Remarks by Judge Nathaniel R. Jones

Dedication of the Nathaniel R. Jones Center, University of Cincinnati

National Underground Railroad Freedom Center

November 14, 2019

I’d be an ingrate if I didn't take a few minutes so to ensure that I didn't revert to my pattern as a Baptist and a lawyer, and take time that was not allotted, [intelligible] to share with you on this occasion, I certainly want to acknowledge a number of people. I can't acknowledge everybody.

I want to certainly thank my daughter, Stephanie and my family at this table, I want to thank my colleagues at Blank Rome – Michael Cioffi and all my colleagues, because I transition from the court was made [ ]- with the warmth by which I was received. And I thank Sharon Zealey who led me to Michael Cioffi. I had other plans, and she said, “You can't do anything until you talk to Michael Cioffi. And anyone who knows Michael Cioffi knows that when he puts the arm on you and the hand …

My law clerks have always been a source of pride to me, and I'm so happy to see a number of them here tonight. They have gone forth and done wonderful things and are doing wonderful things the judges, they are public servants of the various times, through the private sector, they are very curious spirit into the workplace, into the Public sector, and it's badly needed. So those of you who are --- except my apologies, I just don't want to go over my time, but I did put some insurance, so I went and traveled and it be incoherent.

And let me just say this cane, you see me with doesn’t indicate feebleness.  feelings, I happened to bruise my hip, . And so system up, and so I have to use it for a while, until I did good paying so I walk around like I'm an old man People think I’m an old man. But I protest.

Michael Cioffi is one who always assures me you don't like vivid so I'm planning on Michael having some connection above that will ensure that the case but I will begin my remarks by expressing my final appreciation to this university president, Pinto from the Board of Trustees, who bless this initiative of expanding the law school's teaching mission, the inclusion of their foresight and the selection of the brilliant scholar, lawyer and human being and visionary, Williams and her Colleagues, who have come together to with their vision the their vision to direct this institution in a direction that will ensure its relevance as it meets the challenges of the future.

They have the charge to prepare students for the world, coming of the profession, and therefore the conclusion of burr ESS and gender combining them to achieve social justice demonstrates the vision of Dean Williams and her colleagues to. Kimberly and Kirsten that we heard tonight, these challenges are facing future lawyers, and this is a giant attempt toward preparing a battery of intelligence and sensitivity and insight for those boards who have been responsible.

Building leading this nation on the dungeon, which I find itself from time to time. This is crucial. We're in a period of reconstruction. During the Second Reconstruction agreement on the changes in this country, up through Brown v Board of Education, and following Brown v Board of Education, there are a number of measures passed by the Congress, as provided by the Constitution, as we run 13/4, and fifth, and these principles need to be enhanced. Congress has the power to do it, and Congress has acted in many ways. Clearly, the very person born in this country is a citizen thereof at the time of all the rights and privileges. But those principles have been undermined.

The implementation of those principles have been made very difficult.

So this is a period in which we have to challenge those cutbacks, those incursions, and by doing that, we will be able to push back the determined efforts of those portions who has siezed the control of the levers of power and justice that is essential and large, was clear.

This institution by expanding the Center to embrace larger constituencies, is cease is for you to hit, to see to it that the challenge of the Third Reconstruction is that this institution has chosen my name to link with the center in this institution, as we enter this living reconstruction, is a cause of great pride to me.

But even so it is very humbling, and I thank you for it.

As I was giving thought to what I would say if I didn't, if I said anything, I was drawn to the words of Langston Hughes.

Langston Hughes, wrote these word many years ago, but they're kept alive in their respects by scholars who came along in the centuries,

One of the trumpeters one of the First that kept alive during my lifetime, but my fellow Jay, brother and dear friend, the late cousin Leon Higginbotham, serve on the Fourth Circuit and as a professor at Kennedy School in Harvard.

And I'm honored tonight, flattered by joined by Israel Professor Evelyn Higginbotham, who sits here and I asked her this afternoon whether she can point me to that Langston Hughes poem.

She walked over to the computer and pulled it up. So here it is, and I think the most apropos for this occasion, when University Law School is broadening its mission to ensure that more people will share the boundaries of freedom and liberty. To do that, you need a dream. And we have been dreaming, and what has kept us afloat for so many years as an ability to dream.

And Langston Hughes wrote this poem called Dream of Freedom:

There’s a dream in the land 
With its back against the wall. 
By muddled names and strange 
Sometimes the dream is called. 

There are those who claim 
This dream for theirs alone—
A sin for which, we know 
They must atone. 

Unless shared in common 
Like sunlight and like air, 
The dream will die for lack 
Of substance anywhere. 

The dream knows no frontier or tongue, 
The dream no class or race. 
The dream cannot be kept secure 
In any one locked place. 

This dream today embattled, 
With its back against the wall— 
To save the dream for one, 
It must be saved for ALL.”

And that's an old ambition of this University, and certainly this Center has as a seat of the Dream of Freedom, unity, inclusion is shared not just by one group, but by all groups, regardless of gender, race, ethnic background, or other discrete categories, and for that reason, I thank you for honoring by attaching my name to this mission so that it can go on in perpetuity as we meet the challenge in the Third Reconstruction.

Thank you very much.