"We have come together based on what we fear," Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. told a crowd of several hundred last night. "Why should we invest so much faith in bonds formed over hate and fear?"

Assessing the ways in which Americans united over the Sept. 11 attacks, Pitts questioned how long the country's racial unity can last. "Bonds forged in the face of a common threat tend to erode when times change," he added. "Oppression is an unreliable thing around which to build an identity."

Pitts explained how black soldiers fought heroically in both World Wars and each time came home to a nation rent by race riots. He quoted an editorial by civil rights advocate, W. E. B. Du Bois, from the time: "We return. We return from fighting. We return fighting."

The African and African-American Studies Department asked Pitts to kick off a new annual lecture in honor of Cyril E. Griffith, who led the black studies program at Penn State during the 1970s and died in 1994.

Pitts, author of Becoming Dad: Black Men and the Journey to Fatherhood, said he was invited to Penn State at a time when more inconsequential things seemed to occupy the nation's interest.

"The old world ended with the realization that there is evil is among us," he said. "Suddenly I don't have to ask what's worrying your mind. It's the same thing that's worrying mine."

Two ties have traditionally bound groups into a people — a common ancestry or a common threat, the columnist said.

"The genius of America — in theory, if not in practice — was that it offered a third way," he said. "You became an American because you shared a belief" in freedom and equality.

Pitts said that he foresees a day when blacks will be more fully accepted into the country's mainstream as other former European immigrants have been.

"What needs to happen now will not happen through laws, it will happen through the hearts of women and men," he said.

Change will happen gradually, he added, not as a "bolt of lightning."

Pitts got two standing ovations, and many students commended his speech, agreeing with the points he made.

"I think that he has a really great message about unity," said Pam Williams (senior-crime, law and justice). "I think it's real important that you stand up and not be silent about the issue."

Amy Varner (graduate-industrial relations and human resources) said she thought they could not have picked a better speaker to inaugurate a new annual lecture.

"The speech was inspirational. It touched the hearts of many," Varner said.

One of the speech's coordinators, Amy Dietz, agreed.

"I'm really thrilled he could come and represent African and African-American Studies," she said. "He puts into words things we may think about but not be able to express."

Collegian Staff Writer Jeremy R. Cooke contributed to this report.