In his introduction, Marx complimented Cose. "Ellis is not only one of the nation's leading thinkers and writers on the subjects that Dr. King spent his life working on," said Marx. "Ellis is also at the forefront of trying to help us, at this point in time, understand the dilemmas of a society that is color blind in its ideals and color conscious in our understanding of the world and also in our understanding of how to achieve those ideals."
Cose began his speech with a reminder that it was once a victory to have a week devoted to the celebration of black history, let alone an entire month. "It is difficult now to think of a month, even a week when some black person is not being celebrated," he said. "Certainly the idea of recognizing the accomplishments of black people is something that can no longer be contained in one month." He pointed to current black leaders, such as former Secretary of State Colin Powell and Senator Barrack Obama (D-Ill.) as evidence of the achievements of black Americans. In a lighthearted moment Cose quoted comedian Chris Rock. "'You know something crazy has happened in society when a white guy is the best rapper, a black guy is the best golfer and the tallest guy in the NBA is a Chinese fellow,'" he said.
According to Cose, although America has come closer over the years to achieving King's dream, the nation still has a way to go in the struggle for racial equality. "The reality is that in America there are very few people who are judged solely by the content of their character," he said. "People are judged by their accomplishments, by where they are in life, they are judged by what they are perceived to have done. But certainly under those criteria Dr. King would have to conclude that, for at least a number of people of color, the dream if not realized, is certainly close to having been realized, which is not to say that it has been realized in total."
However, Cose said that he thinks that King would have been disappointed at the slow progress the nation has made in becoming a fully integrated society. In the past decade America has not only seen an increase in the segregation of public schools but also a rise in the suicide rates for young black men. Furthermore, Cose pointed out that a young black male between the ages of 15 and 24 is 15 times more likely to be murdered than a young white male of the same age group.
"I think King would probably be depressed by this statistic," said Cose. He also predicted that King would be equally frustrated to know that black females are 66 percent more likely than black males to go to college.
Quoting James Baldwin as a means to deliver his own message about the role of black men in American society, Cose emphasized that black people themselves are still struggling to understand their own role in society. "'The black man has served as a star in the heavens, as an immovable column, and as he begins to move the Earth is shaken to its very foundation,'" Close said, quoting from one of Baldwin's essays.
Cose added that he believes the black man is confused by his own role in society. "As the role of the black male changed America found itself getting confused," he said. "What he probably could not have been expected to foresee is that a lot of black Americans would also find themselves confused."
As long as the number of black men in prisons remains so exorbitantly high, the black population will continue to struggle for social progress. According to Cose, of the two million people in prison today, roughly 1.3 million are black or brown. "If you took all of these people out of incarceration and lined them up in one locality you would have the seventh largest city in the United States today," Cose said. "[This is] an entire metropolis of wasted humanity."
Cose went on to speak about the controversy surrounding Bill Cosby's recent crusade in which he has raged against the situation in poor minority communities. Although Cose is critical of some of the specific aspects of Cosby's agenda, Cose does give credit to Cosby for sending out a powerful message. "What he is trying to do resonates with a lot of people," he said. "What he is trying to do is convince entire communities that they can be something other than what [people] tell them they are limited to being."
Cose, who would occasionally go to hear the Revered Jesse Jackson speak when he was first starting out in Chicago, Ill., recalled that Jackson used to remind people that they are all "somebody."
"It is all good and well to get people to proclaim that they can be somebody, but you also need to provide the tools to allow them to make themselves into somebodies," said Cose. "I think that if King were doing an assessment he would say we have fallen short in a couple of ways. We have fallen short of providing the tools."
Students were inspired by Cose's powerful call for America to strive towards greater social equality for people of color. "[The speech] was very insightful," said Timnet Gedar '08. "I think he really got to the root of the problem when he discussed the predicament that black men are in today."
Students were impressed by the way that Cose addressed the sensitive issue of race. "I thought he gave an excellent talk on the problem of racial reconciliation," said Matt Mascioli '07. "His comments were very insightful."
One student was struck in particular by some of Close's statistics. "Some of the statistics I did find shocking and very enlightening," added Amy Miller '08. "[These are] problems we need to address and specifics we need to fix."
A former writer for Time, USA Today and The Detroit Free Press as well as the author of a number of books, Cose has created a distinguished name for himself in both journalism and literature.
His most recent book, "Bone to Pick," looks at a number of societies including the United States, Ghana, South Africa, East Timor and Peru. "It is an indication of Ellis' erudition and insight that he could take all those countries in within the pressing theme of how memories need to be disarmed if we are to move towards peace," said Marx.
Close is also the former chairman of the editorial board at The New York Daily News. He began his journalism career at the age of 19 as a weekly columnist for The Chicago Sun Times.