Nnimmo Bassey—architect, poet, and African environmental activist—addressed a packed Robertson Auditorium at the U-M Ross School of Business on Tuesday, September 10th, as he accepted the 2024 Wallenberg Medal for his outstanding humanitarian work.
“One of our key struggles has been to gain an understanding of the mindset that permits inequalities in our societies. The mindset that elevates might over care and love. The mindset that promotes the individual rather than the community. The mindset that refuses to understand that we are relatives.”
Nnimmo Bassey, 2024 Wallenberg Medalist
Bassey, speaking softly but powerfully, began his address to the audience of 500—ranging from high school students to retirees—by reminding listeners that Raoul Wallenberg, who studied architecture at Michigan “epitomized an exemplary human who was compassionate, humane, and sacrificial. His accomplishments are hard to match.” He continued, “I share a background as an architect with Raoul Wallenberg. However, what brings me into his sphere is not the construction of physical structures but the intersectionality, complexity, and mergers of spatiality and relationality. Since 1990, when the first medal was given, you have carefully highlighted the works of very distinguished individuals whose attainments dwarf whatever I may consider myself to have attained. It is thus with great humility that I stand before you all today.”
Bassey then paid tribute to the late U-M School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) Professor Bunyon Bryant, a pioneer of the environmental justice movement who died in April of this year, as a “great fighter against systemic racism and environmental hazards.”
Bassey spoke of a “polycrisis,” conventionally framed in geopolitical and sociological terms, the result of which is profound ecological devastation, with disproportionate impacts on “sacrifice zones,” places like the Niger Delta from which he hails and low-income countries and communities. By recognizing our shared humanity, by acknowledging that we are all relatives, related even to species that are not our own, we can in solidarity work toward solutions that benefit all living beings, Bassey entreated. “We are part of nature, not apart from it,” he told the audience.
“Acknowledging that we need one another is hard. Humans like to emphasize our differences, our uniqueness, our achievements, and our influences as exceptional, extraordinary, and distinguishing to the extent that we consider ourselves not only superior to other beings but also to other humans. Once some humans are considered as… others or even sub-human we essentially lose our humanity.” Such othering blunts the relationality of all beings.
Bassey concluded his formal remarks, “Today, I pledge to continue working for power from below and stress the urgent need to globalize social justice because we cannot build this needed change one territory at a time. I thank you for permitting me to remind us today that we are all relatives. Yes, we are relatives…. If capital can be globalized, hope can be globalized.”
Lecture attendees were greeted by Wallenberg Medal Executive Committee chair Siobán D. Harlow, Professor Emerita of Epidemiology, Global Public Health, and Obstetrics and Gynecology. In her welcoming remarks Professor Harlow said, “We honor tonight Dr. Nnimmo Bassey, who, like Raoul Wallenberg, trained as an architect. Yet upon seeing injustice, he dedicated his life to resisting the oil, gas, and coal extraction activities that destroy the environment and cause untold harm to the health and livelihoods of local peoples.” She continued, “He has a gift for envisioning alternatives and implementing at scale in defense of our mother earth, her peoples, and all living beings.”
Urban Ahlin, Ambassador of Sweden to the United States, next addressed the audience and offered reflections on Raoul Wallenberg, the U-M alumnus and Swedish diplomat whose memory the Medal and Lecture honor. He spoke, in particular, to current U-M students, reminding them that Wallenberg was once very much like them. “Wallenberg is not just a figure from the past. He is a role model of how to live with purpose in times of darkness. We need more people who embody Wallenberg’s spirit. And those people are sitting right here. He once was in your shoes, unsure of where life would take him.” Ambassador Ahlin told students they must not wait for permission to do what is right.
Laurie K. McCauley, Provost and Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs, presented the Wallenberg Medal to Bassey, remarking that “You have shown us the necessity of not only seeing, but doing, and acting for climate justice.”
In keeping with the Wallenberg Medal tradition, the lecture was followed by an audience Q&A, moderated by Steven R. Ratner, Director of the Donia Human Rights Center and Bruno Simma Collegiate Professor of Law. Questions from audience members drew together topics from across Bassey’s areas of work—poetry, activism, architecture, education, and intergenerational engagement—allowing Bassey to remind the audience to speak up in order to be true to their conscience, “If you don’t say what needs to be said, it may never be said.”
While at U-M, Bassey also participated in Let the Earth Breathe. Photo Exhibition and Poetry Reading, sponsored and presented by the Wallenberg Medal and Lecture, the African Studies Center, and the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies.
