Access Restricted to Northwestern Law Community

1/20/03 LAWRENCE MARSHALL'S INTRODUCTION OF STEVIE WONDER

Talent is a remarkable gift, and this hall today is full of individuals with remarkable talents. There are IQs, GPAs, LSAT scores, MCAT scores, and GMAT scores that would knock your socks off. There are people with the ability to analyze, persuade, write, diagnose ailments, and perform intricate surgical procedures. The tools are all present. But the measure of true success, the measure of greatness, turns not on whether a person possesses tools, but on how a person chooses to use the tools she possesses.

You will be the drum majors–you will be leading the parade. But which parades will you lead? What kind of drum majors will you be?

We do not celebrate the life of Martin Luther King, Jr. because he was an incredibly intelligent man, which he clearly was. Nor do we celebrate this man’s life because he was a great orator with an ability to inspire people with his writings and speeches, although surely few have paralleled those talents. Those were simply his tools, and tools like those can as easily be used to promote evil as to promote good. No, we celebrate Dr. King because of the ways in which he chose to use his unique gifts. Dr. King used his talents–and challenged all of us to use our talents–to dream about what the promised land can look like and then use every ounce of energy to help create that world of our dreams.

In addition to all of the current and future doctors, healers, lawyers and business leaders, there is a person in our midst today who has another sort of gift. This man has been given remarkable ability to create music, write lyrics and perform and has been doing that for more than 40 years now. Stevie Wonder’s place in history will surely reflect his enormous accomplishments in the music industry. His more than 30 records that have sold more than 70 million copies. His smash hits that place him in the company of only the Beatles and Elvis Presley on the list of most top-ten records. His 17 Grammy awards. His Oscar.

But this ability to sing, write, perform, and speak are simply his tools. The measure of Stevie Wonder’s greatness is not that he possesses these tools. What makes him so extraordinary, so inspiring, so Kinglike, is the ways in which he has chosen to utilize his talents.

Stevie Wonder has used his enormous gifts to help us move toward the promised land. He was a valiant warrior against South African Apartheid, perhaps the greatest example in our life time about the power of dreams and moral fortitude. He has used his gifts to work passionately against world hunger, against nuclear proliferation, and toward racial harmony. And of great significance today, it was Stevie Wonder who energized the campaign that led Congress to create a national holiday in honor of Dr. King and his life’s work.

In his inspiring sermon, “The Drum Major Instinct,” delivered only two months before his death, Dr. King spoke about how one truly contributes to the world:

" If any of you are around when I have to meet my day, I don’t want a long funeral. And if you get somebody to deliver the eulogy, tell them not to talk too long. And every now and then I wonder what I want them to say.

"Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize—that isn’t important. Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards—that’s not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school.

"I'd like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to give his life serving others.

"I'd like for somebody to say that day that Martin Luther King, Jr., tried to love somebody.

"I want you to say that day that I tried to be right on the war question.

"I want you to be able to say that day that I did try to feed the hungry."

"And I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked.

"I want you to say on that day that I did try in my life to visit those who were in prison.

"I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity.

"Yes, if you want to say that I was a drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice.

"Say that I was a drum major for peace.

"I was a drum major for righteousness.

"And all of the other shallow things will not matter."

For Stevie Wonder, these are not just words, these are the roadmaps of his life. My friends, as we hear the words and message of this visionary leader, let us reflect in our own hearts about how each of us can use our individual talents to be drum majors for justice, drum majors for peace, drum majors for righteousness. Let us use Stevie Wonder’s example, and the example of Dr. King, to inspire and challenge us to dream and commit. If we can do that, “all of the other shallow things will not matter.”

It is my deep honor to introduce a drum major for justice, a drum major for peace, a drum major for righteousness, Drum Major Stevie Wonder.