Tutu and Dye speak at 2000 conference

Nancy Dye shared the stage with Archbishop Desmond Tutu at Cleveland's "Building a More Unified Cleveland" conference Thursday.

Winner of the 1984 Nobel Peace Prize and archbishop of Johannesburg, Tutu is renowned for his work fighting apartheid in South Africa. Tutu also chaired South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation committee in 1998 and is currently a visiting professor of theology at Emory University in Georgia.

Dressed in a fuschia shirt and a clerical collar, Tutu's remarks ranged from serious considerations of apartheid to light-hearted anecdotes and drew frequently on religious themes.

"We are created different by God not so that we should be alienated by our differences, but so that we should know our need of one another. We are created for interdependence; I have gifts that you don't have, you have gifts that I don't have," he said. "The solitary human being is a contradiction: we are made for family; we are made for togetherness; we are made for friendships."

He concluded his remarks with an appeal to Cleveland's more than 80 different ethnic and cultural groups to provide a model of harmony for the rest of the nation and the world. The full house responded with a standing ovation.

Tutu's speech was followed immediately by Dye, who, along with the Reverend Larry Harris of the Mt. Olive Baptist Church, was invited to provide a more local perspective on how to unite Clevelanders. Many of her remarks reflected her background as a historian and an educator.

"Black and white Americans, like black and white South Africans, have very different histories: we have seen and experienced America differently. But none of us need be a prisoner of history. If we were prisoners of history, there would never have been an Underground Railroad, in which so many white and black Northern Ohioans worked together," she said.

Dye cited the Cleveland community's united response to the Ku Klux Klan this summer as prime example of how Clevelanders can come together across lines of race.

She then discussed the role schools must play in bridging cultural divides.

"It is at school that we can learn each other's histories, it is at school that we should see ourselves and our experiences reflected and respected in the curriculum, and it is at school, through the study of art, and literature, and history, that we have our best shot at learning about and developing empathy with people unlike ourselves," Dye said. She went on to praise the Cleveland School for the Arts for its work in this area, but expressed concern about inadequate funding for public schools.

"A year ago or so, a picture of a stairwell in this school appeared on the front page of the New York Times as a prime example of the crumbling infrastructure of urban public schools across the nation. Our children - all our children - are our greatest resource. We need to figure out how to direct a lot more of the colossal wealth now being created by this nation to our schools and our children," she said to enthusiastic applause.

Having related scholar Henry Louis Gates' description of racism as "a failure of the imagination," Dye concluded her remarks with a consideration of the role art might may play in uniting the city's diverse groups.

"Our arts community can and must nourish everyone's imagination, and Cleveland, more than most American cities, is incredibly rich in racial and ethnic diversity. We are a wondrously cosmopolitan community, and our downtown can be one of the liveliest crossroads anywhere in America," Dye said.

The conference was the first in a yearlong series of forums on the city's future organized by the Downtown Cleveland Partnership and the City Club of Cleveland and sponsored by Ameritech.