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The following remarks were made by Richard E. Rubenstein in his introduction of Roger Wilkins at the Sixth Annual Lynch Lecture at George Mason University on December 3,1993.
In Europe, it is not so unusual to discover men and women who manage somehow to be political activists, philosophers, professionals, journalists, teachers, public officials, and artists, all more or less at the same time. One thinks of Sartre and de Beauvoir, Disraeli and Vaclav Havel. In the United States, it is harder to discover figures like this. But we are privileged to hear from such a person tonight.
Roger Wilkins began his career as a lawyer working in New York City, having already graduated from the University of Michigan with AB. and J.D. degrees. He went from private law to public law in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, where he served first with the Agency for International Development and then with the Community Relations Service of the U.S. Department of Justice before becoming assistant attorney general of the United States. All of this took place from the late 1950s until the late 1960s-one of the stormiest and most transformative periods in the American history.
In 1969, Roger went into philanthropy, working for the Ford Foundation as program officer in charge of Social Development, then as assistant to the president of the Foundation. But a journalistic career beckoned. During the 1970s, Roger worked for The Washington Post as a member of the editorial page staff, for the New York Times as a columnist and member of the editorial board, and then for the Washington Star. In the 1980s, he was a network radio commentator for CBS News and then a commentator for the Mutual Broadcasting System. He has been with National Public Radio as a commentator since the early 1990s.
With all of this activity, Roger found time to write some remarkable books: James Baldwin called his autobiography, A Man's Life, "a most beautIful book"-and Baldwin was right! Most recently, he wrote a fine study of the urban crisis with Fred Harris-a book called Quiet Riots-as well as continuing his writing for journals and his television commentaries.
But all of this really skirts the surface of Roger Wilkins' career. Like a bass line underpinning and organizing all the other melodies of his actIve lIfe is the project of social change. Roger has never forgotten that
"What you are is God`s gift to you. What you become is your gift to God." And so, he has dedicated his life's energies to the twinned causes of African-American and human liberation.
It is impossibl.e.to summarize Roger's political activities, but they have included advising Rev. Jesse Jackson in two presidential campaigns; coordInatIng Nelson Mandela's 1990 visit to the United States; serving on the boards of the University of the District of Columbia, the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, and the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; working arduously for the American Civil Liberties Union' and maintaining his important and creative relationship with the ' Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. It was our luck at George Mason University to snare him as a Robinson Professor. Roger was Distinguished Faculty Member of the Year at this university in 1990-91.
Roger Wilkins inspires us all not only because of what he has done but also because of what he has not done: he has not for a minute given up the fight for a peaceful, just, and egalitarian society. When one looks at today's society, at the violence that continues to rend the planet, the scandalous inequalities of wealth, power, and dignity that divide humankind, the slow holocaust consuming the impoverished youth of American cities, there is every reason to say, "Well, it has been a good try, but it didn't work. It has been a good try, but maybe in a few centuries things will be better. It has been a good try, but right now, I'm tired."
Roger could say that, but he doesn't. He believes that people with vision, determination, and practical skill can help solve these problems-and not in a few centuries but soon. Soon! Thanks to Roger Wilkins and a few men and women like him, we also are emboldened to keep the faith that our world can be changed radically for the better.
It is my pleasure to introduce our LynChLecturer for 1993, my friend, Roger Wilkins.