President Obama celebrated the graduates of Joplin High School in Joplin, Mo., Monday night, extolling a group of young people who he said responded to the tragedy of a devastating tornado “with strength, and grace and a commitment to others,” according to prepared remarks.
The job of a commencement speaker – aside from keeping it short and sweet – is to inspire. But as I look out at this class, and across this city, what’s clear is that you’re the source of inspiration today. To me. To this state. To this country. And to people all over the world.
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Obama, who has long used commencement addresses as an opportunity to challenge young people to service, marveled at the service shown by members of the community and surrounding areas.
You’ll always remember that in a town of 50,000 people, nearly 50,000 more came to help in the weeks after the tornado – perfect strangers who’ve never met you, and would never ask for anything in return. One of them was Mark Carr, who drove 600 miles from Rocky Ford, Colorado with a couple of chainsaws and his three little children. One man traveled all the way from Japan, because he remembered that Americans were there for his country after last year’s tsunami, and he wanted the chance to pay it forward. Many were AmeriCorps volunteers who have chosen to leave their homes and stay here until Joplin is back on its feet.
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Just as you have learned the goodness of people, so have you learned the power of community. As take on the roles of colleague and neighbor and citizen, you will encounter all kinds of divisions between groups – divisions of race, and religion, and ideology. You’ll meet people who like to disagree just for the sake of being disagreeable; who prefer to play up their differences and instead of focusing on what they have in common, or where they can cooperate.
But you are from Joplin. So you will know that it’s always possible for a community to come together when it matters most.
Obama ended his remarks with the poem “Youth,” by Joplin native Langston Hughes.
We have tomorrow
Bright before us
Like a flame.
Yesterday
A night-gone thing,
A sun-down name.
And dawn-today. Broad arch above the road we came.
We march.
