Dear Graduates...

Lillian Rubin, a frequent contributor to Dissent, gave the following address at the University of California, Berkeley’s 2008 Sociology Commencement.

IT’S CUSTOMARY at an event like this for the speaker to say two things.  The first is to thank you for the invitation to be here today; the second to speak some inspirational words for you who are about to embark on the next step in this adventure we call life. I’m happy to do the first and to tell you how touched and honored I am to be able to share this moment in your lives. It’s both a wonderf... More

The Freedom Rides are Still Not Over

Many people remember the courageous civil rights activists who in the early 1960s risked their lives to challenge Jim Crow laws by riding racially integrated buses into the South. But few people know that southern universities expelled dozens of these young people for participating in what are now remembered as the “Freedom Rides.”

To atone for these politically motivated expulsions, which denied activists their college degrees, at least six southern universities have granted former activists honorary degrees. Having denied these young people the opportunity of an education, it was ... More