{"id":62042,"date":"2011-05-23T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-23T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news-draft\/uncategorized\/booker-urges-class-of-2011-to-stand-tall\/"},"modified":"2011-05-23T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-05-23T00:00:00","slug":"booker-urges-class-of-2011-to-stand-tall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/2011\/05\/booker-urges-class-of-2011-to-stand-tall\/","title":{"rendered":"Booker urges Class of 2011 to stand tall"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n\t\tKINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 23, 2011 \u2013 A month before his grandfather passed away, Cory Booker was by his side in the hospital. <\/p>\n


\nBefore Booker left, his grandfather grabbed his shoulder, looked at him, and said, \u201cI love you; I love your children; and I love your grandchildren.\u201d<\/p>\n


\nBooker told the crowd Sunday at the 溏心vlog免费B站\u2019s 125th Undergraduate Commencement that, at the time, he thought his grandfather was dealing with delirium or dementia, since Booker was not married, nor did he have any children or grandchildren. <\/p>\n


\nIt wasn\u2019t until after his grandfather\u2019s death a month later, as Booker was on the campaign trail en route to becoming mayor of Newark, N.J., that Booker fully understood what the words meant.<\/p>\n


\nBooker \u2013 recently named to Time Magazine\u2019s list of 100 of the world’s most influential people \u2013 said his grandfather was his hero. Despite facing hate and discrimination, his grandfather loved the world, and wanted to make it a better place for all who came after him. This was a lesson Booker was taught on his own graduation day.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cHe said to me, \u2018You are living a life that was a dangerous dream when I was your age growing up,\u2019\u201d Booker said. \u201c\u2019You are here because of a grand conspiracy of love. Never forget that the degree you hold was paid for by the blood, sweat and tears of your ancestors and tens of thousands of human beings who you will never even know their names.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n


\nOn the day of his own college graduation, Cory Booker\u2019s grandfather shared words that the mayor of Newark, N.J. took to heart.<\/p>\n


\nBooker passed those words on to 溏心vlog免费B站’s Class of 2011.<\/p>\n


\n\u201cPlease, in everything you do, stand up tall,\u201d Booker told the crowd. \u201cStand up for who you are and from where you come from. Stand up in honor of those who came before, and stand up with hope for those who will come after.\u201d <\/p>\n


\nIn following his grandfather\u2019s words, Booker urged the 3,283 undergraduates graduating: <\/p>\n


\n\u201cWe must stand up!\u201d Booker said. \u201cClass of 2011, you must stand, because this world needs you. It needs your uniqueness. It needs your divinity. It needs your love. You must stand up because change will not roll in, as (Martin Luther) King (Jr.) said, on the wheels of inevitability. It must be carried in on the backs of soldiers who day in and day out stand up for it. You must stand!\u201d <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

KINGSTON, R.I. \u2013 May 23, 2011 \u2013 A month before his grandfather passed away, Cory Booker was by his side in the hospital. Before Booker left, his grandfather grabbed his shoulder, looked at him, and said, \u201cI love you; I love your children; and I love your grandchildren.\u201d Booker told the crowd Sunday […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":62044,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-62042","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-archives"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62042","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62042"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62042\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62042"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62042"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uri.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62042"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}