To Betty Ford, and All Those Who Build Platforms

As we celebrate the life of Betty Ford, who passed away yesterday, I am reminded of her courage to speak out on issues she embraced. Of course, her work on behalf of awareness of substance abuse and breast cancer were well known. However, she also supported the Equal Rights Amendment, which was not common to do in the mid-1970s, access to abortions, and the rights of gay Americans to serve in the military. (She was someone who acknowledged that gays had already long served in the military.)

Beyond Mrs. Ford, I began thinking of the people who found causes in their personal lives and pursued them relentlessly against the tides of their times.

• Rachel Carson, a sounder of early warnings against DDT and the dangers facing our natural environment when most people did not even know what she was speaking about.
• Martin Luther King, who spoke so beautifully on such a wide range of topics — freedom, justice, good vs. evil, mob mentality, even the nobility of work — that students should learn to look well beyond his “I Have a Dream” speech and hear words that resonate even today.
• Elie Wiesel, turning his survival of Nazism’s “final solution” to justice for all humankind.
• Dorothy Day, often a lone voice on workers’ rights.
• Ronald Reagan, who spoke so long, passionately, eloquently and consistently against Communism that his entreaty to Mikhail Gorbachev to tear down the Berlin Wall was, comparatively, one of the mildest statements he ever made on the subject (partially because he lived long enough to see that battle won).

In this era when “branding” is all the buzz, it is appropriate to review what we each stand for and the positions for which we will be known. It need not be even a global, noble cause. Perhaps we are exemplars of courtesy, disallowing coarse treatment of others in our presence. Our language and writing can make us defenders of good and proper English. Or we may choose to extol our free enterprise system.

It is commonly said that perception is reality. So, too, is legacy. Betty Ford’s passing reminds us of that. What is your platform?