What are you a warrior for? What cause or mission gives you the muster to climb a mountain? To leap over an endless rainbow? To drive through the dusty and sizzling desert of denunciation? Deep within each of us is a ”battle-cry” to propel ourselves to protect and to provide the nests or niches which nurture our very existence. Again, what are you a warrior for? Do you awaken at sunrise to rally for a righteous purpose, or are you just following the rut of diurnal routines that you hope will return you at sunset to a safe privacy without rattling your nerves or overwhelming your natural impulses. But what are you a warrior for? Apparently you chose Morehouse College as a boot camp to receive a liberal arts training that should make your life someday a masterpiece of achievement. Are you a soldier for the people? Is your resplendent armor and brandished sword raised to demolish the enemy of economic austerity, or are you an impish Michelangelo carving into egotistical stone the caprice of sensuous, self-indulgence? In the ‘60’s and ‘70’s the warriors were the Medgar Evers’, the Shirley Chisholm’s, the Stokely Carmichael’s, the Angela Davis’s, the Huey Newton’s, the H. Rap Brown’s and Malcolm X’s. These unblemished brothers & sisters were leading the sit-in’s, the political platforms, and shouting back to the establishment that ebony was a magnificent ore from which to build the American dream.

What are you a warrior for? I challenge you to pluck that inner-harp and to create your unique brand of music that would make even the mythical gods listen; I compel you to storm the palace of indifference and complacency like Nat Turner and John Brown with a “Hip-Hop Ferry” revolution that would bring rejuvenation to this nation; I exhort you to seize nothing less than a fiery piece of glory then mould it into a Camelot like Prometheus. Oh my! What are you a warrior for? Is that sparring villain called incessant poverty that you dare to vanquish by acquiring a Morehouse education; is the behemoth Frankenstein monster some social or moral stigma that summons you to the battlefield to erase a legacy borne by parents whose oppressed lives were limited in hope and long in suffering. Again, what are you a warrior for? Maybe you believe that with a Morehouse diploma you can tattoo your skin in streaks of black and red paint to war against social injustices like Jesse Jackson. Maybe you believe that your javelin of truth will make American law more benevolent towards mitigating the brutality of racial conflict. Perhaps many of you marvelous Morehouse men will do the mathematics then calculate, or innovate formulas which engineer new strategic tools to keep our nation safe and enduring with prosperity. Let the leaders among you rouse our political instincts like the warrior Barack Obama. Fortunately, some of you bold thinkers will bludgeon to their demise old scientific ideas, or invent new medicines and practices that will make the term “incurable” vanish forever from the medical dictionary. Yes, fellow warrior of tomorrow, I hear the deafening drums of your future battles; my aching spirit stampedes with the thunder of your heels ; my veins flood and nearly burst with the fervor in your tender hearts as you become the gladiators of a new generation that will lift our humanity to a greater freedom!

Once more, I query, what are you a warrior for? What awakening or ideal are you willing to commit every physical and mental capacity? Where will you claim that shining territory upon which to strut your ego with heroic appeal? Whether or not your talents surge and emerge you into a champion upon this red Georgia hill called Morehouse, my prayer is that you dare dream then tackle the impossible. I salute now all you future Olympic champions; all you Nobel laureates; all you Supreme Court nominees, all you CEO’s. And never forget that without Faith, triumph will not follow; that without Love, victory is so hollow. So Morehouse man, what are you a warrior for? As you race to the privileged Parthenon in your chromed-wheel chariots; as you go supersonic in your private jets; as you roll upon the battlefields in the stealth of an invisible fleet, remember always that power moves power like the Wall Street markets move to the dollar. And my look-so-good and learned warrior, just Holla! Holla!