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“When you win, brag gently. When you lose, weep softly”— James Clyburn

When I first read those words, I remembered what legendary Notre Dame Coach Lou Holtz said about football: “You’re never as good as everyone tells you when you win, and you’re never as bad as they say when you lose.”

Why not get cocky over a big victory, or dejected over a big defeat? Because one day does not a lifetime make. No one event, short of death, is the final word. We are all unfinished symphonies. All things are in flux. Scarlett O’Hara got it right in the final line of Gone with the Wind: “Tomorrow is another day.”

So who is James Clyburn? When he was only twelve, Clyburn helped organize civil rights marches. In college, he helped organize demonstrations. In 1970, when he won a primary race for the South Carolina House of Representatives, his wife Emily left him a little note in the sink that read: “When you win, brag gently. When you lose, weep softly.” He put her wisdom on his mirror. It came in handy several months later when he lost in the general election.

Clyburn also lost, twice, running for South Carolina secretary of state. Finally, in 1992 he ran to represent South Carolina’s Sixth Congressional District and won. Today he is the highest-ranking African-American in Congress. When interviewed by StoryCorps, he gave this interpretation of his long journey: “We have a state seal in South Carolina. The Latin phrase on the seal says dum spiro spero — ‘While I breathe, I hope.’ And I’ve always felt that there’s hope. And so I have never given up.”39

Since 1976, America’s bicentennial, February has been designated by every American president as Black History Month. Actor Morgan Freeman demurred then, saying: “I don’t want a black history month. Black history is American history.”

James Clyburn’s story is one all-American story of equanimity, persistence, and hope.