 to the American of Negro descent that all of us has cannot be denied but in 1957 In the in the middle of the debates here in the state Senate with respect to what was called a massive kid of resistance That came down from Virginia and around the southern states. I found to Not too much of my surprise but a little bit that going back home Where I was considered a debt debt duck politically Some of the biggest critics I had were some of my own ethnic brothers who were leader They were in leadership positions and couldn't reconcile my position And I answered by saying if we were to thank these great Americans who have bothered for example to take such things as The cases from st. Louis to the Supreme Court That outlawed the restrictive covenants in my own city of San Antonio You can go to the master deed record files in bear county courthouse and still see the descriptives of the the restrictions and it included it didn't say Negroes alone. It said Negroes are Mexicans Would lose their title the title would revert to the original grand tour if the owner divested himself to a Negro Mexican that was the way it was read and that battle was worn by these Americans of Negro descent They weren't worn by the Spanish beacon. We couldn't even get enough money to appeal a discrimination case from a district court in San Antonio where we had faced systematic exclusion from a public pool We couldn't even get $50 to appeal it to the fourth court of civil appeals So I think that we're wasting our time and it would be tragic after this tremendous breakthrough for us to be Engaging in a battle of ethnic appetites and ending up strangling ourselves in our separatism We've got to be in the mainstream of American life. This is what the fight's all about I don't see that we have to regroup to go back to pick up the civil rights wars of the 50s and the 60s Those were won in case anybody wants to know but what we've got is to continue the same fight under different terms on a different plane for example, it's important that we not Cancel out the war on poverty Why because if we succeed in terminating the war on poverty in a halfway victory We will be helping everybody. We're supposed to be concerned with Automatically without labeling it ethnically. So I think that we have inherently The means whereby this fight will continue. I agree with mr. Mitchell. We have more reason to hope than to despair but I don't think that the avenues gonna be sought in separate paths of separatism because In divisiveness you cannot win anything under our system and our way of operating in our society Also, I'd like to conclude by saying that inherently the bulk of the people know that in 1957 we had the poll text as a prerequisite for voting the payment of it. We had other impediments in 1972 we don't have it But even in 1957 it was possible to wage the fight that everybody considered politically dangerous if not fatal Where the electorate in my own district reflected less than 12 percent? Capable of voting who were identified as being of Mexican descent So where was it possible to win? It was possible to win because we must never forget Our American society in many ways has been Underestimated I don't think we should I think that would be a fatal error in fighting the cause for economic equality So yes, we want the right to eat at the crest lunch counter But what good does it do to have the right if you don't have the 50 cents with which to pay for the hamburger and the coke This is a fight this This is as I look at it is the fight To be sustained in the 70s and hopefully one Well Mr. Eamon as I want to Call sort of a temporary Halt and this discussion and do something else and then come back to it if I may what we have a great many questions here and I've been reading them and By and large they are very interesting and provocative We're not going to have time to get through them all the Ones that are not answered here as mr. Middleton said will be Put together in a memorandum form of some sort and sent to the members of the panels and they will be asked to Respond in writing to them and then those answers will be included in the proceedings of the symposium Now there is a group here the national group core Which feels that it? Has a question a position to state which is not Represented on the panel has not been represented yet in the symposium and And that That it cannot be stated for them and so Because they are a national group with a long history in this area I Concluded that we should deviate from the written questions Format to the extent of permitting mr. Roy in us to come up here and make his statement for five minutes And then we will respond to it and return to the other questions. Mr. Ennis Mr. Chairman the moderator I would guess Let me say respectfully that I am Bit concerned about this symposium and why we're here I I'm appreciative of this brief five minutes that I've been Allowed to state a position That I think should have equal weight in Any such gathering? I'm very impressed with the gathering itself the caliber of the panel and I am in general agreement With the intentions of this gathering this symposium But I am disturbed by a trend in this and other symposium of liberals good people well intentioned people that display an anti intellectualism a lack of academic freedom a lack of balance an intolerance of descent and other points of view I considered this a betrayal of a true liberal approach an ideal. I will hope that we would understand that if you and Not to suffer the fate of Dinosaurs You must truly deal with the future and with the diversity of views now one of the previous speakers spoke of Different kinds of social problems Equality in the freedom Can be viewed in a two-dimensional way in terms of as their application to individuals And the applications to groups I think it's reasonable to understand and to agree that people derive freedom and Equality not exclusively as one or the other but as both individuals and groups in the United States Black folks have been recognized as individuals implicitly and explicitly