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When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and askedmyself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall awayin the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoidthe trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart. No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we allshare. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It isLife's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now,you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.When I was young, there was an amazing publication called

The Whole Earth Catalog

, which was one of the bibles of mygeneration. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters,scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it wasidealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.Stewart and his team put out several issues of

The Whole Earth Catalog

, and then when it had run its course, they put out a finalissue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morningcountry road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "StayHungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wishedthat for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.Thank you, President Payton. I would also like to thank the Board of Trustees, the faculty, administration and graduates for theopportunity to address this historic graduating Class of 2003 of Tuskegee University where the first Ph. D. graduates will receivetheir degrees in Materials Science and Engineering.I would like to dedicate this Commencement speech and my honorary degree to the memory of my mother and my father, Itasker Frances and Donald Everett Thornton. For without them, both biologically and philosophically, I would not be standing here before you today. They practiced a work ethic and they instilled in me a work ethic. No, I am not one of those Commencementspeakers who went from "jail to Yale" or from being "homeless to Harvard." I believe I was asked to speak to you today on thismost auspicious occasion of your Commencement because we have a lot in common. And, that is, be underrated andunderestimated.The diploma you receive today should not be thought of as a reward, but rather an opportunity, a commitment, an obligation to goforward and continue the life-long process of learning. The elements you have learned at Tuskegee should now be forged into thatspecial compound we call "excellence." Excellence is the antidote to racism, sexism and nepotism. Someone once said, "The keyto success is hard work and a little luck." I have found that the harder you work, the luckier you become. What is luck? Luck iswhen opportunity meets preparation.For those of you who have read my family biography, entitled, The Ditchdigger’s Daughters, you will recall that I came from afamily of six children--all girls and no boys! This was over 50 years ago, over half a century, before affirmative action, Title IX,or equal opportunity. My father was a ditchdigger, a janitor, a laborer. My mother was a cleaning woman who also worked in thefactories and sweatshops outside of New York City. Unlike my father, who dropped out of high school in the tenth grade, mymother had three years of college at a former Historically Black University known as Bluefield State Teachers College. However, because she did not complete her four years and did not get her diploma (that "sheepskin" as she would call it), she wasconsigned to cleaning other peoples’ houses, scrubbing their floors, cooking their meals, and washing their clothes.However, my parents had a dream for their daughters. They wanted all of us to become doctors (physicians), which was a preposterous idea fifty years ago. Our role models at that time were Ethel Waters with her clothesbasket full of laundry;"Butterfly McQueen" in the movie

Gone with the Wind

saying, "I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout birthin’ no babies!," Rochester withJack Benny, and Al Jolson on bended knee singing, in Black-face, of course, "

Mammy

." These were our role models. As far as being a woman, they were totally dismissed and were thought of as consolation prizes because the real prize was having a boy to"carry on the name." My sisters and I did not look like Vanessa Williams, Halle Berry or, in those days, Lena Horne. We lookedmore like the sisters of Buckwheat, if Buckwheat ever had a sister. We were nappy-headed kids from the projects and no one

encouraged us to dream the big dreams. No one had any expectations for us, except our parents who believed in us when no oneelse did. Most of the teenage Black girls became teenage mothers, high school dropouts and on welfare. I would run crying to myfather saying that when I told my classmates that I was going to be a doctor, they all told me that they had never had seen a Black doctor, much less a woman doctor. My father told me, "That’s their problem!" My mother would say, "Don’t let anyone definewho you are." "Let your reach exceed your grasp, or what’s a heaven for? Let your aims be high, even though fulfillment mayseem impossible." "What you can conceive in your mind, believe in your heart, you can achieve with your efforts! Nothing isimpossible! It’s just the degree of difficulty!" But, it was this dream of my parents that hardened into a single-mindeddetermination that fueled our lives for many years to come.As you heard from Dr. Payton, my mother, sisters and I had an all-girl rhythm-and-blues band in the 1950’s and 1960’s. Before

