Rebekah Williams urges graduates to “bring your gifts to the movement,” at 154th Commencement

Rebekah A. Williams, a community activist, strategic planner, facilitator, and co-founding director of Food for the Spirit, delivered a powerful speech to the graduating class of 2026 during the Graduate School's evening Commencement ceremony on Saturday, May 16.

Williams addressed a full crowd in the Sports Arena for Buffalo State's 154th annual Commencement, during which the university conferred degrees on nearly 1,600 undergraduate and graduate students over three ceremonies.

"The first thing necessary for collective work is to know your gifts," Williams said. "One of mine is bringing people together-seeing how their talents connect and helping them find each other. Don't cower because you feel unworthy. Know your unique gifts. Know what you carry. And bring your gifts to the movement."

As co-founding director of Food for the Spirit, which she has led since 2021, Williams collaborates with colleagues and community partners to build collective power and advance food systems change, centering dignity and justice in all aspects of her work. A pivotal moment in 1998 solidified her dedication to justice. While serving on the Western New York Peace Center board of directors, she participated in a protest supporting farmworkers and was arrested alongside others, including United Farm Workers president Arturo Rodriguez. Witnessing the collective support that followed affirmed her commitment to organizing and coalition-building.

Following is the full text of Williams' speech:

Good evening, Buffalo State University.

It means so much to be here today. Receiving this recognition at this particular moment - when institutions across the country are being pressured to walk away from their commitments to equity and justice - this is really important. Buffalo State has instead chosen to acknowledge the work of someone like me and my colleagues, people fighting for justice, by acknowledging that our work is worthy and important. For that reason, I am honored and humbled to receive this recognition on behalf of our collective efforts.

A little about myself.

I am a single mother. My son is now 26 years old. I had him when I was 20, and it took me eight years to earn my bachelor's degree. A doctorate was never part of my plan.

On the flip side, my grandmother, Dr. Beryl Warner Williams, received an honorary doctorate from the University of Maine in 1972 for her many years of academic and scholarly work at that university. She was one of the first Black students to attend the University of Maine in the 1930s, and when she graduated, she was barred from teaching in Maine because of her race. My grandmother died in 1999, and in 2023, the University of Maine named a building after her. I was there for that recognition, and it was incredible.

So standing here today, I carry my grandmother's legacy with me, and I carry every ancestor - both my enslaved Black ancestors and my immigrant German and Swedish ancestors - people who understood that education and hard work are critical.

I also carry my colleagues, people who have stayed in this work with me through conflict, through grief, through trauma, through the hard and slow work of building systems and striving to make change.

And I carry my family - especially my partner Peter, who is patient and steady, teaching me every day what real partnership and teamwork looks like.

This recognition is not mine alone. The work I was nominated for is collective work. I was acknowledged for my work with Food for the Spirit, the Good Food Buffalo Coalition, Black Farmers United New York State, the WNY Food Future Initiative, and Massachusetts Avenue Project. I also want to acknowledge the Buffalo Food Equity Network, whose members have shown up together in ways that made all of this possible.

I want to name my father, Dr. Scott Warner Williams, who taught mathematics at the University at Buffalo for nearly 40 years, and whose family of academics shaped who I am. And I want to name my mother, Karen Williams Powell, who taught me to follow my heart and instilled in me a deep love for people and justice.

Let me tell you why this work matters.

Food is land. Food is labor. Food is history. Food is love. The food system in this country was built on the theft of Indigenous land, the forced labor of enslaved Africans, and the deep disinvestment in communities that continues today. Healing the food system is about restoring dignity, power, and self-determination to communities that have been systematically excluded.

Malcolm X said: "Revolution is based on land. Land is the basis of all independence. Land is the basis of freedom, justice, and equality."

Mama Fannie Lou Hamer said: "If you have a pig in your backyard, if you have some vegetables in your garden, if you can feed yourself and your family, nobody can push you around."

In 2019, a dear friend and colleague came to our Buffalo Food Equity Network with a vision to bring an agricultural presence to the Juneteenth celebration of Buffalo. Once the group interacted with her vision, it became much bigger - two picnic pavilions in Martin Luther King Park each year. Community members don't just come to learn about Black farmers. Children get their hands in the soil. People come for advice about their gardens. And nearly 500 people walk away each year with plants they take home to their own gardens and urban farms throughout the city. This is what happens when a collective comes together and builds on one person's vision.

Ultimately, this work matters because people matter. Their dignity matters. Their power matters.

A word for the graduates today.

As you can see from what I've shared, this work is not mine alone. It is collective work. In the holiday of Kwanzaa, the third principle - Ujima - the principle of collective work and responsibility - calls us to build and maintain our community together, to make our neighbors' problems our own, and to solve them collectively. This principle guides our work.

The first thing necessary for collective work is to know your gifts. My son's nickname in high school was "Big Lovin'" - because of the way he makes people feel seen and loved. That is one of his gifts. One of mine is bringing people together - seeing how their talents connect and helping them find each other. Don't cower because you feel unworthy. Know your unique gifts. Know what you carry. And bring your gifts to the movement.

And take care of yourself. Audre Lorde wrote: "Caring for myself is not self-indulgence. It is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare." Your self-care is community care. The movement is made up of people like you - and if you are not well, you cannot feed the movement. Find what feeds your spirit. Protect that. Don't be a martyr. You need to be sustained.

And finally, find your people. What community do you feel part of that you want to fight for? Find them. Build with them. Take care of yourselves. And know that none of this happens alone.

Growing up, my family spent every weekend and holiday at the Rochester Folk Art Guild - an intentional community in the rural Finger Lakes region. As a child, I remember a fire drill there where everyone formed a line from the pond to the community kitchen, passing buckets of water from person to person. Nobody's role was more important than another. That was my first lesson in cooperation and collaboration, and I have never forgotten it.

That line of people - each one essential, passing water together toward something that needed to be protected - is the truest picture I have of what this collective work looks like. Not one hero. Not one leader. A line of people working together - each one showing up with their gifts, each one trusting the person next to them.

This is the movement. This is what we are building.

Find your place in the line. Show up. And know that you are essential.

Thank you.

Photo by Mark Mulville.