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It is a day to share joy - your joy and the joy of your parents, spouses, children, family and friends who have supported you while you were working towards reaching this goal along the journey of success.

I know how proud they must feel. I remember my family's pride when I graduated from college. They were so proud. You see, I was the first college graduate in my family - not just my immediate family - but also my extended family.

Are any of you the first college graduates in your family? Raise your hands . . . . that is very significant. Do not underestimate the meaning for your family now and in the future.

It is customary and traditional for the invited speaker at a college graduation to look at the bright and shining faces of the assembled students - and then to say that these are the faces of hope and of new beginnings. That these are the faces of curiosity and knowledge. And that, if you look at these faces, you can clearly see the promise of tomorrow.

But, when I look at your faces, I see more than beginnings and the promise of tomorrow. When I look at our graduates I see the face of a woman - a sharecropper from down in the Delta of Mississippi.

In fact, I can't attend a college graduation or even walk across a college campus without seeing her face.

The face I see belongs to a woman named Frances Sallie Ann Hilliard, my maternal grandmother. After I lost my mother to illness at the age of 3 weeks, my grandmother brought me into her home and raised me as her daughter. At an age when most people are getting ready to slow down. . . . to give themselves a hard earned bit of rest from childcare. . . .she took whatever jobs she could find - cleaning and scrubbing for others - so she could properly feed and clothe and support my brother and me. I am thinking of her today for a very simple reason. It is because of her that I had the opportunity to be ready for college, passed my courses, and eventually was able to participate in a ceremony much like this one, with the same feelings of pride and accomplishment I hope you are feeling today.

Some might think it odd that I attribute my success in college to a woman who never finished high school. A woman who never went to college herself and, what's more, had very little idea of what college was all about.

But this wonderful woman did understand one thing very clearly: the importance of an education. Which in itself was a remarkable insight, when you consider that she grew up in an era when the words "black" and "women" and "education" were rarely uttered in the same breath.

Rural Mississippi, even in the middle of the 20th century, was worlds away and centuries removed from the lives you and I know today in Monroe County, New York. I remember many days when my schoolmates would miss class, because their parents pulled them out to help with picking cotton on the plantation. Those parents loved their children and wanted the best for them, but they were also desperate for the extra dollars a few more bags of harvested cotton would bring to sustain their family.

Mama made certain that we rarely missed a day of school. There were times when she worked three jobs so we could stay in school.

But, I know many of you understand this because either someone here today has done something similar for you, or you are doing it for someone who is about to graduate here today.

To the Board of Trustees of Monroe Community College, President Flynn, distinguished platform guests, faculty, staff, parents, family, friends - all assembled here, especially our honorees - the graduates. I am honored and humbled as the granddaughter of that uneducated sharecropper for the opportunity to speak on this occasion. When I learned that President Flynn had called to invite me to be the MCC commencement speaker, I was elated and overwhelmed because I realized what an awesome responsibility it is.

In this 15 minutes that I have with you, I want to share some lessons that I learned along my life's journey - many of them from my Mama. She taught me lessons that didn't come in a textbook.

For example:

• Mama taught me LOGIC: "Because I said so, that's why."
• Mama taught me FORESIGHT: "Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you're in an accident."
• Mama taught me IRONY: "Keep laughing and I'll give you something to cry about."
• Mama taught me about the science of OSMOSIS: "Shut your mouth and eat your supper!"

Her wisdom has helped me along my journey of success. You may have noticed that I reference my journey of success, not journey to success. For success is not an end but a continuum. This graduation is only one of the milestones along your journey of success.

You are graduating today but this is a commencement. Graduation connotes an end - you are ending this phase of your journey of success.

But commencement means beginning. You are just beginning the next phase of your journey of success.

Let's talk for a few minutes about five of the lessons that I have learned. I call them the true measures of success.

Lesson #1.

A lesson that I learned from my mother is to work with what you have. Don't worry about what someone else has.

Be thankful for what you have and make the best of it.

This was a hard lesson for me to learn because so many of my friends and classmates had many more material things than I.

Lesson #2

Never Give Up

On this journey, we will have obstacles, nuisances, hassles, tragedies, inconveniences, etc.

When it seems as though you cannot hang on a minute longer, never give up, for that is just the place and time and the tide will turn.

In my own life, I think back again to my graduation from undergraduate school. . . . then there was marriage, a child, then divorce. After my divorce, I found myself financially challenged even though I had a degree. As I tried to cope with my new challenges, one thing that sustained me was the example set by Mama - her determination and tenacity. In comparison to her life, my problems were minor. I had one child, not two and a college grade education. She had taught me determination and tenacity and to never give up.

When it seems as though you cannot hang on a minute longer, never give up, for that is just the place and time and the tide will turn. In my own life, I think back again to my graduation from undergraduate school. . . . then there was marriage, a child, then divorce. After my divorce, I found myself financially challenged even though I had a degree. As I tried to cope with my new challenges, one thing that sustained me was the example set by Mama - her determination and tenacity. In comparison to her life, my problems were minor. I had one child, not two and a college grade education. She had taught me determination and tenacity and to never give up.

Lesson #3

Set goals and work quietly and systematically towards them.

• Align yourself with your goals and point yourself in the right direction
• The ability to focus makes any goal reachable
• You control your destination
• Make no excuses

Good, better, best

Never let it rest

Until your good gets better

And your better gets best.

Lesson #4

You are in charge of your attitude.

• Make up your mind that you are not going to allow anything to discourage you.
• Never use physical poverty or family status and wealth as an excuse for spiritual poverty. Don't think if you just had money it would solve your problems or empty feelings.

I am convinced that life is 10% of what happens to me and 90% of how I react to it.

And so it is with you. We are in charge.

Lesson #5

The fifth and final lesson I learned later in life despite growing up in segregation and hardship is that -

• No matter what race we are, what age, what abilities or disabilities, whether we are homeless or sitting secure in suburbia, good attitudes begin when we realize we have more in common with people then we thought.

Just as they got within hearing distance, Joe looked at the little boy in the wheelchair and then glanced at his Mom and smiled. Mommy, he said, that boy has an Orioles baseball cap just like mine.

Somewhere along the line, little Joe had learned to look for the things he had in common with people.

When we look at people with the love intended by our Creator, the fear of being different disappears.

I believe that fellowship of human beings is more important than fellowship of race, of class, of abilities, and of gender.

I would like to close with a poem by Ralph Waldo Emerson entitled "What Is Success?"

"What Is Success?"

To laugh often and much;

To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children;

To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends;

To appreciate beauty;

To find the best in others;

To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch or a redeemed social condition;

To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived;

This is to have succeeded.

My Mama was the greatest success I have ever known. May your lives be an example to others as Mama was for me.

CONGRATULATIONS GRADUATES!!!