Were I invited to give a commencement address this year, this is what I might say.

I graduated from Nicholas Blackwell High School in 1968.  Historians tell us that 1968 was a year that changed America.  But, as we were in the midst of that year, we did not know that and while certain events had occurred, we had no idea of what was to come.

1968 began with what has become known as the Tet Offensive.  We had been at war in Viet Nam since 1961 (though our involvement probably began as early as 1953).  The Tet Offensive was a coordinated attack by North Vietnamese and Viet Cong forces against population centers in South Viet Nam.

Up until January 1968, the people of the United States had been told that we were winning the war and perhaps with a few more men we could bring it to a successful completion.

This attack caught our military forces completely off guard and, while it was tactical defeat for the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong, it destroyed the image that we were winning this war.  After the Tet Offensive, public opinion began to shift from support for the war to a desire to end the war.

On March 31, 1968, President Johnson spoke to the American people and outlined a plan for a cease fire and the beginning of peace negotiations with the North Vietnamese.  He concluded his speech by announcing that he would not run for reelection as President.

President Johnson was elected in 1964 with one of the biggest election victories in the history of our country.  And with the mandate given to him by the people and with Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, he set out to establish what he called “The Great Society”.

But as the cost of the war increased, both in terms of personnel and finances, his support evaporated, and he felt that he could not run for reelection.

Four days later, on April 4, 1968, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated in Memphis.  While his death reverberated across the nation, it was perhaps the loudest in Memphis, my hometown (Where Were You On April 4, 1968?).

This is what we knew as we walked across the stage on graduation night.  Still, as we walked across the stage that night and saw a world in disarray, we also saw a world of promise and opportunity.

But it was a view that was tempered by what we knew and the uncertainty that is always a mark of the future.

We knew that there would be an election in November, but we could not vote and express our thoughts on the direction America should take (the law that lowered the voting age to 18 did go into effect until 1972).

For the young men who walked and were 18 or about to become 18, the walk also meant that we were now faced with the draft and probable deployment to Viet Nam.

As we walked across the stage that night in Memphis, we did not know that Senator Robert Kennedy would be assassinated a few weeks later. 

We did not know that the Democratic National Convention would be marred by riots in the streets of Chicago and the Democratic Party would be almost destroyed by the riots and differences over the war.

We did not know that Richard Nixon would become the Republican candidate for President or that he would win a narrow victory over Hubert Humphrey in November.  We did not know that he would go on to reelection in 1972 with the greatest electoral victory in the history of the country or that his desire for an “imperial Presidency” would lead to the Watergate affair and his resignation in 1974.

And with all the trouble and turmoil, both what we knew and what we didn’t know, 1968 ended on an optimistic note when Frank Borman, Jim Lovell, and William Anders would crew the Apollo 8 spacecraft to the moon and return to earth.  It was the first mission to leave the boundaries of earth’s gravity and marked a four-year period where we explored the moon.

Sadly, just as the Viet Nam war took away many young men and demanded more and more of America’s resources, it would take away our exploration of space.  Our exploration of the moon ended in 1972, and we have not been back since. 

We, as graduates in 1968, were beneficiaries of the science and math explosion that began in 1957 when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I.  The end of the Apollo program also marked the end of funding for science and math education.

I know that you didn’t expect a history lesson as part of the commencement address, but I wanted you all to have a framework for what lies before you as you shortly walk across this stage.

As you walk across the stage tonight, we are a nation technically at peace.  We have no combat operations taking place, but it is not a peaceful world.  It seems as if war has become the norm and we are the arms supplier to many nations.  I know that many will disagree with me, but we have allowed some of our allies to commit what would have been called war crimes in previous conflicts.  We have allowed innocent people whose only fault was to be in a war zone to be called terrorists to justify the actions of our allies.

We support dictators and tyrants because it serves our interests (or at least the interests of some politicians).  We, or some politicians, are quite willing to repeat the appeasement of Munich in 1938 that destroyed the nation of Czechoslovakia and laid the foundation for World War II simply because they and their minions place their own personal interests before the values of this country.

We say that we are the land of opportunity but call those who seek that opportunity criminals and terrorists.  While Richard Nixon may have secretly subverted the Constitution, we have watched politicians openly subvert the Constitution and other politicians turn a blind eye to the crimes being committed by officials of this country.

We no longer have a viable space program, relying on other countries to send our astronauts into space while turning our space program into a billionaire’s playground.  Just as the rich and powerful exploited the natural resources of this country, I do not doubt that today’s rich and powerful are seeking to find some way to exploit the resources of the moon, Mars, and the asteroids.

One outcome of the diminishing support for science and mathematics education in the 70s was that we now see a growth in disinformation and the apparent lack of discerning what is good and what is bad.  We are seeing the rise in AI technology which, while it seems to have some good, is also capable of generating more disinformation (1).

The dissent that marked 1968 and the years before did not just appear “out of the blue.”  It was, to the dismay of many, the product of an educational system that challenged students to find the answers for themselves. 

Today, many authorities seek to change that system, because they do not want to be challenged in what they do, and they do not want to explain why they feel that only certain individuals are worthy, and all others are not.  Theirs is a system, rigid and unbeing, with allegiance not to the ideas on which this country was founded but allegiance to an individual and his or her supporters.

This is not a pretty picture.  But there is one shining ray of light.  While we who graduated in 1968 could speak out (and many did), we had to rely on others to make the changes that needed to be made, for we did not have the vote.

You, the graduates of 2025, have the vote and that gives you a degree of power that we, the graduates of 1968, did not have.  We have seen in the past few years the results achieved when the youth of the world spoke out.

I challenge you today to speak out against the injustices that you see.  I challenge you today to speak out against the crimes being committed against people whose only crime is that they may have the wrong skin color or the wrong sexual orientation or the lack of money in their back account.

This may be the end of one part of your life, but it is also the beginning of a new chapter.

How you move out into the world that lies beyond this stage, how you respond to the needs of the neighbors, your friends, your family, and the people with whom you share this planet will determine how 2025 will be viewed by historians.

Through your works, your words, your thoughts, and your deeds, 2025 will be known as the year that changed the world.

Notes

• This manuscript was prepared without the aid of AI technology My views on the topic of AI technology are expressed in The Questions We Ask AI – The Questions AI Answers.