[applause] expand our also moral imaginations to understand and empathize with all people to our struggling, not just black folks who are struggling. Therefugees, the immigrants ral folks, the transgender, and yes, the middleaged white guy, who you may think has all the advantages, but over all the over thedes technological change and feels powerless to stop it, you have got to get in his head, too. Number three, you have to go through life with more than just passion for change. You need a strategy. I will repeat that. Have passion for you have to have a strategy. Not just awareness but action. Not just hashtags but votes. [applause] you see, change requires more than [indiscernible] in requires a program and organizing. The 1964 democratic convention, maddie liv, five feet, four inches tall, gave a fiery speech on the national stage, but then she went back home to mississippi and organized cotton pickers. She did not have the tools, technology or you can whip up a movement in minutes. She had to go door to door. Proud of the new black civil rights leaders who understand this, and thanks in large part to the other people, like many of you, from black lives matter to twitter, that american eyes have been opened, white, black, democrat, republican. The real problems in our criminal justice system, for example. But to bring about structural change, lasting change, awareness is not enough. It requires changes in law. Changes in customs. If you care about mass me ask you,n, let how are you pressuring members of congress to pass the criminal Justice Reform bill now pending before them . [applause] if you care about better policing, do you know who your District Attorney is . Know who your state attorney general is . Do you know the difference . Do you know who appoints the police chief and who writes the Police Training manual . Are, whatho they their responsibilities are, mobilize the community, present them with a plan, work with them to bring about change, hold them accountable if they do not deliver. , but you haveal to have a strategy. Your plan better includes voting , not just some of the time but all of the time. [applause] it is absolutely true that 50 years after the Voting Rights act, there are still too many barriers in this country to vote. There are too many people trying to erect new barriers to voting. This is the only democracy on wayh that goes out of its to make it difficult for people to vote. There is a reason for that. There is a legacy to that. Let me say this, even if we dismantle every barrier to vote, that alone would not change the fact that america has some of the lowest voting rates in the free world. In 2014, only 36 of americans turned out to vote in the midterms. Second lowest Participation Rate on record. Youth turnout, that would be you, less than 20 . Ess than 20 four out of five did not vote. 2012, newly two and three americans, africanamericans, turned out. In 2014, only two and five turned out. You do not think that made the difference in terms of the congress i have got to deal with . [laughter] and people wonder, how come obama has not gone this or that done . You do not think that made a difference . You would have happened if turned out at 50 , 60 , 70 all across this country . People try to make this political thing really complicated. Of reforms doing need and how do we have to do that . You know what . Just vote. [laughter] it is math. If you had more votes than the other guy, you get to do what you want. [laughter] [applause] it is not that complicated. And you do not have excuses. You did not have to guess the number of jellybeans in the jar, bubbles on the bar of soap to register to vote. You do not have to risk your own like to cast a ballot. Other people already did that for you. [applause] your grandparents, your greatgrandparents. What is your excuse . When we do not votes, we give away our power, disenfranchise ourselves, right when we need to. Se the power that we have right now we need your power to stop others from taking away the more in like of those vulnerable than you are, the elderly, the poor, the formally consecrated trying to earn their second chance. The formally incarcerated trying to earn their second chance. You have to vote all the time, not only when it is cool, time to elect the president , when you are inspired, it is your duty. Electing congress, city councilman, school board member, sheriff, it will help change our politics i electing people at every level who are representatives of and accountable to us. It is not that complicated. Do not make it complicated. [applause] finally, change requires more than just speaking out. It requires listening as well. In particular, it requires listening to those with whom you disagree. And being prepared to compromise. Senator, ia state illinois first racial profiling law and one of the first laws in the nation requiring the videotaping of confessions in capital cases. Because earlysful on i engaged [indiscernible] them, you guyso are so racist, you need to do something. [laughter] do,derstood, as many of you that the overwhelming majority of Police Officers are good, honest, courageous and fair and love the communities they serve, and we knew they were some bad apples, and that even good cops with the best of intentions, including, by the way, africanamerican Police Officers might have unconscious biases, so we engaged and listened, and we kept working and to weep build consensus, and because we took the time to listen, we crafted legislation that was good for the police because it improved the trust and cooperation of the community, and it was good for the community who were less likely to be treated unfairly. Unequivocallythis , without at least the acceptance of the Police Organization in illinois, i could never have gotten those. Ills passed very simple. They would have blocked them. The point is you need allies in a democracy. That is just the way it is. It can be frustrating and it can be slow. That thery teaches us alternative to democracy is always worse. That is not just true in this country. It is not a black or