- Fifty years ago, on this very day in 1968,
U.S. President Lyndon Johnson signed
a landmark Civil Rights Act.
Smoke from riots and fires,
ignited by the assassination of Martin Luther King,
still darkened the skies over Washington D.C.
We tend to thing of historic movements as a series of
singular events that lead inevitably to change.
You know the story,
Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a segregated bus.
The resulting boycott led the United States Supreme Court
to affirm that segregation was unconstitutional.
Dr. King's leadership of the boycott catapulted him to a
national role, culminating in the March on Washington,
and momentous civil rights laws.
Rosa Parks made history, but her role wasn't a beginning,
so much as a midpoint, and a positive result
and fundamental change were far from guaranteed.
Proximity mattered.
Rosa Parks was connected to Montgomery's African-American
leadership, including the new minister in town, Dr. King.
They were close. They encouraged each other.
They shared ideas and strategies,
including proposals to desegregate the buses.
When Rosa Parks was asked to give up her seat,
she knew it was her moment and her allies stood ready
to make the most of that moment.
Proximity with our fellow humans awakens our empathy and
compassion, as well as our imagination and creativity.
Neuroscience has shown that we are in fact wired
to exist in harmony with each other.
Parts of the human brain that recognize other people's
emotions, operate according to a sort of neuro golden rule,
which might help explain why so many religions teach
do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
Sadly, the reverse is also true.
Isolating ourselves from those we see as others can
erode our humanity, activating parts of the brain
on alert for risk and danger,
and then there's the onslaught of bad news
coming at us from every channel.
Our intimate human impulse to care and to take action
in the face of suffering or injustice
can become exhausted or overwhelmed.
We fortify ourselves against what we cannot bear to face.
A wall doesn't have to be a physical thing.
Social constructs also keep us from getting to know
those of a different status, gender, color,
class, generation, or faith.
Growing up we are all socialized
into our niches and categories.
We lose the impulse to reach out to others.
We learn to identify with our tribes and clans.
We've become less attuned to our fundamental humanity,
our true nature.
We create institutions that govern our interactions
with each other, laws en carte, schools and armies.
These institutions can be brilliant when they stay close
to the people they serve, but they to can be vulnerable
to the impulse to retreat, erect barriers,
and marginalize those who don't fit the dominate narrative.
In fact, it's astonishing how quickly we can erect a barrier
and how lasting the consequences can be.
Berlin Wall went up literally overnight as a
barbed wire fence on the 13th of August, 1961.
Fortifications, checkpoints, and guard towers followed.
The Wall cracked open, just as suddenly, 28 years later.
A rumor that visa restrictions would be lifted,
sent East Berliners rushing to the checkpoints.
As the mob swelled, a frantic duty officer opened a gate.
Hundreds and then thousands of jubilant citizens poured
through the opening and they began to pull down the Wall.
Who even remembers why the Wall went up?
The Cold War was already in full swing.
People were used to the metaphor,
brilliantly coined by Winston Churchill,
of an iron curtain separating Eastern from Western Europe.
People's overwhelming instinct for proximity
brought the Wall down.
It shouldn't surprise us.
People who will feel connected are going to go to
extraordinary lengths to maintain their bonds,
even in the face of the most bitter barriers.
Africans brought to the Americas as slaves,
developed distinct languages, songs, and systems
to communicate with each other under the radar of masters,
who separated them from their families.
Refugees driven from their homes,
who have risked everything to find safety,
will head first to charge their phones,
in order to reconnect with their families.
We mark a milestone of sorts this year,
the Berlin Wall has been gone for as long as it stood,
but the world it seems,
has not heeded the lessons of history.
Instead, all over the world,
we've embarked on a new frenzy of wall building.
In November of 1989, the fall of the Berlin Wall left fewer
than 20 border fences or walls in place around the world.
Today, more than 60 are completed or under construction.
Three times as many.
The tide of globalization has brought trading partners
closer, but it has also sparked feelings
of insecurity and resentment.
The way to face the challenges and crises that test us,
is not by erecting barriers,
but by drawing upon our creativity and our compassion.
We can see other as fellow humans, each with much to give,
if we disavow what divides us,
if we explore and discover what connects us,
if we lay down our arms and join arms.
And in that solidarity, we can summon all that's needed
to renew the human enterprise.
(applause)