Lillian Brock Flemming, a 1971 graduate of Furman University and one of the early African-American students at the school, was the speaker at the L.D. Johnson lecture on \u201cWhat Really Matters?\u201d<\/p>\n
Flemming\u2019s talk was part of Furman\u2019s year-long celebration of the 50th<\/sup> anniversary of the desegregation of the university. Joseph Vaughn, a Greenville resident, was the first black student to attend Furman. Flemming was one of the first female African-American students on campus and was awarded an honorary doctorate of humanities earlier this year by Furman.<\/p>\n The events commemorating Furman\u2019s desegregation tell the story of the university\u2019s desegregation journey, said Maria Swearengen, assistant university chaplain. Introducing Flemming as an educator, activist and Greenville City Council member, Swearengen said that integration \u201cis far from complete.\u201d<\/p>\n Vaughn Crowetipton, associate vice president for spiritual life, said the lecture series honors L.D. Johnson, Furman chaplain from 1967 to 1981. Johnson helped the university grapple with many important issues, he said.<\/p>\n Flemming\u2019s answer to \u201cWhat Really Matters?\u201d is love.<\/p>\n \u201cSometimes we go through life and never look to the left or the right,\u201d she said. \u201cWhat really matters is different for every person. I think I learned most of what really mattered from my mom and daddy.\u201d<\/p>\n Citing First Corinthians 13, she said, \u201cEverything comes from love.\u201d She advised those in the audience to be their brothers\u2019 keeper, even when some of those brothers present challenges.<\/p>\n People need to worry most about their ability to love, she said, because \u201cit\u2019s real clear that everything we have centers around love. What\u2019s important in your life is not how long you live; it\u2019s the dash\u201d between your birth and death.<\/p>\n One result of love is a positive attitude, she said. \u201cYou don\u2019t waste a day by being negative. What my dad said to me was \u2018Don\u2019t let other people make you a trash can.\u2019 \u00a0Love helps you be positive. It helps you treat other people better than some of them deserve to be treated.\u201d<\/p>\n Being positive makes hope and happiness possible, she said.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you have no hope, you do perish,\u201d she said. \u201cIf you have no hope, you have no future.\u201d<\/p>\n She admitted that as a pioneer desegregating Furman, she and the other students faced challenges. But the answer to that is to talk and get to know others. She said that while on campus, a Ku Klux Klan official came to speak on campus. The African-American students decided to attend. But they didn\u2019t have to say anything because white students on the front row \u201cdecimated\u201d the man. They were not hearing his hateful speech.<\/p>\n She told students in the audience that they often spend too much time on electronic gadgets and don\u2019t really talk to others.\u00a0 Young people need to get to know each other, to know their middle names and what their favorite colors are.<\/p>\n Mentioning the media\u2019s treatment of Richard Jewell, a security guard who was suggested as being involved in the Centennial Olympic Park bombing at the 1996 Olympic games in Atlanta \u00a0and was later exonerated, she said he was accused without facts.<\/p>\n \u201cThat\u2019s what our society has done because we don\u2019t talk to each other,\u201d she said. \u201cWe don\u2019t get the facts. We don\u2019t trust one another because we don\u2019t talk. \u201c<\/p>\n When we talk to others who are different from us, \u201cwe find out we have more in common than we don\u2019t have in common. We find out we want the same things,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n When asked how she remains positive on bad days, Flemming said, \u201cI pray.\u201d<\/p>\n She also said that diversity can be improved by giving information to everyone. People need to go into communities different from their own and create relationships and partnerships.\u00a0 While at Furman, she talked with other black students and got to know them. But they also worked to get people who were not black to know that all black people are not alike. They enjoy different types of music; they have different beliefs; they look and dress differently.<\/p>\n Racism is still alive and well, she said, and some attitudes and actions have not changed much from the 1960s. But \u201cWhat people think of you does not have to be true. It\u2019s what you think about yourself.\u201d<\/p>\n The major way of combating prejudice and discrimination is to \u201ccontinue to talk. Don\u2019t let stereotypes make you form judgments until you know somebody.\u201d She also encouraged parents to model tolerance for their children and talk with them about how they would feel if intolerance were directed toward them.<\/p>\n \u201cMost people don\u2019t want to hurt others. Most people do care,\u201d she said, adding they often say what the crowd is saying without thinking about it could affect others.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Lillian Brock Flemming, a 1971 graduate of Furman University and one of the early African-American students at the school, was the speaker at the L.D. Johnson lecture on \u201cWhat Really […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":265,"featured_media":13915,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3236","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-alumni"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/265"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}