white thing. Go to any country where the give and take of democracy has been repealed by one party rolls, and i will show you a country that does not work. Democracy requires compromise, even when you are 100 right. This is hard to explain sometimes. Rights be completely bri and you still have to engage folks who disagree with you. If you think that the only way forward is to be as uncompromising as possible, you will feel good about yourself, you will enjoy a certain moral security, but you will not get what you want. If you do not get what you want long enough, he will eventually think the whole system is rigged. Cynicism lead to more ms participation and less participation and a downward spiral of more injustice, anger and despair. And that has never been a source of progress. That is how we cheat ourselves of progress. We remembered dr. Kings soaring oratory. The power of his letter from a birmingham jail. , but he alsoled sat down with president johnson in the oval office to try to get the Civil Rights Act of Voting Rights act passed, and those two bills were not perfect, just like the emancipation proclamation was a war document as much as it was some call for freedom, goes mile polls on our progress were not perfect, they do not make up for centuries of slavery, jim crow, or illuminate racism or provide 40 acres and a mule, but they made things better. You know what . I will take better every time. I always tell my staff, better is good because you can consolidate your gains and then you move on to the next fight from a stronger position. Britney packman, a member of the black lives Matter Movement in campaign 0, 1 of the ferguson protester organizers, she joined our task forces. Some of her fellow activists questioned whether she should participate. She rolled a person leaves and sat at the same table with bigcity police chiefs, prosecutors, and because she did, she ended up shaping many of the recommendations of that task force and those recommendations are now being adopted across the country. Changes that many of the. Rotesters called for if young activists like britney had refused to participate out of substance of ideological purity, then those great ideas would have remained ideas. Participate, and that is how change happens. Big and boisterous. The president told me that we have got a significant nepalese and igent here at howard would not have guessed that. Right on. You howust tells interconnected we are becoming, and we have so many folks from so many places converging. We are not always going to agree with each other. Another howard alumn, so neil hurston once said, nothing that god ever made is the same thing to one person. Think about that. That is what our democracy gives us a process designed for us to settle our disputes with arguments, ideas and votes instead of violence and simple majority rule. Out. T try to shut folks do not try to shut them down, no matter how much you might disagree with them. There has been a trend around the country trying to get colleges to this invite speakers with a different point of view or disrupt the politicians rally. Do not do that. Mother how ridiculous or offensive you might find the things that come out of their mouths because as my grandmother used to tell me, every time a fool speaks, they are just advertising their own ignorance. Let them talk. [laughter] let them talk. If you do not, you are just making them a victim and then they can avoid accountability. That does not mean you should challenge them. Have the confidence to challenge. Hem confidence in the rightness of your position. There will be times when you shouldnt compromise your core values, integrity, and you will have the responsibility to speak up in the face of injustice. Isten, engage if the other side has a point, learn from them. If they are wrong, teach them, beat them on the battlefield of ideas, and you might as well start practicing now because one thing i can guarantee you, you will have to deal with ,gnorance, hatred, racism folks s, trifling [laughter] will have to you deal with all of that at every stage of your life. That may not seem fair, but life has never been completely fair. Promises. If you want to make life fair, then you have to start with the world that it is. So that is my advice. That is how you change things. Is not something that happens every four years, eight years, it is not placing your faith in any particular politician and then putting your feet up and saying, ok, go. Effort of people who hitched their wagons to something bigger than themselves and fight for it every single day. That is what theyre marshall understood. A man who once walked this yard, graduated from howard law, went on to baltimore, started his own law practice. He and his mentor Charles Hamilton houston rolled up their sleeves and they said that to they setregation out to overturn segregation and they worked with the naacp. Filed dozens of lawsuits, dozens of cases and after nearly 20 years of effort, 20 years, Thurgood Marshall ultimately succeeded in bringing his righteous calls before the Supreme Court and secured the ruling in brown versus board of education at separate could never be equal. 20 years. Houston, they knew it would not be easy. They knew it would not be quick. They knew all sorts of obstacles would stand in their way. They knew that even if they won, that would just be the beginning of a longer march to equality. But they had discipline. They had persistence. They had faith. And a sense of humor. And they made life better for all americans. I know you graduates sure those share those qualities. I know it because i have learned about some of the and people graduating here today. There is a young woman named sarah jefferson, and she grew up in detroit and was raised by a mom who worked seven days a week in an autoplant and they found themselves with a place without a place to call home. By senior year sierra was up at 00 a. M. Every day juggling Extracurricular Activities and doing homework and juggling watching her little sister and this daughter of a single mom ho worked on the Assembly