The mayor of Newark, Cory Booker, gave a speech at the College last Tuesday that was ‘insightful’ and ‘engaging,’ according to Morris. (Tom O’Dell / Photo Assistant)

Three frogs are sitting on a log. If one decides to jump off, how many are left sitting on the log? Three. They all decided to jump off, but didn’t actually jump. People often have great ideas —rarely do they transform them into action. This was one of the points Cory Booker, the mayor of Newark, made when he came to campus last Tuesday.

Booker was invited to attend a dinner with select staff, faculty, members of the Student Government Association (SGA) and constituent students. Unfortunately, he had to cancel because his meeting with Gov. Jon Corzine and former President Bill Clinton ran late.

However, the night was saved with an insightful, engaging and inspirational speech by the mayor. I was lucky enough to sit in the reserved seating for SGA, the organization which hosted the event, in the second row, center stage. But as I looked around at the audience, I got the feeling it didn’t matter where you sat — every seat in the Mildred & Ernest E. Mayo Concert Hall was perfect.

Booker was inspiring, to say the least. He talked about his education and how football got him into Stanford, but he took advantage of the opportunity and got straight A’s there before attending Oxford University and Yale Law.

With Booker’s resume, he could have had any job he wanted, but he chose to work in Newark, determined to make it a better city.

Before he was mayor, Booker went on a 10 day hunger strike to protest drugs and violence in Newark. It started out as just Booker, only a councilman at the time. Then, policemen joined him, because they couldn’t let him sleep in a tent in one of Newark’s worst neighborhoods by himself. By the end of the 10 days, there were hundreds of people who had joined him. Booker described one moment in which everyone there held hands and prayed.

“I felt like I could have moved a mountain,” he said.

Once he became mayor, one of the first things he did was get the police to be more proactive. He even went on drug busts with them.

It wasn’t easy to win the mayoral spot, though. In 2002, still councilman at the time, Booker lost the election to the incumbent mayor Sharpe James, who was later convicted of fraud and conspiracy and is currently serving prison time. Booker was able to win the next election by going door-to-door throughout Newark to introduce himself to the people, and more importantly, to see what they wanted from their next mayor — honesty, hard work, and connecting with the people, quite the opposite of James’ strategy.

Since becoming mayor, Booker has done a phenomenal job. He has cleaned up the streets a significant amount and lowered violence, even though expert criminologists told him it couldn’t be done.

As Booker went on telling stories, the audience became more engaged and more sympathetic to the cause. I think it’s safe to say that most of the people in attendance left the speech feeling like Booker is one of the coolest, most inspiring men New Jersey has seen in recent years.

I wouldn’t be surprised if people who saw Booker speak began embracing some of his messages and introduced the themes which he talked about — vision, discipline, and love — into their everyday lives. After hearing Booker speak, I expect to see more action around campus, and more people jumping off logs.

Source: nytimes.com.