But we have never been recognized as a group Ever all may be implicitly, but certainly not explicitly in the 50s and 60s We dealt with one of these dimensions the individual and at best implicitly as A group we view the next epoch that of the 70s as One that must deal with black folks very openly and explicitly as a group To that end We must recognize two sets of goals and aspirations Held by the black American. I think we can agree that Segregation was opposed by both sets of individuals Both sets of black Americans Regardless of their goals and aspirations But I think we differed on the definition of segregation Many of us would like to view segregation not just as a spatial or geographic phenomena But a very dynamic one that deals with the socio-political and socio-economic dimensions of one's existence In other words the power relationship that exists in a society Containing two or more people so that black folks are segregated and suffer the effects of it Because we are powerless and not because we are spatially apart from whites Now that kind of a definition of segregation Leads to a different a difference in approach to Desegregated we all are the segregationist we just differed how to do it There were those that interpreted Brown in 54 The order to desegregate America in a one-dimensional way That this must be done Exclusively through the means of integration There were others of us that said that coming in the mid 60s and to the present and more and more so they That interpret Desegregated as moving to control societal instruments we talk of community control Community empowerment They are still some of us that go further than that and say that Desegregation means the opening of options The option to integrate for those who want it the option to move and petition for Community control and community empowerment for those who want it and for whatever other means can pragmatically and effectively Satisfy the needs of the agreed parties That is what we in core and I think we have a few people that agree with us Define desegregation as We say that the future the 70s that we must deal with and I will ask this panel to deal with And I had hoped that this symposium could deal with and any future one should Is how to explore options for equality and freedom How to avoid the one dimensional Approach to freedom and equality. Thank you. Mr. Eman as you were about to Make a comment and That I take it was on this question of economic interests or the relationship between the rights of minorities and interests of minorities and economic interest in in general was well first first let me just very briefly make a comment in regard to a matter of cooperation with the all groups Formulating some kind of a plan to go from here, so to speak When I mentioned some of the divisiveness that I see in the localities, I don't obviously Would like to see that continue I would like to see if it would stop of course that I would like to see if we can formulate some plans to Stop that division that's taking place, but I'm not going to close my eyes And I don't think any of us should close our eyes to it. It's there and We ought to recognize it so much so that just before I list Albuquerque to come here the discussion that's going on in that state is a matter of having the picture of Estebanico who was joined Cabeza de Baca in his seven-year This search throughout this part of the world Estebanico is a black and they don't want His picture to appear in the centennial medallion. I mean that's and this these are the Indians who are saying this I think we'd better face it face up to it and see if we can resolve it and come out of here with some resolution of Plan to get together. I would suggest that Anything that has done in this symposium or in any other activity That what we're really talking about as far as the ethnic groups are concerned and the Chicanos are concerned is that we get in on the plans And we're willing to go to the crash if we have to but we'd like to get in on a takeoff It's really what we're talking about now, and I think that what Andy Bremers said May have arrived for us now that we may have the capability in terms of the lawyers and the Technicians etc to be able to sit down and plan together for the next decade. That's really my main thesis secondly, I do agree with Bremers remark, I think is what he's driving at this matter of Engaging nor in the on the economic side and so far as the rights of individuals are concerned I haven't believed that the situation would compliment or perhaps will be we will be able to to Carry out to these rights that have now been laid out for for us I can think of such things as What is happening today and people moving to the suburbs I Don't doubt for one minute that a Person who is either a black or a Chicanos who finds himself in one of these new cities And he's the only one there or or a few of the ones who are there and there is no power No economic power within that new city. I don't expect him to stick around very long I happen to believe that if new cities are to be built We ought to proceed in the same way that we proceeded with equal employment Equal economic opportunity here and I have no problem with the quotas and saying yeah They're the bank in that particular new city ought to be run by minorities or The savings institution or the complex or the credit that is necessary ought to be extended to minorities if we're going to build new cities in the suburbs and I don't think we Can do it any other way except to proceed In the same way that we did in regard to Employment and the fair housing and fair zoning and fair all of the other things that we have now We ought to have some fair economic opportunity, and I think that's a good new step to take I have a question here and this is I'm interrupting and because Julian looks like he's about ready to but the It is again related. There are two questions One is addressed to Julian Bond and one is addressed to Clarence Mitchell and maybe Mrs. Burke would like to comment on them also The one address to Mr. Mitchell I guess is