Kerry Urges Graduates to Help U.S. Image
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NEW ORLEANS — Sen. John F. Kerry exhorted graduates of Southern University here Saturday to choose a life of service in their community or around the world to help overcome the damage done to America’s image abroad by the widening Iraqi prisoner scandal.
The Democratic presidential candidate told 670 graduates of the historically black college that the photos “now require us -- all of us -- to work even harder to present who we really are. And if you choose to, you can help to do that.”
Wearing a traditional black graduation gown and red hood, Kerry told the students and thousands of their loved ones that they should reject cynicism and instead consider a life of volunteerism or a stint in the Peace Corps, “the most powerful symbol of nonmilitary service in our history.”
“If there was ever a time that everyday people in the most deprived countries, cities and villages of the world need to see idealistic America working to help them,” he said, “it is today, when we are engaged in a struggle to win the hearts and minds of people all across this planet.”
The Massachusetts senator invoked the spirit of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. repeatedly during the brief address, noting that Southern University’s first graduating class was sent out into the world just three months before King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.
The first advice that Kerry gave the graduates was far less lofty than choosing a life of service: “Do not forget to say Happy Mother’s Day to your mom tomorrow. It can save you an enormous amount of guilt and a whole lot of pain.”
He also talked about how honored he was when the school’s chancellor invited him to give the commencement speech.
“He told me that the students at Southern wanted a commencement speaker who was in public office, someone who was in amazing physical shape for his age, a man who would mesmerize with his speech while dazzling everyone with his charm,” Kerry said.
“I told him I was flattered,” Kerry recounted. “And then he said, ‘Since you’re friends with Arnold Schwarzenegger, see if he’s available.’ Well, he wasn’t -- and here I am.”
Later, Kerry flew to Pittsburgh, where he will spend Mother’s Day with his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, at her farm outside the city.
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