Connect the Dots: The Big One

Friends in Southern California had a big scare recently when that area experienced its most severe earthquakes in decades. Fortunately, despite all the jolts and aftershocks, no one was killed, and apparently, there was little major damage to the infrastructure.

When I heard the news about the quakes, I immediately thought back to October 17, 1989. That was the day the San Francisco Bay Area was hit with a magnitude 6.9 earthquake. As much of the rest of America watched on television – the quake hit just before the start of the third game of the World Series between the San Francisco Giants and the Oakland Athletics – bridges and highways collapsed, buildings crumbled, and lives were shattered. In only 15 seconds, 63 people died and nearly 4,000 others were injured.

Back then, I was a doctoral student in Oklahoma, far removed from the catastrophe in San Francisco. Yet that event affected me deeply. So many tragedies, no clear pattern, no consistent explanation for why some people lost everything, including their lives. It was just the work of nature, the melody of uncertainty, the song of change. Nature owed us no explanation, no rational understanding of why this time and this place. It was terrifying, frustrating and inexplicable.

One year later, residents throughout the Mississippi Valley waited in fear that “the big one” was about to happen along the New Madrid Seismic Zone – roughly 170 miles southeast of Ladue – thanks to a prediction by a since-discredited self-styled climatologist named Iben Browning. Thankfully, it never came to pass.

What these events did, however, was raise our collective consciousness about Mother Nature and the fragility of our existence. In the blink of an eye, life can change for so many people, leaving physical and emotional scars that may last a lifetime. People, myself included, began to realize that this could happen to us, and now, 30 years later, we have made significant improvements in building codes and infrastructure reinforcements. The fact that the damage from a 6.9-level earthquake in Southern California was limited suggests that we are paying attention and responding in positive ways.

Even more important are the human stories that events like these bring to the front. Thirty years ago, I saw people coming together, helping each other in times of need. Black youths in Oakland peering into 18-inch gaps between the layers of concrete to help mostly white commuters climb to safety. People in expensive business suits munching chicken wings with homeless people in tattered clothes. It was a unique display of the haves and the have-nots together sharing.

I was encouraged to read about Los Angeles neighborhoods organizing to check on one another’s safety and help when disaster strikes. It made me realize that in times of tragedy, we realize how much we really need each other, how much we really have in common.

One of the most popular new musicals on Broadway today, Come From Away, also played in St. Louis in May at The Fabulous Fox Theatre. It tells the tale of the residents of Gander, Newfoundland, who opened their town, their homes and their hearts to more than 7,000 airline travelers who were grounded there following the terrible events of Sept. 11, 2001. Like the people by the Bay, they leaned on one another and pulled together. For five days, the Newfoundlanders showed that love and compassion can always triumph over tragedy and disaster.

Like the weather, life often can be a thing of beauty, a thing to enjoy – but it also can change unexpectedly, suddenly. Its impact can be devastating, even deadly. But after every storm comes a calm, a time to reflect on change.

Whether because of a natural disaster or a manmade catastrophe – an earthquake, a tsunami, a tornado, a flood or a terrorist act – we may stagger and fall, but we always find a way to regain our balance. We find comfort in our common humanity. 

Dr. Benjamin Ola. Akande is assistant chancellor of International Programs-Africa, director of Africa Initiative and associate director of the Global Health Center at Washington University in St. Louis. He is a former president of Westminster College and served as dean at the Walker School of Business & Technology at Webster University. He has a Ph.D. in economics.

Connect the Dots: Change: the Familiar Versus the Future

In January, we celebrate the legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., who debunked the notion that change involving justice and equality must start at the top to take us all to the future.

Perhaps King’s greatest public statement came on Aug. 28, 1963, at Washington, D.C.’s Lincoln Memorial: his “I Have a Dream.” Deeply rooted in the American dream, King’s speech that day centered on change by extolling fundamental values, cultural tradition and personal conviction.

A testimonial to how change happens, that speech displayed emotion and powerfully depicted the value of moving people to action. For me, it still showcases the profound ability of one person to ignite a revolution through a message that speaks to change, a successful attempt to disrupt history through passion, not naked power.

In reality, though, change remains difficult because it generally sidelines comfort. It creates inconvenience, challenges the status quo, demands setting aside the conventional wisdom.

In The New York Times, U.S. political journalist/commentator Michael Kinsley once observed: “Americans say they want change, but there is room for doubt. Change is scary.” Kinsley found nothing contemptible about reluctance to change; he did, however, affirm that if we want only happy change, we really don’t want change at all.

The 20th-century civil rights movement called for a different kind of change, one that challenges people to rise above wrongs like racism and inequality. King used powerful rhetoric to depict that era and offered an alternative route to the future that people could recognize.

This century demands passion equal to King’s to convey an identical message focused on today’s issues – war, peace, the environment, access to necessities. America needs leadership with the vision to awaken change and create a new hope – the kind of change convincing enough that we can readily become part of it. Change must become more than just a word; it must become a covenant that begins and ends with you, and empowers people to team to ensure it happens.

King stood for change – transformative, compelling, a complete interruption in the thoughts and actions of the time. He sought the sort of change that moves people to a new plane, a synthesis to take this nation from ideas to ideals. Change demands the audacity to question what exists and what doesn’t work. King, in his day, succeeded because so many people saw themselves as enablers of change. Many, of course, had difficulty envisioning King’s change so he did what great leaders do – presented a glimpse of the future with his words.

Still, change embraces no real comfort. In fact, a general absence of comfort makes change so meaningful and rewarding when it’s attained.

As we celebrate King’s legacy, I charge area residents to reflect on the issues that have long divided us – race, crime, justice, education and that ever-elusive thing called trust – and to visualize a future we all want and need. That future will demand compromises, seeing things anew and willingly feeling uncomfortable. It also will demand the selflessness that change requires.

So how do you move people to embrace change? Try these three strategies:

• Appeal to a common purpose.

• Communicate expressively by giving life to the vision so people can see themselves in the future.

• Be sincere and believable through transparency and personal conviction.

It doesn’t matter where you’re trying to mobilize change. Whether at worship, in school, in politics or at work, these three strategies remain essential to manifest change.

The ultimate measure of change, of course, depends on whether America feels more comfortable with the familiar than with the future. Which will it be for you?

Dr. Benjamin Ola. Akande is the senior advisor to the chancellor and director of the Africa Initiative at Washington University in St. Louis, as well as former president of Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri. He has a Ph.D. in economics and previously served as dean of the George Herbert Walker School of Business & Technology at Webster University.