addressed to the point that you made about Needing votes and it says my question to you is If we can do nothing along as you have spoken as a young black woman Where is my future and hope in the struggle in a white world if not through my people? How do I begin to survive and the one to mr. Bond which is the same kind of a question? From a young person says for those of us who are younger and newer to the act of struggle for civil rights Than those who work through the 60s What advice would you give young black people whose commitment and potential are clear? But whose paths are unchartered in view of your expressed feelings about the future Well, I think I think both of those questions are directed at the fact that it's hard to know where to focus your attention Do you want us I? Hate to keep on saying I don't know I don't know I don't know I don't think there are any answers any of us knows to any Of the questions that have been raised here. There isn't any Immediate agenda you can lay out there isn't any way you can simply by word or by program or platform Stop some of the things we've been talking about which strike me that Two two things have occurred in the the late 60s and early 70s that have put us where we are now first that Great many of the issues which are truly economic housing and healthcare and Welfare reform have become in the minds of the country black and white issues they're not Chicano black Issues versus white. They're black and white issues issues of a of an oppressed or a poor struggling crime ridden Are narcotics taking black minority? Trying to get an easy ride in a in an affluent society and that's the way I think many People in the country perceive these issues the second and concurring thing that has occurred is that you've got this increasing divisiveness division and competition between the non-white ethnic groups which I think over the last four years has been deliberately Fostered by the people in positions of power But to speak directly to the question the kind of advice I'd give to a young black person interested in having something to say about the current state of racial or racial affairs or Trying to eliminate some of the poverty or hunger or helplessness in the world is I think it's incumbent on any young person to become the kind of technician Either in the strict technical sense of someone involved in the sciences or the rather Liberal arts sense of the lawyer a doctor or something It's incumbent upon such people to prepare themselves as best they can in a technical and educated way So that they are better able to deal with these problems as they increasingly become more complex the issue As someone said is not just the right to sit down at the lunch counter But the right to be able to go in your pocket and pull out some money and pay for it And your enemy then becomes much more diffuse the Woolworths was the enemy in 1960 But who is the enemy now is it the manager of the local Woolworths who won't give you a job as the assistant manager Is it the corporate structure in New York? Is it the stockholders scattered throughout the country? Where is the enemy? Where are the levers to get at him or her or them? I would think that any young person interested in having something to say on these questions must first Make sure that he is he or she has learned everything that has happened to date How it was done in the past what mistakes were made One thing frightening to me going around talking on college campuses Today is that here a group of young people who I guess the average age 19 or 20 have no notion that anything existed in American history before 1965 the civil rights movement for them began when Stokely Carmichael said black power in Mississippi Have no notion of a sit-in demonstration or the freedom rides or what that was or what it meant at the time And what it still means in retrospect So I just hope that a young person having an interest and wanting to spend the major part of their life involved in these problems But first learn what happened on the day before yesterday because I don't I think if you don't know what happened on yesterday Then you just cannot deal with tomorrow Before I get to the meat of the question, I just like to make this brief analysis of the question The question as you noticed I believe Contained the words a white world did it not? Yes, it just happens the two-thirds of the world is not white and We do not live in a white world Even in our own country. I don't look on this as a white nation Because that would be abdicating my heritage I'm an American and this country belongs as much to me as anybody else and anybody who doesn't believe it just meet me And we'll have a fight to see I Want to say to these young people I happen to have four sons Well, the oldest of my sons was now a state senator in the state of Maryland was one of the original Incorporators of the student nonviolent coordinating committee with Julian Bond and he went to jail He was spat upon and down in Atlanta because he elected to stand with his fellows But he knew what makes this system work and he got elected to the state Senate My youngest brother is the first black man to get elected to the Congress of the United States from the state of Maryland This is Mitchell who was in his audience was also elected to a public office. I'm the only one who in the politician But we've got to recognize the fact that we identify the places where the power Decisions occur and then use what resources we have to get into those places Of course, we don't have the resources merely of black people and I'll close with this illustration. I Take the Constitution of the United States seriously and The Constitution says with respect to the nominees to the judiciary of this country That the president does so with the advice and consent of the Senate So I'm not assuming and never have to assume that just because mr. Nixon is president of the United States He's entitled to have the kind of Supreme Court they want. I Assume that we've got to have a little advising and consenting in the United