On Wednesday, January 15, Associate Professor of Law Cecil J. Hunt II P’03, was the keynote speaker at the Martin Luther King assembly.

Mr. Hunt traced the history of lynching in America, emphasizing that lynchings were considered entertainment by many white Americans who came from church or even with picnic fare to get a good view of the spectacle.

“It is tempting to consider these aberrant events,” Mr. Hunt said, “[but] the more than 3,000 black people lynched are as much victims of terror as those 3,000 people who died on 9/11.

“It is not ancient history,” he told students.

Professor Hunt told students that it would have easier and far safer for King to avoid taking on the problems of racism and segregation, but he chose to work for change. “He armed himself with nothing more powerful than non-violence,” Mr. Hunt said. “He taught us that truth is a powerful weapon.”

He also told students to recognize that “whiteness has a cash value” and that white privilege comes from a system that has included unequal education, insider networking and lack of access to home mortgages for blacks. “The past has a living effect on the present,” he said. “Generations and generations of black people have been anchored [to the socioeconomic bottom].

“Martin Luther King told us to stop letting color blind us…so that we may see the humanity and dignity of all people. [He wanted us to make] a society that can live with its conscience,” Hunt said.

Professor Hunt also told students that their generation would be the first to grow up in an America in which whites are not the majority. He asked students to consider how they will manage that challenge: Where will their children go to school? Where will they live? How will they vote?
Their choices, he told them, will help determine whether the American experiment of democracy works—whether the rest of the world looks to us as a model and for inspiration, or as a failure like the communist system.

“The jury is still out,” he said.

Since 1977, Cecil Hunt has been an associate professor at Suffolk Law School in Boston. He received a bachelor’s degree from Harvard University in 1975 and a doctorate of law from Boston College in 1980. Professor Hunt specializes in race and the law; real estate transactions; contracts; jurisprudence; and banking and commercial law.

In 2002, Hunt visited the Academy to educate students on racial profiling at Seminar Day.