Line turned down a full scholarship to harvard to come to howard. [applause] and today like many of you, sierra is the first in her family to graduate from college and then she says she is going to go back to her hometown like Thurgood Marshall did to make ure all those she grew up with have a way to get health care and people like sierra are why i remain optimistic about america. People like you. Young people like you are why i never give into despair. Once written was not everything faced can be changed but nothing can be changed until it is faced. Graduates, each of us is only here because someone else faced down challenges for us. We are only who we are because someone else struggled and sacrificed for us. Thats not just thur good martials story or sierras story or your story or my story. Thats story of america, a story whispered by slaves in the cotton fields, the songs of marches in salma, the dream of a king in the shadow of lincoln. The prayer of immigrants who set out for a new world, the roar of women set out to vote, the g. I. s who fight overseas for our freedom. Now, its your turn. And the good news is, youre ready. And when your journey seems too hard and when you run into a chorus of cynics who tell you that youre being foolish to keep believing or that you cant do something or that you should just give up or that you should just settle, you should say to yourself a little phrase i found handy these past couple of years. Yes, we can. Good luck class of 2016. God bless the United States. Im proud of you. [applause] president obama giving the commencement address at Howard University in washington, d. C. Becoming the sixth sitting president to do so. This is one of several speeches the president is expecteded to give, the next will be at Rutgers University in ngts. First Lady Michele Obama recently spoke to the graduates of Jackson University and she encouraged students to exercise their right to vote. You can see that address later here on ng at 8 40 cspan. Recently our campaign 2016 universities and colleges. Where stunchtse, professors and local professors heroined about our road to the white house. Visitors were able to share their thoughtsability the upcoming election. We visited middle school to onor seven ninth graders and our special thanks to comcast and armstrong cable. You can view all the winning documentaries at student cam. Org. Both iraq and afghanistan i helped both countries with their scuthses being sort of the if a critical tear it of your ent on key issues, influence is considerable and heads of state very anxious to meet with you when you ask for a meeting. Sunday night on q a, former ambassador to iraq and afghanistan he discusses his mission as an envoy. We saw that extremists exploited, although we then corrected it to the end of the period that i was there by the surge and by reaching out to the sunnis and by building up iraqi forces and killing czar couey in the end to bringability security, violence was way down, but unfortunately when we left and the vacuum was filled by rival Regional Power its pulling iraq apart, and we have iciss now. Sunday on cspans q a. Next, voice of america director Amanda Bennett talks about the networks future in her first public appearance after being sworn in. This was hostt by the leadership policy. Its 45 minutes. Welcome to newcomers and also those watching online and watching on cspan television. My name is adam powell, im the resident of the Public Diplomacy county critical and director of washington programs for the u. F. C. Center of commune theres a green light on. More about our partners on communication leaderships ufc. Edu. Hosted by our guest today is Amanda Bennett, the new director of the voice of america and has a long journalistic career and biography of reversal of programs and has won two pulitzers and she said we do have to change. We must change, we need toe change in a big way. So change is coming. Change is here. Amanda bennett. [applause] thank you. Is this now working . Is everybodylering me now . Thats terrific. O. K. Ok thank oing to you very much adam and thank you everyone for coming here. I look out in the audience and i see all kinds of friends and colleagues are here. I so appreciate your coming, and i cant thank all of you for being here so im going to whose out one person great history of america so i need to thank him right now. And then second, id like to acknowledge my predecessor, david, who has been as helpful and warm to me as any human being can be in helping prepare me for this big job. Please everyone acknowledge david enniser who is now with the atlanta county critical. So as adam says, if you want to know my biography, just flip the page over and read it yourself. But id like to tell you a couple things you might not know. Because i am of an age that i was part of a movement that cheap airfares and curiosity about the world sent all of us out around the globe. In a migration that i dont think had ever happened before when it wasnt associated with the war. So as a result of this, in high school i was an Exchange Student in the philippines. When i graduated from college i worked as an au pair in paris taking care of children and bulldogs and spent time in canada and canada was then and is now way more of a foreign country than any of us acknowledge. Later i was the second wall street journal correspondent in china at a time when the newly opened country was most definitely a foreign country. Since then ive worked at five different media organizations and have had the really, really good luck to be there when all of them were at their peak journalistic power and reach and all known for their seriousness and integrity of principles. So for all this, i am way, way more of a journalist than a diplomat. As a matter of fact, im going to say im all journalist and no diplomat. Many of you in this room who have followed voice of america, led voice of america, worked for or with voice of america are way more expert than i am at the diplomatic purpose of voice of america. But im here to say to you that i think that we are very much