Bacon's Rebellion

Democracy Thrives in Sunlight

Celebrating the Contributions of Those on the Margins

—

by

James A. Bacon
in

I love B.K. Fulton’s powerful, uplifting message. As former Fortune 500 business executive, author, and serial entrepreneur, he speaks not only to other African-Americans but to all people. In contrast to those who dwell on the negatives of American society, he emphasizes the positive. He crafts a narrative of hope.

Fulton was invited to deliver the commencement address to the graduates of Virginia Commonwealth University’s da Vinci Center. Unable to speak in person due to the COVID-19 epidemic, he worked with VCU to assemble this multimedia presentation.

In the address, he tells stories of African-Americans, dyslexics, and other people “from the margins” of society who became great inventors and innovators. He urges da Vinci Center graduates to look at the world not through “a prism of sorrow” but the “lens of achievement.” “We do not get to choose where we start,” he says. “But we do get to choose where we end up.”

“Complaining about tough times, complaining about what we don’t have, blaming everyone else for what we have failed to do as people is an inadequate contribution to the future of our success,” he says.”Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can.”

— JAB

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8 responses to “Celebrating the Contributions of Those on the Margins”

  1. Acbar Avatar
    Acbar

    Thanks for this. I needed something uplifting to read in the midst of a day of downer news.

  2. V N Avatar
    V N

    Thanks for this!

  3. SGillispie Avatar
    SGillispie

    Thank you BR. This is a phenomenal speech. Without this post, I would not have known of it and will be sharing this widely. Hats off and thanks also to VCU for such an excellent selection of a commencement speaker.

  4. Reed Fawell 3rd Avatar
    Reed Fawell 3rd

    At the end of my fifth grade at Miss Everett School in Bay Colony, Virginia Beach Va., the principal Miss Everett tested my achievement level. The results were:

    1. I could spell one word – “it.”
    2. I had great difficulty writing a single sentence.
    3. Writing a short paragraph was beyond me.
    4. Multiplication and long division was also beyond my abilities as were foreign languages. Very simple add and subtract was barely within my reach.

    Beyond the 5th grade, I rarely got homework assignments right because I could take them down quickly enough, unless they were written on a blackboard and I stayed after class to slowly write them down. Nor could I take intelligible notes in class, for study purposes afterwards, so came home with notebooks full of gibberish.

    I never passed a test in Foreign languages, never, not once.

    I could never play a musical instrument.

    Beyond the 5th grade, I never passed a math test, until my last year at the University of Virginia, when I got a B+ in Matrices and Vectors, without having attended more than a handful of classes, with the help of a tutor who taught me differently. He came out of nowhere, like an angel, opening up a whole new world.

    I did not know that I had dyslexia, indeed I never had heard the word until at age 36, the president of my DC Law firm, I installed for the firm a cutting edge phone system requiring extra digit dialing. When I couldn’t use the system, my executive assistant explained my problem. “You have Dyslexia, Mr. Fawell, and ADHD. That is why you can’t dial the numbers right.” A revelation!

    I can count on fingers of my right hand the people who got me where I got though 19 years of education, including graduate school, and beyond. They were all caring teachers who made all that difference for me. I would have been lost without those special people. That is why I value and care deeply about education and fine teachers so much, wherever they may be found, and when kids of sorts and kinds are deprived of those teachers, I get angry. Because I know what B.K. Fulton knows, ALL kids can succeed, in their own way, each and everyone. And I see that success in all people each and every day, if teachers care.

    1. Nancy_Naive Avatar
      Nancy_Naive

      Good for you, and you are correct, all can succeed.

      I wonder how well that will work for others like you on Zoom?

      “All men are my teachers that I can learn from them.”

  5. Reed Fawell 3rd Avatar
    Reed Fawell 3rd

    “I wonder how well that will work for others like you on Zoom?”

    Technologies greatly empower. Computers do the mechanical tasks that dyslexia disrupts. In my experience, dyslexia does not dilute, indeed often enhances, one’s conceptional powers as B.K. Fulton suggests. Dyslexia instead creates static between the eyes and ears and brain, so it scrambles the message otherwise received. So often the brain can solve math problems in different ways than normal computation, and do so very rapidly.

    Also if one’s particular senses are deprived, one often expands one’s other senses to compensate. One sees this all the time in dyslexics and autism, both of which are far more common than most of us appreciate. Hence, the innate disadvantage of many boys in American schools, and this is compounded if resources are not available at home. I had great advantage if only because of all books laying around my parent’s house. All I had to do was pick them up without classroom interference, and learn on my own, in my own way.

    1. Nancy_Naive Avatar
      Nancy_Naive

      I meant that without the human interaction of 1-on-1 with the teacher will such be diagnosed as quickly. For better, or worse, teachers are often the first line for identifying learning differences, home life problems, and even nutritional deficiencies.

      1. Reed Fawell 3rd Avatar
        Reed Fawell 3rd

        My formal education took place between 1950 and 1970. Never once was dyslexia mentioned. In the late 1970’s they were setting up Lab schools in DC as I recall. I got somewhat involved then helping others, after my “revelation” at work.

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