Roland S. Martin had almost every one of the 1,300 attendants on their feet at the St. Louis American Foundation’s Salute to Excellence in Education event on Friday, Sept. 18.
But, not really by choice.
As keynote speaker, the uninhibited CNN analyst called out audience members, pocket by pocket, to make oaths of change.
“Pastors in the room, please stand up,” Martin said. “I don’t want to see another line of women at the altar to make a child dedication without you talking to the baby’s daddy first.”
Event chairperson Johnny Furr Jr.’s introduction to Martin’s speech may have seemed like comic relief, but it turned out to be an appropriate prelude, or warning.
“He refuses every role in every journalistic format. Agree with him or not, he makes us think. Let’s give it up for that,” said Furr, also the vice president of community affairs at Anheuser-Busch.
Martin himself said, “You don’t call me if you need a mediator. Don’t call me to be a minister. I’m not a counselor.”
He’s the case-breaker, he said, whom you only call in emergencies. And with the fluctuating number of college-educated African Americans and fragile public schools, Martin said that’s what he was called to do, especially because many people in the audience have dedicated their lives to educating youth.
As a veteran journalist in the mainstream and Black Press and analyst who has won numerous awards himself, Martin was invited to help honor the educators and students who received awards at this year’s event. The foundation gave $140,700 in grants and scholarships to schools, teachers, community organizations and high school seniors.
By the time Martin hit the stage, all the awardees’ names had been read and speeches given. The audience was in a celebratory mood and maybe not quite prepared to be put to work.
“All the brothers, please stand up,” Martin said. “How many of you know another brother who is cheating on his wife? You can’t talk about destruction of a family if you know another brother that is cheating on his wife.”
He urged all the black men to stop being quiet and demand honesty and ethics from their friends and colleagues.
To everyone, he demanded: Be a change agent. When Obama was elected, there was an endless line of barbeques and picnics, he said.
“We can’t be change agents by sitting back and celebrating that he’s got it,” Martin said. “We can’t sit back as if change is a parade. We can’t say we’re living in a movement of change if we don’t change ourselves.”
He reminded the audience that change can happen even when people have little money but care about their community. He gave an example of a neighborhood where a group met to have a neighborhood pick-up day. It started with one street, then soon it turned into the entire neighborhood. Then they saw the park was worn down, so they organized to fix up the park. Then they built a senior center and new sidewalks and tore down the crack houses too.
“What started as a simple movement to get paper off the street turned into a master agenda. In 10 years, people who have no power can get something accomplished,” Martin said. “And they didn’t ask anyone’s permission.”
He asked the audience to pull out the program and a pen and write down one thing that they can accomplish in a year. At these events, he said people get together to salute the educators and then head off to the after-party.
“I want you to use the event as a personal annual report. What did I do?” he said.
In his last effort to corner the audience, he had two tables of people stand up.
“There are more people who are standing up right here than there were people sitting in the basement of a house in Montgomery, Alabama,” he said.
The Montgomery bus boycott that started as only one day turned into 381 days. Because of those people, Martin said, we have civil rights, voting rights, fair housing, affirmative action. It was born out of a handful of people.
“What can all 1,300 of you do?” he said. “Thirteen hundred people have the capacity to make direct change in America, but you have to start just where you are. It’s time to change and you can do it.”
