President John Porter Eulogy

My wife Katie and I were in Norway when we learned of the death of Dr. John Porter. It was so painful for me to realize he was gone from my life and I was not there to share in the common grief. It was at my request that I am here speaking to you on the occasion of our memorial to a truly great and caring human being. My memories of being most proud as a faculty member at EMU were in the days that my friend Dr. Porter was the president. (I might mention that it was not until he was receiving cancer therapy at the Hartland Nursing Home that I was finally able to call this man I respected so much, “John.”)

I still cannot speak publically of this man by any other title than “Dr. Porter.” I often think of the poem, The Psalm of Life, written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, when I find myself once again thinking of how Dr. Porter impacted my life.

 

Lives of great men all remind us, we can make our lives

sublime, and in doing leave behind, footprints in the

sands of time.

Footprints that perhaps another, sailing o’er life’s solemn main

A forlorn and shipwrecked brother

Seeing may take heart again …

 

I feel no need to review Dr. Porter’s many accomplishments that came as a result of his concern for education in all its dimensions. Rather, as I reflect on Dr. Porter’s life, I am reminded of all the things I never heard anyone say about Dr. Porter. I never heard anyone say: He lets others do the work and he takes all the glory. I never heard anyone say: He cares more about his career than he does the people he is serving. I never heard anyone say: You don’t ever really know what he expects from you. I never heard anyone say: He is a vindictive man. I never heard anyone say: He is an uncaring man. I never heard anyone say: He really doesn’t have clear plans or clear goals. I never heard anyone say: His ethics are sometimes questionable. I did hear people say: You know clearly what he expects from you. I did hear people say: He can be tough when solving problems, but in his heart, he is a truly kind and caring man. I did hear people say: No matter what time you come to campus early in the morning, the lights in his office are almost always on. I did hear people say: He saved EMU at a time of great financial turmoil in the state of Michigan. I did hear people say: He could easily have slowed down when he left EMU and become a scholar, a professor or a writer but instead, took on the task of rebuilding the Detroit School System. I did hear people say: He was a very private man.

All of us who knew Dr. Porter were aware that he truly was a very private man. I think it is important for all of us today to remind ourselves that Dr. Porter grew up at a time when the fog of racism covered the land of this nation. African Americans were being beaten up all over this country for being “uppity.” To let others know too much about you or to show any vulnerability or to expose your fears or hurts only made matters worse. Make no mistake about it, this man suffered greatly under the shadows of the fog that was always over his head. Only rarely did he ever share with me the many, many hurts and heartbreaks that he suffered because of his skin color and when he did, it was always because I brought it up.

Today we know that he is a member of the Albion College Athletic Hall of Fame because of his skill and hard work as a football and basketball player. What we may not remember so well is that on occasions other schools did not want to play against schools with a “colored person” on the team. Some of you are aware that when Dr. Porter prepared to move to Ypsilanti, he bought a house. One of the bigoted people in that neighborhood made a fuss about a black family moving into the neighborhood. Dr. Porter chose not to fight such ignorance but rather he changed his housing plans. I truly believe that he knew that given his mission in life, he knew he had more important issues to confront.

If one should doubt the world in which he was born and educated, look at how the adjective “Black” or “African American” is used in so many descriptions of his accomplishments. First Black professional hired by the state education department. The nation’s first African-American state Superintendent of Schools and the first African-American president of Eastern Michigan University. Dr. Porter achieved what he did by quietly living in a world of scholarship and hard work … and no amount of racial fog could hide the brilliance of this man.

In his poem, the Ladder of St. Augustine, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow wrote a perfect description of my friend John Porter …

 

The heights by great men reached and kept,

were not attained by sudden flight

But they, while their companions slept,

were toiling through the night.

 

Luckily, many people recognized in Dr. John Porter’s lifetime that a gentle giant walked among us. He truly was the leader that Josiah Gilbert Holland talked about when he wrote …

 

God, Give us leaders

A time like this demands strong minds

true hearts and ready hands

Leaders whom the lust of office does not kill

Leaders whom the spoils of office cannot buy

Leaders who possess opinions and a will

Leaders who have honor

Leaders who will not lie

Leaders who can stand before a demagogue

and damn his treacherous flatteries without winking

Tall leaders … sun crowned

Who live above the fog in public duty and in private thinking

For while the people with their large professions and their little deeds

Mingle in selfish strife

Lo Freedom weeps

Wrong rules the land and waiting justice sleeps.

 

Dr. Porter was a kind and just man, always trying to do what he could to bring out the very best in all the people that looked to him for leadership and ideas. In Shakespeare’s great play, Julius Caesar, there is a funeral scene in which Mark Antony is speaking at the funeral of Brutus. As Mark Antony said at the funeral of Brutus, so I would say about Dr. John Porter, a man I will always greatly admire … and yes … love. “His life was gentle, and the elements so mixed in him, that nature might stand up and say to all the world, ‘This was a man’.”

-- Remarks by Gary L. Evans, emeritus faculty, Communications, Media and Theatre Arts, at the Dec. 7, 2012 memorial service.