Page 22 THE REVERE ADVOCATE – FRIDAY, JUNE 13, 2025 Revere High School Principal Christopher Bown Speech G raduates: As you enter your next chapter—one that invites you to serve, to grow, and to lead us all into the future — I ask you to reflect tonight on one simple idea that I hope you carry with you: The world doesn’t need people who agree on everything. The world needs people who can lead across our differences—with humility, with courage, with compassion and with love. Your time in Revere Schools has given you opportunities to practice this kind of leadership every day, in ways you might not realize. In our school, in this community, you’ve encountered people whose stories, whose languages, and whose beliefs are not your own. And instead of turning inward, most of you have chosen to build a habit of listening to each other, learning from each other, befriending each other and advocating for each other. These simple, daily habits are necessary conditions for the real leadership skills that you’ll carry with you into the future. True leadership isn’t about status, or spotlight or viral sound bites —it’s about showing up. It’s about fi nding opportunities for solidarity with people who are different. It’s about lifting others as you rise. It’s about doing the slow, and often unseen work of building trust, behind the scenes, across lines of race, class, culture, belief and experience. And let’s be honest: you are graduating into a complicated world. One where people argue more than they listen. Where headlines are filled with conflict—between nations, within neighborhoods, and, yes, even within our own school. Here in Revere, you live amidst differences every day—where some here tonight are starting over in a new country, seeking safety and opportunity as folks have done in Revere for generations, while others are adjusting to a community that is changing faster than they expected it ever would. In today’s world, we all face immense pressure to paint as villains those on the other side of issues — issues that are wildly more complex and nuanced than the warriors of “cancel culture” would have us believe. Yet you all have shown us that it’s possible to see through the “other” to see the dignity in the person on the other side — even when we disagree, even when their lived experience feels most unfamiliar to us or when they act in ways we cannot comprehend. You’ve shown us that being strong doesn’t mean being loud—it means being steady and grounded. Being right doesn’t mean refusing to change—it means being open to transition. Leading across diff erence doesn’t mean simply making room for others to have a seat at the table. It means setting the table with the relationships you intentionally build to make everyone — especially those at the margins — feel they belong. Leading across difference is not a solo act. It’s the practice of walking with others to change the systems that too often exclude. Sometimes this walk is more like a march that the times require you direct from the front lines. But more often than not, this walk is a dance that you’re choreographing — quietly, purposefully, steadily — from the side. It’s up to you to decide when it’s the right time to march and when it’s the right time to dance. You need to decide, based on the relationships you’ve formed with the people you’re serving at the moment, whether your leadership requires a march or whether you need to be a dancer. I hope you feel that Revere Public Schools has given you plenty of opportunities to practice the skill of building those relationships with all sorts of people. We need you to be the generation that sees past the noise and builds something better—not just for yourselves, but for your neighbors, for your communities, and for a world that desperately needs healing. I’m inspired by individuals sitting before me tonight. Your journeys, your stories, your ways of being make me feel so good about our future. Class of 2025, we are deeply proud of you. Go forward with courage. Go forward with humility. And go forward knowing that the world is waiting— not for perfection, but for people willing to walk with others who are different from them and to lead with a love that brings us all together and changes the world. Class dismissed as the Class of 2025 graduates let their caps fl y in celebration.
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