Touching upon elements of his life to inspire attendees, Cory Booker, the current mayor of the city of Newark, addressed a diverse audience this past Saturday in Shriver Hall as the third speaker in the 2011 MSE Symposium Series. The evening's event was cosponsored by the Provost's Lecture Series.
Booker's talk centered on his experiences in his early political career, leading up to his struggles and successes as mayor.
"I have come to realize on my journey that what's most important is where your moral compass stands," he said.
"The values that I have learned along the way in leadership have been the ones that have helped me most face problems no matter what the issue is in particular."
He spoke of his experiences around four themes. The first centered on an idea that we have all gotten to where we are through the small acts of kindness and love of those who preceded us and we may never know them, an idea instilled within Booker by his father.
"And the way my father would put it, well he said, ‘son you don't understand, you drink deeply from wells of freedom and liberty and opportunity and you did not dig,'" Booker said, relating how through the efforts of his father and many others he was able to grow up in very privileged conditions. "This idea of conspiracy motivates me today more than you can imagine, knowing all the things that had to happen to produce the moment we are experiencing right now."
Booker's second theme centered around having a bold vision, specifically with respect to accepting the way things are or stepping up to change the conditions.
He recounted an experience from when he first moved into Newark, an exchange that reminded him of the importance of having a vision rather than just seeing the present circumstances.
"This was my start in Newark, a woman reminding me that yes understand where you come from, he said." "Yes let that understanding of all of that love fuel a fearlessness in your heart, but you always have to have a vision that is larger than the reality you." Booker then challenged that what he saw in America today was cynicism that kept us from taking any action. "We can't resign ourselves, we can't surrender to cynicism. There has to be within our spirit and our heart a vision that is larger than what we see in a physical world," he added.
Moving ahead to his first term as mayor, Booker addressed the idea of being broken, of learning our greatest lessons when we are down.
He brought up a particular shooting where the victim was a young man he had been familiar with until he entered the mayor's office, but the hassles of his job had separated them.
"All of us could show up to his funeral, but where were we for his life? You see, I have come to realize that we have to understand that in this world it is harsh, it is hard… but if you can muster the will and the focus you can keep going," Booker said.
Under this theme, he also brought up a successful initiative he implemented for helping newly released inmates from finding themselves behind bars again.
"We started talking to guys about what is their greatest motivation… their greatest motivation is fatherhood," he said.
Booker brought together many groups to help establish a support network that fostered fatherhood and helped Newark's men lead a better life, taking the recidivism rate from 65% to under 3% through the programs first four years.
Booker's last theme addressed the importance of interdependence and how the country succeeds when people bond themselves together.
"This belief that when we come together, with vision, with a determination to work though those broken moments, that when we stay together… there's nothing this country can't do," he stated.
Going back to his early days of being a councilman, Booker recounted his hunger strike that attracted significant attention from Newark and the surrounding areas, including New York City. He emphasized that this did not solve all of the city's problems he was attempting to call attention to overnight, but it did start something big.
"Change does not happen from one event, even ten days of hunger strike, it happens because good people wake up every day and do acts of kindness, decency, and love on a consistent basis," Booker stated.
Afterwards, Booker took questions from the audience, addressing how Newark is using recent donations from Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder and CEO of Facebook, and others to improve Newark's education system, as well as the current state of American politics.
True to his themes he called for more cooperation in politics to bridge ideological differences.
"Give me a controversial issue and I will show you that we agree more than we disagree," he challenged.
Using guns as an example, Booker explained that there is a very broad agreement among Americans, with high support from gunowners, to adopt measures that would prevent firearms from being illegally obtained.
Booker also highlighted an effort by Americans Elect to alter the way Presidential election nominations work, but did offer what he sees as the likely showdown in the 2012 elections.
"In this election you will have Obama/Biden, I can guess who I think the Republican nominee — it won't be 9-9-9… I think it will be Mitt Romney," he said.
In a brief follow-up with The News-Letter, Booker explains that he enjoys sharing his experiences and engaging with others through speaking engagements, especially college students.
"I often take away more than I give," Booker said. "I'm just very energized and the Hopkins community is phenomenal… It's that kind of energy and idealism and can-do-it-ness that I love."
First elected to the office in 2006, Booker's achievements as mayor include significant reductions in crime within a city that has struggled with poverty and a high murder rate.
After earning his J.D. from Yale in 1997, he moved to Newark and served as a Staff Attorney for the Urban Justice Center. His political career began in 1998 after winning a spot on Newark's Central ward Council.
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