Well-known Washington, D.C., newscaster Jim Vance came to Dodd Auditorium to help celebrate Martin Luther King Day in January. The popular NBC4-TV anchor and winner of 15 Grammy Awards said the struggle by African Americans for equal treatment has come a long way, but there still is a long way to go. He challenged the audience to honor Dr. King’s memory by working each day to continue the fight.
“Dr. King was the leader of a magnificent movement,” Vance said. “But everyone can do something every day to make a difference in someone’s life.”
In looking back at how far the civil rights movement has come, the 64-year-old Vance remembered childhood visits to family in the South, where he saw “whites only” signs on bathrooms and sensed the fear his parents endured when a police car pulled up behind them.
And while he loved the baskets his mother packed with freshly fried chicken, rolls, potato salad and fruit jars full of iced tea for the long drive, he learned later that his mother hated staying up all night to cook that food. She resented the fact, Vance said, that a packed picnic was the only way her family could eat and drink between Pennsylvania and North Carolina. “She knew there was not a restaurant that would serve us a piece of bread, or even a drink of water,” Vance said.
Even though blacks have won equal rights in many areas of the law, he said, many underprivileged people – especially children – live without hope. In his work as a newsman, he said, he knows of youngsters who don’t expect to live to high school graduation; he knows of 16-year-olds who write their own obituaries.
Vance urged listeners not to be daunted by the example of Dr. King and his great legacy, but to help in small ways: volunteer at a school, be a mentor to a child.
“You never know the impact you can have on someone else’s life,” Vance said.
After his talk in Dodd Auditorium, Vance attended a ceremony on Campus Walk to honor Civil Rights leader James Farmer, who died in 1999. Farmer was a distinguished professor of history and American studies at Mary Washington until his retirement in 1998. Tamia Gilliard ’06 helped lay a wreath at the statue of Farmer. Later, the political science major was awarded the Diversity Leadership award, which each year is given to a senior who possesses characteristics of leadership and personal commitment to advocating an appreciation of diversity on campus. Gilliard, who lives in Woodbridge, Va., plans to go to law school after graduating in May.
– Neva S. Trenis