American Idol

Star Search

, there was a popular talent show on television known as

Ted Mack and the Original Amateur Hour

.My sisters and I performed on that show as "The Thornton Sisters" in 1959. A few years later, we won six consecutiveWednesday "Amateur Night" competitions at the world-famous Apollo Theatre in Harlem, the bastion of Black entertainment. Wethen went on to sign recording contracts with Roulette records and Atlantic Records, perform in rock concerts with our names inlights on the marquee. We told our father to forget about the doctor dream because we were now making money, people loved usand we were on our way to fame and fortune.My father sat us down and said, "Girls, people love you today, they’ll love someone else tomorrow. We are here for a reason, nota season and we are not going to sacrifice our long-term goals for short term gains. If you are a musician and you break your fingers, your career is over, if you are a singer and lose your voice, no one knows you, if you are an athlete and you break your knees, they’ll get someone else to replace you. But, if you are educated and have a skill, if you are a doctor, who can healsomeone and make someone well, then they will come to you because you are respected and are valued.""You’re 15 or 16 years old now, but if you look to the future when you are 50 or 60 years old, with gray hair, wrinkled skin andarthritic fingers, going up on stage trying to blow a saxophone. Let me tell you something, that ain’t a pretty sight to see! But if you are educated, if you are a doctor with those ‘scripperscraps’ (stethoscopes) hanging around your neck, people may not wantto come to see you, but they will have to come to see you because you have a skill and knowledge."My parents had the wit to value education because they knew that if you are educated, there is no limit to what you canaccomplish! Because my parents revered education, we did not become forgotten musicians or faded recording artists, my sistersand I all became well-educated, well-respected, independent, productive women who made that leap up the social mobility ladder from poverty to prosperity in one generation!Because education has a "ripple effect" my children have benefited from my parents’— their grandparents’ — belief in the power of education. My daughter is a recent graduate of Stanford University. While at Stanford, she was the musical director for Talisman, a popular a cappella campus group who performed at The White House and at the Olympic Games when they wereheld in Atlanta. She now wants to trade in her CD for an M.D. and is now pursuing a career in medicine. My son, before he wentto college, was the United States Junior Open Chess Champion. He graduated cum laude in Biology from Harvard University andis now entering his fourth year as a medical student at Columbia University College of Physicians and Surgeons and aspires to bea neurosurgeon.Each one of us is born with the seeds of success. Our parents, our environment and colleges and universities, like Monmouth andTuskegee, plant the seeds, till the soil, nurture and nourish each one of us until we develop into that special someone who cancompete with anybody, anywhere, at any level. Never underestimate the power of a small college with dedicated faculty.American universities don’t hand out diplomas to people with limited potential. So, if you haven’t been told this before, let metell you now--members of the Class of 2003; wherever you want to go in life, you can get there from right here! So, I offer you a personal challenge: a challenge to do something remarkable, something more than the ordinary with your life. If my sisters and I,who were written off because we were dark-skinned Black women, can rise to levels of success against all odds, so can you. Thediploma you will receive today is just the beginning. That’s why we call it "Commencement!" It will not guarantee you success.If you have a goal, a dream you must be persistent, remain determined with a laser-like focus on what you want. My father wouldalways say to us, "If the front door is closed to you (and it very well may be because you are a Black woman), go around to the back door and see if that is open. If that is closed, go around to the side of the house to see it they left a window open. If that isclosed, jump up on the roof to see if you can get it. Just keep trying! Never give up, never, never give up! Because the only person that can stop you is—YOU!"You are our link to a new generation. You must reassess, re-examine and clarify your priorities and not just be satisfied with thestatus quo. Whether you go into research, business, law, medicine, public service or education, neither you nor society cancontinue to survive or prosper simply by implementing what is already known. Somebody is going to have to come up withmeaningful new ideas, creative new approaches and important new discoveries. Why can’t that "somebody" be you?

In closing, I want to remind you that the worth of any college or University is measured by the achievements andaccomplishments of its graduates and by the loyalty of its alumni. Again, I want to congratulate you on your greataccomplishment and offer you my best wishes. To Tuskegee University, who has so graciously bestowed this honor upon me--mymother thanks you, my father thanks you, my family thanks you and most of all, I thank you!Actually, I have wracked my mind and heart for what I ought to say to you today. I have asked myself what I wish I had known atmy own graduation, and what important lessons I have learned in the 21 years that has expired between that day and this.I have come up with two answers. On this wonderful day when we are gathered together to celebrate your academic success, Ihave decided to talk to you about

the benefits of failure

. And as you stand on the threshold of what is sometimes called ‘reallife’, I want to extol the crucial

importance of imagination

.These might seem quixotic or paradoxical choices, but please bear with me.Looking back at the 21-year-old that I was at graduation, is a slightly uncomfortable experience for the 42-year-old that she has become. Half my lifetime ago, I was striking an uneasy balance between the ambition I had for myself, and what those closest tome expected of me.I was convinced that the only thing I wanted to do, ever, was to write novels. However, my parents, both of whom came fromimpoverished backgrounds and neither of whom had been to college, took the view that my overactive imagination was anamusing personal quirk that could never pay a mortgage, or secure a pension.They had hoped that I would take a vocational degree; I wanted to study English Literature. A compromise was reached that inretrospect satisfied nobody, and I went up to study Modern Languages. Hardly had my parents’ car rounded the corner at the endof the road than I ditched German and scuttled off down the Classics corridor.I cannot remember telling my parents that I was studying Classics; they might well have found out for the first time on graduationday. Of all subjects on this planet, I think they would have been hard put to name one less useful than Greek mythology when itcame to securing the keys to an executive bathroom.I would like to make it clear, in parenthesis, that I do not blame my parents for their point of view. There is an expiry date on blaming your parents for steering you in the wrong direction; the moment you are old enough to take the wheel, responsibilitylies with you. What is more, I cannot criticise my parents for hoping that I would never experience poverty. They had been poor themselves, and I have since been poor, and I quite agree with them that it is not an ennobling experience. Poverty entails fear,and stress, and sometimes depression; it means a thousand petty humiliations and hardships. Climbing out of poverty by your own efforts, that is indeed something on which to pride yourself, but poverty itself is romanticised only by fools.What I feared most for myself at your age was not poverty, but failure.At your age, in spite of a distinct lack of motivation at university, where I had spent far too long in the coffee bar writing stories,and far too little time at lectures, I had a knack for passing examinations, and that, for years, had been the measure of success inmy life and that of my peers.I am not dull enough to suppose that because you are young, gifted and well-educated, you have never known hardship or heartbreak. Talent and intelligence never yet inoculated anyone against the caprice of the Fates, and I do not for a momentsuppose that everyone here has enjoyed an existence of unruffled privilege and contentment.However, the fact that you are graduating from Harvard suggests that you are not very well-acquainted with failure. You might bedriven by a fear of failure quite as much as a desire for success. Indeed, your conception of failure might not be too far from theaverage person’s idea of success, so high have you already flown academically.Ultimately, we all have to decide for ourselves what constitutes failure, but the world is quite eager to give you a set of criteria if you let it. So I think it fair to say that by any conventional measure, a mere seven years after my graduation day, I had failed onan epic scale. An exceptionally short-lived marriage had imploded, and I was jobless, a lone parent, and as poor as it is possibleto be in modern Britain, without being homeless. The fears my parents had had for me, and that I had had for myself, had bothcome to pass, and by every usual standard, I was the biggest failure I knew.