Keith Hamilton Cobb, an actor and playwright who delivered the keynote address for 乐播传媒鈥� 2023 Martin Luther King Jr. Day observance on Monday, offered his audience one big takeaway: 鈥淪ay 鈥榶es.鈥欌��
Saying 鈥測es,鈥� Cobb explained to the big gathering that filled Gomes Chapel, is to answer the question posed by the 鈥渧oice of authority within鈥� us 鈥� the voice that asks us to step forward and be present 鈥渨herever you are wanted.鈥�
In other words, Cobb said, 鈥測our 鈥榶es鈥� is your way of speaking your purpose into existence.鈥�
View the full Martin Luther King Jr. Day keynote gathering in Gomes Chapel on Jan. 16, 2023.
Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr. each responded to the calling, Cobb said, as have Greta Thunberg, X Gonz谩lez, and David Hogg, 鈥渁ll hearing the voice of authority from within and being irresistibly compelled, perhaps with reluctance but ultimately with conviction, to honor it, come what might.鈥�
The first MLK Day keynote held in Gomes Chapel since 2018 (the historic chapel having been closed for renovations prior to the pandemic) opened with a student welcome from Sam Jean-Francois 鈥�23, an Africana major from Medford, Mass., who placed this year鈥檚 theme, 鈥淎rt and Activism,鈥� into compelling and uplifting context.
鈥淏lack activism is innately beautiful, resting on the demand for humanity, the love for our differences, and the act of reconstituting life in the world that deems Black people dead at birth. Reflecting on this year of grief, loss, and radical resistance, we can think of no other way to enter this year’s discourse on racial justice than at the intersection of arts and activism.
鈥淎ctivism is about community building, uplifting voices and radical love, and I invite all of you to build community with me today.鈥�
President Clayton Spencer offered her welcome, noting how, on a Monday featuring rain, sleet, and snow, the day is both a time 鈥渇or sensible footwear and for us to come together to embrace and extend the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.鈥�
Referring to an essay by Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, Spencer explained that 鈥渁rt lives on the frontier of social norms and it refuses to embrace the status quo. And so doing it broadens our experience, expands our field of vision and deepens our understanding.鈥�
Tyler Harper, an assistant professor of environmental studies and co-chair of the college鈥檚 MLK Day Planning Committee, introduced Cobb and quoted from 鈥淭he Purpose of Education,鈥� an essay King wrote as a student at Morehouse College and .
King wrote that higher education has two purposes: to teach skills and to instill good character. 鈥淓ducation which stops with efficiency may prove the greatest menace to society,鈥� King wrote. Education 鈥渟hould teach students not just how the world is, but invite them to consider how the world ought to be.鈥�
鈥淭his, for King, is the role of culture and of the arts,鈥� said Harper, adding that Cobb is 鈥渁 man who has devoted his life to education of the sort imagined by Dr. King, an education that recognizes the transformative power of art and activism and of art as activism.鈥�
An actor with numerous television and film credits since the mid-1990s, Cobb gained new acclaim in 2019 for his award-winning off-Broadway play, American Moor, which explores the perspective of the African American male through the metaphor of Shakespeare鈥檚 Othello.
In addition to his keynote, Cobb hosted a screening of American Moor later in the day, as well as a discussion of the play and a panel discussion, 鈥淩econsidering Othello,鈥� in mid-afternoon, among some two dozen different creating offerings during this year’s two-day observance.
Cobb began his keynote by broadening the definition of art. 鈥淲hen we say 鈥榓rt,鈥� what we are actually talking about is creativity,鈥� he said, the 鈥渋nnate ability to think and innovate with an open heart.鈥�
Open-hearted creativity, Cobb said, allows us to unshackle ourselves from the constraints of a capitalist society, 鈥渢he miasma of living our prescribed American lives, ever more manipulated by digital technologies and the consolidation of power and wealth into the hands of an ever-shrinking few,鈥� unable to 鈥渒now who we are and why we are here.鈥�
Each human being is 鈥渂y nature a creative, a maker of something other than what is,鈥� Cobb said. And whatever field a 乐播传媒 student pursues, 鈥渨hatever wilderness you wander, you are all creatives and not the least of what is being created in your wandering is you.鈥�
And activism? 鈥淲hen you begin to think and innovate beyond the capitalist structures in America, one morning waking up to the idea that there might be a way to apply your tools to a more socially conscious, more human-centric future, you are, at once, an activist.鈥�
Saying 鈥渘o鈥� and being complacent is not an option, Cobb said. 鈥淣othing but more of what this is that we are living already comes of your silence, your complacence, your doubting of your own intellectual agency, your stifled creativity. Nothing comes of your playing small.
鈥淭his that we’re living in is purgatory, neither heaven nor hell. It is designed to be just comfortable enough for you to forget that you don’t like it. That is its very definition and its inherent danger. Here is where unexceptional societies go to die.鈥�
As he headed into the home stretch of his address, Cobb spoke directly to his 乐播传媒 listeners, his voice rising as he sought to drive home both his message and his hope,
鈥淵our activism, however you effect it, is an example of responsibility to something greater than yourself,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou serve the world by cultivating tools of creativity that you apply in the process of becoming more wholly you…by saying 鈥榶es鈥� to the totality of you, the divine idea.
鈥淟et your divinity infuse everything that you write, that you paint, sculpt, sing, dance, design, concoct, produce. Let it inspire everything that you say and every interaction that you engage 鈥� and give no one a pass. Speak your whole truth with all your voice.
鈥淓merge from the wilderness and deliver your epistles irrespective of who is ready to hear them. You are the bringer of light and change, not the jackass whisperer.
鈥淚 would posit that we all suffer together at this moment, in a purgatory wrought by our equally flawed human tools. This is life, the Buddhists would say. I don’t disagree. But too many have made their lives about the avoidance of discomfort rather than saying 鈥榶es鈥� to the life’s purpose that is revealed to them.
鈥淎rt is the self-creation of you. Activism is your forever resisting the belief that that creation is ever completed.鈥�
鈥淪ay, 鈥榶es.鈥欌��
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