| By GLENDA CAUDLE
Special Features Editor
“They asked me if I had ever tried to overthrow the government of the United States of America,” recalled Dr. Carol Swain, who was sought out by President George W. Bush to serve on the National Endowment for the Humanities during his time in office. “I could tell them I hadn’t, but today I’m so unhappy with the direction of our country, I might not be able to say that for long.”
The Vanderbilt law professor summed up her concern for her beloved country with that phrase at Thursday night’s Union City Rotary Club Distinguished Speakers’ Banquet at the Hampton Centré.
She added she went on to accept the appointment and serve and she encouraged her audience to embrace such opportunities and responsibilities, as well, even when it may not be an easy thing to do.
“Are you willing to be like the framers (of the nation) — to risk your lives and fortunes?” she asked pointedly.
She had encouraged a positive response to the same challenge while speaking to a youthful audience at the Boys & Girls Club on her afternoon visit there Thursday, and had reminded the children that no matter what their current circumstances might be, they could change their futures and achieve far more than they might think if they were willing to work hard and heed the advice and encouragement of positive mentors.
“I have been successful because I’ve been teachable. I have always had mentors who convinced me I could succeed.”
Dr. Swain, a black woman and a self-described politically conservative Christian, knows something about the personal risks involved in taking unpopular stances.
Born into a desperately poor family in Virginia, she was raised as a Democrat and says she moved from there to becoming an Independent and then a Republican. The second child in a family of 12 siblings dropped out of school at the end of her eighth-grade year, although she was a bright student, and married a neighbor to escape a violent home situation. The loveless union made her a mother — she has two adult sons and five grandchildren — but the marriage itself did not last. A period of deep depression followed, but she continued to listen to the inner voice telling her she had a job to do in her life.
In the year her former classmates received their high school diplomas, she went to work to get her GED. By law in Virginia, she could not make that effort until the time she would have graduated, had she stayed in school. She then worked multiple — seven in one year — dead-end jobs at minimum wage to take care of her family. Along the way, she ended up in a hospital emergency room after ingesting too many pills when her life seemed too bleak to continue. There a doctor told her she was an attractive and intelligent young woman and encouraged her to make something of herself. The future professor was stunned. She knew she had a good mind, but no one had ever told her she was attractive. She began to see herself in a more positive light and when a student from Africa who was working in a nursing home with her told her she should think about going to college, she accepted his challenge.
Her first degree came from a two-year college. She topped off her studies with a bachelor’s degree at a university and a major in criminal justice, but even before she graduated, she realized that was not the field for her.
At the same time she began applying for jobs with a college degree in hand, she also heeded a former professor’s encouragement to go on to graduate school and become a college teacher herself, since there were so few black faculty in higher education. She applied for an opening that would help prepare her for such a position. Non-academic job offers were few and far between in the recession of that day, but she was accepted into a master’s program and she decided to follow that available path. To date, she has earned five degrees, including masters’ degrees from Virginia Tech and Yale University and a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
Along the way, she became a tenured professor at Princeton University, and as the 20th century drew to a close, she was sought out by Vanderbilt to move to Nashville and become part of the faculty.
“Vanderbilt hired one person and a different one showed up,” she said of the months-long period between the time she was offered the job and the time she made that career move. In the interim, she became a committed Christian. And after arriving in Nashville, she developed a strong voice in support of religious freedom for students at the southern university.
“My colleagues try really hard to be tolerant,” she told her Thursday night audience with a smile when she explained her minority political and religious views, “so I allow them to demonstrate their tolerance.”
Christian organizations on university campuses are under attack, she said, and many are being kicked off campus. She got to Vanderbilt in time to be in the forefront of such battles there.
“It’s important to stand for values and principles. At Princeton, I was an agnostic. I seemed safe,” she said of her former life. Now the professor, author of multiple books, TV news show guest and originator of her own weekly television series with the same name as her most recent book, “Be the People,” says things are different. The causes she espouses are unpopular with the vast majority of her associates in academia, in the communications industry and in the political circles she was raised in.
Nevertheless, she proclaims them with confidence and determination, and she encourages others to do the same.
“So many of the framers were people of principle. The Pilgrims and the Puritans thought they were setting up a Christian nation. We know the Constitution is not a Christian document and was not written to be one, but a lot of the framers and founders saw themselves as setting up a covenant. When I thought about my message tonight, I felt I was supposed to tell you all to step it up. Whatever you are doing, it’s not enough. Our nation is in trouble. Are you willing to be like the framers — to risk lives and fortunes?
“Young people have a choice. I told this to them today. Lots of people are just waiting for someone to give them a job or give them some kind of aid, but those things have to be earned. You have a responsibility,” she said she tells young people. “It’s not all about you. That’s the message some of them need to receive. Most young people need to know things are not free. The biggest mistake we make is what we tell young black people. We tell them that no matter what, they just can’t make it because of discrimination. I know that’s not true. That’s part of what organizations like Rotary are about. Young people should know they have to give something back. We need to encourage them to step up and volunteer. Even a poor person can volunteer. They need to volunteer to understand better how the world works,” she said. “People feel good about themselves when they can work and provide for their families.”
Dr. Swain said she became terribly concerned about her country in 2009.
“I was watching what was taking place in the country. So much was happening so fast. I thought Americans were being deceived and that was the first title I chose for my most recent book. I was having trouble keeping up with the changes taking place in Washington and I saw this administration so strategically timing events. There is a battle for America taking place right now. People can’t assume they will be safe. It’s a world where the Constitution doesn’t seem to mean a lot. We have a president that disrespects the rule of law and has assumed the right to kill Americans (a reference to President Obama’s reported decision to use drones to fire on American citizens if he deems it necessary). We can say this will never happen to us, but some of those things that have been done overseas may come home. The fourth Amendment that is supposed to keep us safe in our homes from unlawful search and seizure — this government is trying to search our cell phones and computers without search warrants. Much of what we hear taking place is Orwellian — it’s about a totalitarian society where the government controls everything. That’s where we’re moving. As to the second Amendment and the debate about the government taking people’s weapons — I’m not into guns, but I believe that amendment gives me the right to have one and we should care about that. People who want to own weapons should have the right.”
Dr. Swain contended there is media bias at work that keeps people from receiving truthful information about the government and pointed out there are a lot of things going on that people simply never get to read about in the New York Times or Washington Post.
“We can’t trust our government these days,” she said.
The highly acclaimed author said “Be the People” attempts to focus attention on public policy issues and to view them from a Biblical perspective.
“I wrote it because I love my country. I’m angry about what’s happening to America these days, but I feel so blessed to have been born an American, so I could aspire to the American dream.”
Her television program, which is currently available in the Nashville and Chattanooga areas and which is also viewable on YouTube, focuses on social and cultural issues. She is seeking investors and advertisers that will allow her to take the program statewide and beyond.
Dr. Swain was to speak to students at Union City High school this morning. AP English students there have been reading “Be the People,” which is available locally at Walmart and online at Amazon.com.
Mrs. Caudle may be contacted at glendacaudle @ucmessenger.com. Published in The Messenger 3.22.13 |
