Young people today have been born into a time of immense world change. Our generation faces great challenges, for our lives have been impacted by a growing awareness in America of poverty, deepening inequality, and continuous wars. The unbridled development of technology — combined with deepening crises of environment and society — pose threats to our existence. They raise broader questions which must be answered by philosophy and science. In the United States, fears of decline and crisis abound: many have lost faith in the institutions and ideas that have for so long defined much of American life. Yet cynicism and nihilism cannot sustain humanity, for all challenges demand response and struggle. The changes we see in the world, whether or not we recognize it, is also of the people. Whether in America or in the rest of the world, the people are conscious, increasingly articulate about their worldview and aspirations, and on the move seeking solutions and alternatives to an unjust status quo.

What does it mean to be a young person at the University of Pennsylvania in these times?

We are here at the university because we believe that knowledge is worthwhile and has liberatory possibilities. We came to Penn to be taught, wanting to learn and know, with faith that the truth can set us free and make us responsible agents of change. 

But at Penn, students collide with an intensely contradictory set of values. Hunger for knowledge, curiosity, the desire to do good, and ambition are made to coexist alongside extreme individualism. The Penn environment encourages activism and community engagement. However, many students are diverted into leveraging their talents towards careerism in pursuit of a comfortable life. Penn’s mission to cultivate leaders and scholars often works to produce successful individuals who are singled out in praise and esteem. In sum, what can be, and indeed is often produced, is the next generation of a diversely identifying ruling elite. Yet what would be most valuable and meaningful would be the cultivation of genuine leaders and intellectuals who are part of the people and serve them selflessly without fanfare or reward. We set this as our aim.

The effect of the Penn bubble is to make a world in which the pursuit of societal good coexists alongside the pursuit of profit. But we question whether the value of man truly outweighs the value of money when we see the perverse nature of investment in war and human immiseration. This condition of dilemma is made all the more disturbing by the dissonance between the University of Pennsylvania and the surrounding city of Philadelphia, which is the poorest major city in the United States. Students see poverty, homelessness, violence and racism in Philadelphia daily; their experiences point to the corruption and immorality of an entire system that Penn, too, is enmeshed in. We feel culpable.  But what is most needed, however, is not guilt or pity. The existing agitation, complaints, and protest against the university, no matter their passion, are not sufficient to assuage our conscience. We must feel a renewed sense of purpose and responsibility in being students, for knowledge is required in the fight for the future. We have a place and a role to play if we recenter the question: knowledge for whom? For what ends? And we must do right in our answering.

Knowledge can and must be produced in service of the masses of people, especially the poor and exploited. We can seek knowledge and ideas for democratic ends — for the masses of people to take history into their own hands and solve the crises we face. We assert that Philadelphia is not helpless; it is a city that has been built and fought for by a largely Black working class with revolutionary agency. The city has a proud, spirited history: from the writing and signing of the Declaration of Independence, to the development of a thriving industrial center with the Great Migration where the Black proletariat produced great goods, art, philosophy, and leaders of men. Yet over the last decades, two twin strategies of the ruling class — deindustrialization and gentrification — have viciously attacked this history and the people who have raised it into a tradition. We learn about the downstream effects of these attacks as we see them play out today, but not enough about their purpose. We do not learn enough about the true beauty and possibility of the people. But from the legacy of religious leaders like Father Paul Washington, labor leaders like Henry Nicholas and Lucien Blackwell, and great artists of the world like John Coltrane, Archie Shepp, and Sun Ra, there still lives a rich lifeworld of Philadelphia that we Penn students can draw strength from and ground ourselves within.

We have many historic examples to emulate in our strivings. During the anti-colonial struggle, students and intellectuals of countries across the world devoted themselves to the study of politics, economics, history, philosophy, and culture to contribute to progressive movements and people’s democracy. In the Civil Rights Movement of America, students in Greensboro, Nashville, Birmingham and across the country studied, then put into practice the Gandhian philosophy of nonviolence, joining as peaceful warriors in a struggle to “inject dignity back into the veins of civilization.” They were students, black and white, who were a part of the greater mass of people and had a place and purpose in the movement. Their impact went beyond the well-known legal victories for civil rights and integration: in asserting that the triple evils of white supremacy, poverty, and war were intertwined, the Civil Rights Movement mounted a revolutionary challenge against a world system of U.S-led imperialism. It asserted that through selfless sacrifice, moral clarity, and deep philosophy, human beings could create a Beloved Community out of discord, strife, and chaos.

It is in this vein that we want to read James Baldwin on the eve of his 100th birth anniversary. Firstly, we seek to honor and commemorate his life’s work as a writer and truthful witness of the American people. In learning from Baldwin’s prophetic voice and perspective within the Black Freedom Movement, we want to learn how to see what he saw, and to think honestly and courageously about the challenges and possibilities of the American people in the world. We hope throughout our study to better understand him not just as an artist, but as a philosopher and revolutionary whose work gives us a ground and a sky for the inner lives and capacity of human beings within history.

What will be our generation’s place in history?

We believe that crisis and challenge are an opening for new possibilities. As inheritors of an undecided future, we must take responsibility for making the world a better place. This may seem a heavy task, but by pretending otherwise and shirking responsibility, we do ourselves a great disservice. We believe that there can be no greater purpose than to live a life greater than yourself, and to make a positive contribution to humanity. We believe that young people have what it takes to fight. We have youthful ideals which support an organic morality — to want to do right, to search for the truth, and to be on the side of progress. We have the ambition of our dreams and the strength of our imagination. 

What we need is to develop ideas into understanding, discipline, and experience, to mature in our capacity to follow through on the right path. Ideas are needed most of all, for the history of every mass movement has been shaped by the struggle of ideas. Philosophy and science are most needed to respond to crises of a new sort. We must ask, what is right? What is wrong? What is reality, and what is truth? How can we know? We must reflect and confer — what can define a moral and philosophical framework to unite, inspire, and shape collective human activity for a more just world? What is needed is not just outstanding individual contribution, but the contribution of an entire generation.

We want knowledge to have a purpose in furnishing something for Good, and believe that ideas have a role in the progress of humanity. We want ideas that can help us to understand the people and unite to find collective solutions to our problems. Chief among these still are the issues of poverty, racism, and war. The historic traditions of Philadelphia and the people inspire us to find the possibilities within the crisis. We want to read and discuss, with serious intellectual rigor and sincere motivation to truly know the world and the movement of its people. 

This project takes greater meaning and importance in our times, as around the world new forms of governance, international cooperation, and people's democracy are emerging in response to a decrepit American imperialism and its declining hegemony. With these changes, new ideas and more advanced ideals of peace and brotherhood too must arise in a Revolution of Values. We hope to discover and think through these ideas, embrace currents of change and possibility, and join the people in the struggle to win a future of life over death, dignity and possibility over nihilism, and peace victorious over war.