“How...can I lead the world or inspire the world or save the world? You can do all these things, I believe, if you follow your highest ideals and put them into daily practice.”
Our Quote of the Week has us reflecting on the nature of leadership.
Sixty-nine years ago, Sargent Shriver addressed a group of high school students in Chicago. At the time, he was the head of both the board of Chicago Public Schools as wells as the Catholic Interracial Council, which successfully desegregated schools, hospitals, and other institutions in the city. The speech, Citizenship, is one that we return to again and again, and that we thought was worth sharing again this week.
Shriver begins his reflections by speaking about the potential of Chicago, which was in a period of great growth at the time. The year was 1957, and when he asks, “What are we in Chicago famous for? What do we export to the world?”, he suggests that perhaps the city is known for exporting only “material things,” listing the manufactured products for which the city was famous at the time. He then stresses that as citizens, we need to cultivate deeper, more spiritual gifts to give to each other and to the rest of the world, and it is in this context that he speaks of citizenship, faith, service, love—and leadership. He says:
“Let us make no mistake. You and I will solve the problems of ignorance, poverty, racial discrimination, slums and filth here in Chicago in our lifetimes, or tougher, harder working zealots of an alien culture will trample our freedom, and your opportunities to death.”
He urges:
“Let us not be content with things as they are.”
“We can change Chicago. That’s easy. The hard part is to change ourselves—to change ourselves from men and women looking for the easy job with ‘the most in it for me’ as the popular expression puts it.”
For Shriver, we exhibit leadership by fulfilling our responsibilities as citizens, and we do so by making sure that our actions match our highest ideals—and by putting those ideals into action each and every day. If we do this, we can have a powerful impact in our communities and on the entire world. He ends the speech by saying:
“But if like a scientist you will take the raw materials of your mind and your body and process them through the laboratory of humility, prayer and neighborly love, the result will be a second explosion heard ‘round the world. You will be raised into a life of overwhelming love, great peace, and heroic achievement. And these things no man will ever be able to take from you. Our city will be regenerated—our country ennobled—because of you. And you will have achieved a genuine citizenship, not merely in a political sense, but in fulfilling your highest powers and greatest potential as a human being.”
It’s noteworthy that these were not mere words for Sargent Shriver. Throughout his life, he lived them, building the Peace Corps and the programs of the War on Poverty, acting as US Ambassador to France, working to achieve nuclear disarmament and peace in the Middle East, and expanding Special Olympics to make it a global organization. Over and over, he demonstrated how acting daily in service to our own ideals and to our fellow human beings could have a far-reaching impact.
As we prepare to mark the 250th anniversary of the founding of the United States, may we seek out leaders who act from their ideals each and every day—and may we strive to be such leaders ourselves.
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