The Justice

Media Credit: Julian Agin-Liebes In his address, Cory Booker encouraged the graduating class to be advocates of change.

Dr. Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, N.J., challenged members of the graduating class of 2009 to make a choice when he delivered the keynote address at Brandeis' 58th commencement ceremony last Sunday, asking, "Do you resign yourself to what is, or do you commit yourself to being a part of what can be, what should be, what must be?"

Booker spoke to the members of the graduating class of 2009, which consisted of 783 undergraduates, 84 Ph.D. students and 681 master's degree recipients along with family members and friends who filled the Gosman Sports and Convocation Center to support and celebrate with their graduates. He offered gratitude to the audience for not behaving like his family on graduation day.

Booker maintained a humorous tone throughout much of his speech. He began by describing the overbearing enthusiasm his family members displayed at his graduation ceremonies, including their loud screaming and cheering and their counterfeit ticket scandal at Stanford University that "still brings shame to [his] family." However, Booker explained that his family gave him valuable advice after his graduations that led him to the insight that one decide in life whether to "accept the conditions as they exist or to accept the responsibility for changing them."

"There are no trivial moments," Booker told the graduates. To exemplify this, he described a plane ride during which he sat next to a woman with a baby and a toddler, whose screaming pierced his ears as soon as they boarded the plane. Booker reflected that he made the choice to make the best of the flight, deciding to help the mother by entertaining the toddler during the flight. When the plane landed in San Francisco, the woman expressed her appreciation for Booker's kindness, and the two exchanged letters for a month before they lost contact. Fifteen years later, Booker received a letter from the woman saying his "kindness still stays with [her] today." She wrote that the young man he had entertained on the plane would like to be a volunteer on Booker's mayoral campaign, and that the young woman's family would like to contribute to Booker's campaign.

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