When I served as U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, I marveled at the fact that I – this Lakeside High School grad – was occupying a role once filled by Andrew Young, who in addition to being a civil rights legend and my hometown mayor, also had pioneered, really, in many ways, the idea of a foreign policy rooted in the protection and promotion of human rights. A principle that showed day-in, day-out in his advocacy on behalf of the marginalized and the oppressed around the world.
Of course, Ambassador Young comes from an institution with a long, storied history in promoting social justice. I find it immensely moving to think of Morehouse’s first classes meeting in a church basement back in 1867 – freed slaves, defying expectation and threat, to gain an education that White Americans didn’t believe they deserved. I also feel privileged to address the newest generation of Morehouse Men, driven men of conscience who, no matter their careers, are committed to creating a more just world.
Perhaps no one illustrated this path better than Morehouse’s most famous son, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Though we rightly credit him and celebrate him for creating a more just America – if an insufficiently just America, we recognize – Dr. King’s vision of justice was global. In a lecture delivered after winning the Nobel Peace Prize, he decried the evil of poverty that plagued the modern world, and noted that in their struggle for freedom, Black Americans joined marginalized peoples across Africa, Asia, South America, and the Caribbean – all moving, as he described it, “with a sense of great urgency towards the promised land of racial justice.”
Dr. King’s message resonates today. Because today’s Morehouse Men inherit a country whose destiny is literally inseparable from that of the world. A world where borders are porous to pandemics, a world where one man’s needless war in a distant land can lead to spiraling food and fuel costs right here in Atlanta, Georgia.
And we at USAID want to do all we can so that today’s students have a path to join the fight for global justice. In the coming years, USAID is going to work with the Andrew Young Center to expand access for students and graduates to careers in international development and foreign policy. We are going to organize guest lectures and speaker series, sponsor capstone research projects, and organize on-campus information sessions, where USAID employees can share their career experience with the Morehouse community. We are going to expand access to internships, fellowships, jobs, and faculty exchange programs. And we are going to create those mentoring opportunities between Morehouse students and USAID employees.
The partnership is going to be coordinated by USAID’s Bureau of Conflict Prevention and Stabilization, our brightest minds on preventing conflict and promoting peace. Core to those efforts are the promotion of human rights and the pursuit of nonviolent social change, as well as the fight for climate justice – which increasingly, and alarmingly, is a key driver of conflict around the world.
And let me just take a moment before wrapping up here to say a slightly more detailed word about the fight for climate justice. For too long, Black communities have borne the brunt of pollution and environmental damage, including right here in Atlanta. As you all know, where a recent study showed that the neighborhoods surrounding Georgia’s most hazardous waste sites are far more likely to be Black.
But, they have also long led the charge against environmental injustice. Here on this campus, a new generation of Morehouse Men is tackling the climate crisis with all the seriousness it deserves. These are students working to raise campus awareness of environmental issues and sustainability through clubs like Morehouse MoreGreen, or joining a global network of Black sustainability practitioners through Black Sustainability, Inc.
You are probably aware that something analogous to the injustices affecting Black and Brown communities in America, something analogous to that is happening globally. Those who’ve committed the least to climate change—the global poor— pay the heaviest price. It is Pacific Island nations who have to worry about their land literally disappearing into the sea. There are countries right now thinking, how are we going to move our entire population out of the country that generations, 1000s of years of people have lived in, how are we going to move every last soul because our island is disappearing underwater? Those countries have almost nothing to do with emissions, tiny countries, underdeveloped countries. It is farmers in East Africa who have to endure unprecedented climate-induced droughts and potential famine. It is families in Pakistan, Sudan, Nigeria, who are forced to flee catastrophic flooding, whose homes and farms are just not built to withstand torrents of water. It is Indigenous communities, Brown communities, and yes, Black communities, who pay the price. And therefore, the fight for environmental justice has to be a global effort.
While it hasn’t always been the case, the United States has taken important strides to tackle the climate crisis. As you know in August, President Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act, which is going to invest $369 billion in addressing the climate crisis – the single largest climate investment in American history that is going to help us achieve a 40 percent cut in climate emissions by 2030.
But climate change – again, it’s just a great example of how connected we all are now, climate change cannot be curbed by U.S. cuts to emissions alone. And that’s why USAID is actively engaged around the world, reducing other country’s dependence on fossil fuels. We’re helping countries from India to Colombia install solar panels, modernize power grids, and access
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