President Anthony Marx introduced Kozol, praising his devotion and commitment to the "most pressing issue and most avoided issue of the public."
Kozol has worked with black and Latino students all over the U.S. He has made over 300 visits to the poorest neighborhood of the South Bronx and spoke about the area in detail.
The children in the South Bronx have experienced hunger and homelessness, they have lost loved ones to AIDS and have witnessed homicides. "With all these problems these kids face outside school, wouldn't you think a truly good society would say, 'Look what they're against from the start. They're innocent,'" he said. "With all the odds these kids have faced, let's just give them the very best we have because they need it the most."
Kozol stressed the importance of endowing children with social skills and an education from an early age. Kozol urged, "Start when they're babies. Let's pour it on." Society, Kozol repeatedly reminded his audience, has failed to fulfill its duty to these children.
Kozol then compared the lives of poor children to the lives of privileged children. Kozol discussed some pre-school programs which are only accessible to wealthy families. He said that one of the best pre-school development programs for two-and-a-half year olds in New York City costs parents $22,000 per year.
Kozol also voiced his displeasure at schools which use some form of standardized testing to determine whether students should be admitted into advanced classes, particularly because wealthy students often have the benefit of private tutors. "This is brutal. It is morally, ethically outrageous if we impose high-stakes exams on children who haven't been given the same opportunities as other children to develop their skills," he said. "There's something deeply hypocritical in a society that holds a child responsible."
Kozol also made a case for the existence of socio-economic apartheid in most of the northern U.S. cities. In one particular neighborhood of the South Bronx, Kozol pointed out that approximately 26 of the 11,000 children in the neighborhood are white. Non-white children make up 99.98 percent of the neighborhood.
"We've ripped apart the legacy of Brown v. The Board of Education," Kozol said. "In a very real sense, we've gone back to Plessy v. Ferguson-separate but equal." Money is a key factor determining the difference in the quality of education each child receives, according to Kozol. The teachers of privileged children have extra time, warmth and patience to give. Public school teachers with a fear of low test scores are forced to stick to strict lesson plans which do not foster creativity.
Kozol also spoke of the students themselves, describing the surprisingly carefree nature of the children he works with in poor neighborhoods. "They're just great at getting you off track," he said. "They like to meander in the blissful kingdom of irrelevance." Although, prestigious figures such as Senator Hillary Clinton (D-NY) and Reverend Jesse Jackson have visited the schools with Kozol, his most meaningful visitor was Mr. Rogers. One boy, upon seeing Mr. Rogers, ran over to embrace his idol and exclaimed, "Welcome to my neighborhood, Mr. Rogers!"
Kozol concluded the night with advice for his audience. "Being able to smile is a part of social struggle," he said. "Don't listen to anybody older tell you to be patient with issues of social justice. Impatience is a virtue."
Marx invited Kozol to speak at the College as part of a movement to inspire greater involvement in the community on the part of the students, especially in education. "I think that Jonathan Kozol has been an inspiration for a generation. I hope that Amherst students would take the opportunity to share in that experience," he said. "I hope that Kozol will help inspire the College community to fulfill our responsibility to society."
Katherine Duke '05 said that hearing Kozol speak changed her preconceptions of him as a radical activist. "When we read 'Savage Inequalities' for our class, I was trying to get an image in my mind of what Kozol is like as a person because what he wrote was so powerful and what he wrote about was so moving," she said. "I got this idea of Kozol being an angry, militant person. I was surprised tonight to see a very gentle, positive person, although he's aware of a lot of problems and wants them fixed very passionately."
Kozol's lecture was sponsored by the Office of the President and the Victor S. Johnson Lecture Fund.