to be humble, devoted leaders, Hrabowski told his audience, “You are going to serve. And in your serving, in going to different countries to help people less fortunate, you will be leading. You can never not lead. That’s not to be arrogant — it is to say you will be examples of how we should live our lives.”
Hrabowski based his remarks on his own childhood stories about his faith-inspired education during the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama. He described how what he learned prepared him for a lifetime of service supporting minorities’ pursuit of math and science education.
He recalled listening to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in church as a twelve-year-old and being inspired to march to City Hall, advocating for a better education for Black children in the segregated South.
“The point that my parents, the church, and Dr. King made was, ‘You’re all children of God. And we believe in you. And anything is possible.’”
Spat on by the police chief during the march and jailed with other children in horrific conditions for five days afterward, Hrabowski recalled that the harrowing experience was nevertheless an empowering lesson in his potential to serve others. He felt inspired to protect and comfort the younger children in the jail by reading aloud from the Bible.
“When our parents came outside the jailhouse, and we were looking out the windows, and little kids were crying, Dr. King said, ‘What you do this day will have an impact on children who’ve not yet been born.’”
Hrabowski applied this attitude of faith-inspired leadership to his career in education. Having a relentless thirst for mathematics — which none of his classmates seemed to share — he dedicated himself to helping others, especially underrepresented groups, find the love of learning.
“I have been determined for the past 60 years to follow my passion of getting more kids interested in learning and wanting to have more people love math and science, but also to love to read and to love literature.”
Hrabowski observed that there are two groups of Americans, those who have dreams that are fulfilled and those who live with “dreams deferred,” never fulfilled even for their children. A key factor in that disparity is education, and he argued that privileged people can fill that gap through service.
“You and I are the privileged group. We are going out to serve, to help those who are the least of these. I want you to have that sensitivity to know that there are so many people who grew up in homes where nobody emphasized education, reading or faith.”
He stressed that leading others requires loving them as children of God and seeing their humanity. He recalled as a child attending the funerals of several young Black girls, his friends, who were killed in the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in 1963. There for the first time, he witnessed White men weeping for Black children, a moving sight that taught him of the common humanity that binds us all.
He also remembered when his mother called him to share the news that the police chief who had spat on him many years before had died. Still filled with resentment toward the man, Hrabowski was astonished at his mother’s grief over the death. She shared a powerful lesson with him about choosing love over hate.
“‘Freeman,’ she said, ‘we have tried to teach you all your life to put God first, that you are loved, but somehow this man lived his life hating because he never had someone to teach him when he was a child to love people as human beings. He was taught to hate, and he never got beyond that hate.”
As these experiences showed him, true leadership demands that we approach others with love, Hrabowski said.
“One of our challenges is to look around in whatever environment we are in and to see, who doesn’t feel quite comfortable? Who is not quite belonging, and how do we pull them in? Because there’s something about a smile, there’s something about sincerity, that touches the heart and the soul.”
He concluded with wise words his mother, a former English teacher, shared with him at the end of her life. She told Hrabowski that her spirit would live on through her students because of what she taught them.
“‘Whether you are a teacher like me,’ she said, ‘or you’re doing other work as a professional, we’re all teachers. We’re all helping to educate people in different ways. We’re teaching them how to love learning and how to love God. It’s that spirit of giving to other people, that’s how we continue to live.’”
