Ms. Heather McGhee called on students to think about what it means to form a more diverse America. Photo by Jenny Guo/The Choate News
Last Tuesday Evening, February 25th, Choate welcomed Ms. Heather McGhee, an American political commentator and political strategist, to discuss racial prejudice and the challenging paradigm of racial competition in the U.S. at the annual Adlai Stevenson Lecture Series.
The Adlai Stevenson Lecture is named after the Choate alum, two-time presidential candidate, and former United States ambassador to the United Nations. Each year, it brings to campus a guest speaker who shares Stevenson’s values and has made a major contribution to public life.
Heather C. McGhee joined Demos in 2002 and served as the think tank’s president from 2014 until 2018. McGhee is currently working on a book about the personal, economic, and societal costs of racism to American people of all races.
Students in history classes are required to attend this lecture as a way to elevate their knowledge on the subjects above. Previous speakers have also been asked to engage with students in less formal settings than the keynote address. Ms. McGhee dined with chosen students from the John F. Kennedy ’35 Program in Government and Public Service as well as other students pursuing Capstones in areas that are connected to Ms. McGhee’s work.
Mr. Jonas Akins, HPRSS teacher and organizer of the lecture, said, “I’ve seen her speak to high school students in the past, and she was engaging, insightful, and inspiring — all qualities that drove us to seek her out for this year’s lecture.”
The Stevenson Lecture also celebrates a student who is chosen as the Adlai Stevenson Junior Fellow. This year, Roshni Surpur ’20 was the Junior Fellow, opting to recognize Adlai Stevenson’s achievements throughout his political career in the realm of international relations and inequality. However, Surpur expressed criticisms on his position as a segregationist in the aftermath of Brown v. Board of Education and his insensitive comments about women as Smith College’s commencement speaker.
Ms. McGhee’s lecture stressed the importance of accepting one’s own prejudice and being able to seek help to find ways to learn more about one another. Ms. McGhee thinks that understanding one another through sharing cultures is the best way to unfold racism. Mr. Ned Gallagher, another HPRSS teacher, said, “I thought she was very eloquent in framing abstract policy issues involving inequality and racism in accessible anecdotes.”
Nahshon Miller ’21, who attended the lecture, said, “I never really knew how uneducated lots of us are, so I think the biggest issue in our world today is the lack of knowledge. One statistic that really stood out to me was when she said that only 10% of public high school seniors knew the reason behind the civil war.”
At the end of her speech, Ms. McGhee emphasized that the youngest generation will be tasked with forming an America that will be more diverse than ever. Thomas Barton’22 said, “After the talk, I really thought about what I can do about this issue as a whole. I believe the best thing I can do is to be as inclusive as possible.”
