It is hard for the children I teach every day to appreciate the extent to which the color of a man’s skin informed his life when I was growing up. It dictated everything, from where one might live to the sort of work one might do to how long one might live. When I was in college it seemed, for a brief moment, that the words of Dr. King might come true and that this would at last become a country that operated on the democratic ideal that man has struggled for since the time of the Romans. But instead of using Dr. King’s death as an occasion to continue to work for that ideal, we Negroes turned on each other with a fury that continues unabated. Just look around you. When heinous crimes are committed, who most often has committed them? When you view the squalor of our cities, who lives in the most hellish part? Who contributes most mightily to keeping it that way? Dr. King would weep if he could see what has happened since his death. And the children of that time live with the residue of our stubborn inability to let go of our pain even as things have changed. That is why it is so important to me that I be taken on my merits, whatever they are. I think that is why I have always struggled when I am confronted with a request such as Fox’s. On the one hand, I have a lengthy tenure here and strong affection for the Chelsea School. Who better to represent it to any interested party? But at the same time there is the nagging suspicion that he has asked me simply so that he can put a brown face before the alumni he is trying to win over. Instead of letting those who are capable simply find their way here, as I did, we go trolling for money and students, using me as bait. I spent a good deal of time mulling over how I could in good conscience accept Fox’s invitation, serve the school, and also make my own views clear. As the afternoon of our departure arrived, I thought that I had the answer.