And I'm certain that many of the people assembled here today have other issues on their minds than the Free Baptists who risked their lives and founded this college, but each of you will find yourselves coming back from time to time to Bates's story as a touchstone for the meaning of your lives, and what you need to do to honor that legacy. They embolden us to venture into new and foreign terrain. They spark our imaginations, ignite our intellect. Our stories presuppose, yet challenge and remake, the moral order out of which our lives derive their meaning and take their shape. A community's stories enable it to know itself, to know what is important and what is true.
Stories can weave a common identity.
Don't be fooled. And Dave's story for Greg resonated with me to questions I face at Wellesley, wondering about my personal responsibility for the legacies of slavery, racism and intolerance. There are no simple answers. But people of diverse backgrounds can't come together and suspend their suspicions and hostilities, can't let down their guard to learn from one another, until they are secure enough in their own identities and bedrock commitments that they don't have to risk everything to open themselves to others. We must learn to explore the common truths that reside somewhere in the spaces between us, and our imperfect understandings of one another, as the abolitionists tried to do.