The following is the third installment of a weekly series that turns back the clock to celebrate a mostly-forgotten moment in Delaware County history.

The day was May 20, 1979, and President Jimmy Carter was in Delaware County to deliver the commencement speech at what was then Cheyney State College.

Three days prior, the Phillies had beaten the Cubs, 23-22, in a baseball game that featured 50 hits and 11 home runs.

It was still five months before the Carter administration’s fateful decision to permit Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, the overthrown Shah of Iran who had lymphoma, to enter New York Hospital-Cornell Medical Center for treatment.

Such action, as well all know, eventually led to 52 American diplomats and citizens being held hostage for 444 days.

On that spring day at Cheyney, though, the Iran hostage crisis that would commence in November wasn’t a concern.

Well, not specifically.

President Carter indicated that the biggest threats to America were “inflation, energy shortages, inequality, discrimination, unemployment, and worldwide threats to peace.”

Some things never change, huh?

President Carter’s speech began at 11:35 AM in the quadrangle at Cheyney. Referencing the Brown vs. Board of Education (of Topeka, Kan.) decision, then in its 25th anniversary year, as well as the Civil Rights Movement and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the president implored graduates to be agents of change.

“I’m not here only to let you hear my voice, but so that we in government can be sure to hear your voice, and that together our voices will be too strong to be ignored,” he said. “So that together we’ll have the courage to win more victories, which we can place alongside the great ones that we’ve won.

“Most of the progress that has been initiated and achieved has not come from government. This progress has come from voices outside of government that slowly but surely were united in shouting for justice and equality in our own Nation, and slowly — often after many years, even generations — government finally listened.”

Click here to read the full text of President Jimmy Carter’s commencement speech at Cheyney.

Click here to read DELCO Today’s previous installments of Flashback Friday.