This past Monday, Dr. Reverend Calvin O. Butts III delivered the first speech of the Spring 2005 Convocation Series. Apropos of the recent presidential inauguration, Butts talked about America and the country’s need for specific revitalizations, which he termed “rebirth of a nation.”

Butts has had a long involvement with education, having been part of faculties at the City College of New York and Fordham University, and he now holds the presidency of SUNY College-Old Westbury. However, most relevant in his speech was his ongoing leadership in New York City community development programs, especially in Harlem, as the pastor of the historically symbolic Abyssinian Baptist Church in Manhattan.

The pastor began his speech with a reading from the 11th chapter of Genesis, the story of the Tower of Babel. “Indeed the people are one and they all have one language,” Butts stated. “Let us confuse their language that they may not know each other....Therefore they stopped building the city.”

He went on to link this story to contemporary issues, using New York as a metaphor for America and recalling an interview he gave for a TV documentary called New York. Butts said that when he sat down to watch it, “One fella’ said ‘New York is the city that greed built.’ And I became incensed...I ran around the house ranting and raving and I missed myself on TV!”

Butts then settled down and thought about it, he said. He realized that perhaps there was some sense in this man’s claim.

“In the building of New York...they did decide to build a tower, but they didn’t build one, but two,” he stated, referencing the World Trade Center. “I never remembered them saying [these towers] were built to the glory of God, the benefit of humanity or even progress...the God of the 20th century...but who was going to make the money.”

Returning to his introductory biblical quote, Butts said, “They all spoke one language: a language dedicated to the virtues of mergers and acquisitions.” The Twin Towers, he went on to say, “were shaking a fist at the divine.”

Butts, making a bold assertion, then connected the destruction of the World Trade Center to a Bible story: a man with large barns surveys his property and decides to tear it down and build even bigger ones.

Then he settles luxuriously into his new premises to observe what he has done.

Following his telling of this story Butts directly quoted the Bible as it spoke of this man: “You fool. This night your soul will be required of you.” He then drew his connection. “[9/11] taught us the need for building love in the community....A nation born of xenophobia, greed and insensitivity is trying to be born again,” he said. “How do we do that?

“Community development organizations are a way to rebuild the dream,” Butts continued. “The building of community is about uniting men and women, who are not black, not white, but mostly all poor....It’s hard. You won’t make much money....You won’t get much praise.”

Martin Luther King, Jr. had it right, Butts explained. “You know he was right, because he had to pay the dues of all the prophets. ‘We were glad to give you civil rights, but don’t you march a bunch of poor people to D.C., don’t start talking about the redistribution of wealth. That’s going too far.’”

Butts concluded his speech stressing the need for change and hard work in American society and policies.

“Every time you give birth it’s painful. We’re talking about rebirthing America,” he said. “A new language of love and respect that will come out of years of struggle, pain, tears, blood and sweat.”