This is a speech I will be giving at the Walker Talker Toastmasters Club on March 24, 2011 for the club\'s International Speech Contest. The speech\'s theme is public service and self-accountability.

1. Toastmasters International Speech Contest 6 (March 24, 2011)
Walk In Dignity
On the Discovery Channel on Monday was a documentary about the two weeks of brutal drills
and exercises Army cadets must endure to be selected for the Green Berets.
During this training, the candidates are routinely tested beyond their mental and physical limits.
As they discover new frontiers within themselves, they also must learn how to successfully work
with each other as a team.
The teams that fail are the ones whose individual soldiers failed to work together, who put their
exhaustion ahead of the team, who put their fear ahead of the team, or who put their egos ahead
of the team.
Their story of success and failure can be a metaphor for our country today. Across America,
individuals, families, and communities are being tested beyond their mental and physical limits
as we recover from this Great Recession.
President Barak Obama has compared today’s challenges to others faced by the United States
through the decades – beginning with our fight for independence, the Great Depression, and
World War II.
Those events – like today – have tested the strength of our nation. In his 2010 State of the Union
Address, Obama went on to say that “despite all our divisions and disagreements, our hesitations
and our fears, America has prevailed because we chose to move forward as one nation, as one
people.”
But will we move forward together this time? Will we succeed as individuals and as a team or
will we – like more than half those Green Beret candidates – raise the white flag and quit the
challenge before us?
In mid-February, in response to that week’s Toastmasters theme, I was asked my thoughts about
resistance to change.
My response was about my concern with our collective pass-the-buck attitude toward personal
and social problems, whether it is fighting hunger, education reform, or finding a job.
I observe this attitude too often. We expect others to take on the problem. “Let someone else do
it, I’m too busy” we may say. “How am I going to help people get jobs?”
When do we say to ourselves: I can make a difference? When do we say to ourselves: Together
we can make a change?
And I do believe we can make a change if we put aside our exhaustion, our differences and our
egos to work together regardless how difficult the challenge.
A few weeks back, PBS aired Eyes on the Prize, a documentary about the Civil Rights
Movement.
I watched as the show told the story of how one 43-year-old seamstress on Dec. 1, 1955 refused
to give up her front row seat to a white person and move to the back of the bus.
Frustrated by inequality and the lack of action by state and federal governments – and also by
their fellow Americans – Rosa Parks’ arrest sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott where 50,000
blacks – about half the Southern city’s population – chose to walk, bike or share cars rather than
ride the segregated buses.
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2. Toastmasters International Speech Contest 6 (March 24, 2011)
Martin Luther King Jr., a 26-year-old preacher and newcomer to the community – soon became
the face of the boycott and the Civil Rights movement nationally.
In a 1957 interview with NBC, King said of the Montgomery black community, “They felt it
would be more honorable to walk in dignity than ride in humiliation.”
King and the Civil Rights movement were influenced by the work of Gandhi and the Indian
peoples fight for independence from Great Britain.
More than 50 years later, both King and Gandhi have influenced and inspired the protests
happening these past few months throughout the Middle East.
King once said there comes a time when we each have to stand up and make an account for
ourselves.
This week, Wael Ghonim, a 30-year-old Internet marketing executive, was recognized as one of
the recipients of the 2011 John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award.
Caroline Kennedy in announcing the awards said, “Wael stood up when it counted.”
As Ghonim watched the January uprising in Tunisia gain steam, he posted a question on a
popular Facebook page, “Would others join him in a protest in Egypt on January 25?”
Tens of thousands did, streaming onto the streets of Cairo and bravely facing down riot police
and successfully demanding President Mubarak end his more than 30-year reign.
Afterward, in a 60 Minutes interview, Ghonim said the success of the Egyptian revolution was
due to the unselfish contributions by all Egyptians who stood up and stood their ground in
Alexandria, Aswan and at Cairo’s Tahrir Square.
But you don’t have to face down racism or dictators to make a difference in the world.
Oregon Ducks sprinter Keshia Baker enlisted help from fellow athletes this past year to bring
after-school athletic programs to budget-challenged schools.
Oregon Food Bank volunteers donated 93,000 hours last year, helping pack and deliver more
than 415,000 emergency food boxes.
And my Leadership Beaverton classmates and I will soon arm ourselves with hammers and
shovels to build a shelter at the Beaverton Family Resource Center so that our neighbors waiting
in line for help can do so protected from the Oregon elements and maintain some dignity.
The Green Berets have a motto that humans are more important than hardware. What this
attempts to embody, wrote Command Master Sgt. Matthew Caruso of the 27 th Special Operations
Wing, is the idea that relationships are paramount in any endeavor. It means individuals must
form a team before they can tackle a mutual goal. It means treating each other with values that
encourage teamwork, trust, and goodwill.
Life is hard, it’s uncertain, and it’s unfair. Is accepting the challenge hard to do? You Bet. Will it
take a long time and likely deliver setback before success? Probably. Is it worth it? Absolutely.
Just ask Rosa Parks, Wael Ghonim, or Keshia Baker.
When the time comes to make an account of yourself, when you are needed, are you going to
stand up as they did?
Let us all walk in dignity.
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