executive director of the John F Kennedy
Library Foundation I’m thrilled to be
with all of you I remember when I was
seven years old I was playing on a porch
in Brookline the town we’re in making
flags with a friend and I heard on the
radio that John Kennedy had been
assassinated his life his legacy and his
death has affected my thinking since
then all of you know of John Kennedy but
I wonder if you know that as was just
said that he went to another Brookline
school about a mile down the road or if
you know that his family is a gold star
family it’s older brother being killed
in the Second World War or if you’ve
enjoyed the National Seashore and Cape
Cod did you know that that he was the
one who generated the interest for the
National Seashore or if you’ve seen
important decisions being made in the
Situation Room or the leadership from
the met Navy SEALs that both of those
were created by John Fitzgerald Kennedy
our 35th president it’s important to
know what he did but it’s really let’s
look at what’s happened since then when
he was in office 75% of the people
trusted government 75% last year before
the recent campaign it was 19% I I
wonder what the number would be now
after the campaign we’ve all just been
gone through I think this is
heartbreaking because doesn’t say you
believe in everything they’re doing but
you trust government some people believe
government should have a bigger role
some people smaller role some people
feel it should solve this problem or
that but if you don’t trust government
it leads to everything else so what I am
so excited about is finding ways with
all of you
to turn this chart around and to
summarize President Kennedy’s work in
the TEDx would be presumptuous to do it
in a paragraph would be more so in a
sentence even more so so I’m gonna try
to do it in an acronym
si si squared courage service innovation
and inclusion courage during the Second
World War while he was on PT 109 his
boat was rammed by the Japanese despite
having a broken back he saved two of his
colleagues swam three miles to an island
kept them alive until help could come
later when he was president a young boy
asked him President Kennedy how’d you
become a hero and he said it was quite
involuntary they ran my boat later in
life when he was a senator he literally
wrote the book on courage profiling
courage and he identified eight senators
from different parties that took
courageous positions at the time often
having a big impact on their career how
many of you think that if we had more
courage and more bipartisanship our
service in his iconic inaugural address
President Kennedy talked about asked not
what your country can do for you within
45 days later the Peace Corps was
started this is a picture of President
Kennedy welcoming the first class of
Peace Corps volunteers in 1961 750 of
them as they went off to 13 countries
countries some of them that we knew very
little about who had recently broken the
yoke of colonial control that was quite
impressive
for the volunteers and the president
since that time though there have been
over 220,000 people who have served in a
hundred and forty countries they’ve
impacted not just those countries but
they’ve impacted their entire lives for
service many countries have started
their own version of Peace Corps our
country later established AmeriCorps
great nonprofits like City Year have
been started how many of you think that
if we focus more on service our society
innovation this is a picture of
President Kennedy looking at the freedom
7 capsule with astronaut and later
Senator John Glenn and President Kennedy
say you want to go to the moon he wanted
to beat the Russians but he also wanted
to harness the energy the technological
expertise and he set that bold goal of
we’re gonna get to the moon by the end
of the decade without knowing if he
could reach it in fact in the freedom 7
capsule there was less computing
technology than my iPhone not all
iPhones this iPhone and he was willing
to take a risk
in fact by being innovative he was in
fact willing to fail but I can’t begin
well serve to organize and measure the
best of our energies and skills because
that challenge is one that we are
willing to accept he was better
technology than I was how many of you
think our society better if our public
officials are willing to be take
innovative stands and even be willing to
inclusion this is President Kennedy
meeting with civil rights leaders while
he was in the White House when he
started he had a lot of issues on his
plate and he didn’t do as much in civil
rights as he could have
but then he embraced it he made it the
moral issue of his time not just
integrating school lunch counters and
schools and buses but so much more and
he not just worked with folks in the
civil rights movement but he established
the first National Commission on the
status of women and worked with people
with disabilities including those with
intellectual disabilities so how many of
you feel that if we sought to include
people not to divide them and bring them
together our society to be better I hope
that every president and prime minister
federal office holders state office
holder mayor city councilors thinks
about courage service innovation and
inclusion but that’s not enough it’s
really up to all of us I go to bed every
night thinking about these and honestly
there are many days I fall short I
haven’t done enough in these areas so
next year we’ll be celebrating the
hundredth anniversary of John Kennedy’s
birds and that birth happened but a mile
from where we are now in Brookline
Massachusetts so I hope that you’ll join
with me to think about what each of you
can do to promote courage to encourage
service to be innovative and to include
folks thank you you