States Senate When the president of the United States came forward with some nominees Who were really at war with the philosophical concepts that we have of human rights and human freedom? It wasn't the intention of those of us who were concerned about that to get out and start putting a picket Align around the Supreme Court or the White House. We began to look for the votes and in looking for the votes we had some Labor people with binoculars we had some Lawyers with telescopes We had some ordinary people getting around in their states and I am happy to say that though the president of the United States exercised his executive prerogative the Senate advised but did not consent and I say to you that whenever and wherever There are these problems arising whether they had to do with the nomination to the Supreme Court or the United States or Whether they have to do with the enforcement of law whether they have to do with enactment of new legislation It seems to me We've got to come together as we have and as we are doing now Some people may say the civil rights movement is dead, but I want to tell you the reports of my death are greatly exaggerated and I want you to know that we are always Going to continue to come together to fight these issues I would hope that everybody in this room and everybody in this country would be behind us, but I'm telling you my friends There's an old saying that we learned in college that a Spartan mother said to her son She gave him a shield and said With it or a punnit? As far as I'm concerned, that's my motto It's either we're gonna get it or they're gonna burn me and I don't feel like I'm near the graveyard Mrs. Berk, do you wonder why? I think that so much of it has been said But I would like to I think I'm the wrong person to say this But I believe that part of the the way that young people have to have their input into their destiny is by taking on Responsibility at a much earlier age I would like to hope that people won't wait till they're 20 out 25 or 26 or whatever age it was at Julian Rant We need to have 18 year olds 20 year olds running for office Participating in a meaningful way There was a time when we talked about Youth parts of political parties today. We don't talk about that. We talk about the young person actually being part of the process and In the meantime before we have other methods I certainly would hope that every young person gets directly involved because if the any young woman who's here Means that she's put in a certain amount of effort a certain amount of time and is is a very likely candidate For a representative kind of position and this to me is one very important way of participation It's good. I point out that if it were not for the aspirations of the blacks Who were denied the right to vote in the state of Mississippi? The 18 year olds would not be able to vote now And that came about as many as many of the young people in this audience who came up to Washington and helped us work We were trying to get the 1965 Voting Rights Act extended in 1970 The political conditions in the House of Representatives were such that the 18 year old vote could never have gotten off the ground and Therefore when we got to the Senate of the United States When we were in a life-and-death struggle against the administration Which didn't want the kind of extension of the Voting Rights Act that we wanted the question was put to us Would you agree to have the 18 year old vote attached as an amendment to the extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act? This was a terrible decision to have to make because if we had put it on and lost It would have meant a return to Charity at the voting places in Mississippi It would have meant that black elected officials would not have been able to win office But we looked at this as responsible people thinking of the whole country and we agreed That the 18 year old amendment ought to be a part of our Legislation we took a chance we won in the Senate We had to do an awful lot of persuading in the House of Representatives and that legislation became the law Because it was part of the vehicle which we were used to protect the right of blacks to vote as you remember the Supreme Court held that the part dealing with state elections was Unconstitutional but upheld the part dealing with federal elections the fact that you had to have a person come into the voting booth and Asked for two ballots was so Confusing that everybody agreed that we'd better hurry up and ratify Constitutional amendment which would take care of what the Supreme Court said had to be done and that Constitutional amendment passed in record time But it never would have gotten through if we hadn't taken the initial risk of Losing all that we had fought for in the way of voting rights legislation in order to make the 18-year-olds Eligible to vote in this country, and I hope they'll reward us by coming out voting and running for public office Professor Williams you Live in a university and deal with students all the time. Do you have something to say to them about this? I can only applaud Julian Bond's comments and the other comments for that matter I would like to say one thing about The mood of the country that reflects on this issue. I think we've been fascinated for the last four years with a with failure And that this apocalyptic mood has overdue to pass I don't like Mr. Bond. I don't have a specific agenda, but I do have a general one Which says that catastrophic levels of unemployment have existed for the last generation in Among some of our minority groups. They've had a chronic great depression And this is where a great deal of the problem lies There's no difficulty in thinking of the things that can be done the thing that has been Paralyzing the lower white the lower middle class among whites and many of the white ethnics in recent years has been fear Fear of being displaced fear of not getting a slice of a limited pie I myself think this country has got elbow room for all of us I see no reason in the long run why we can't work out effective coalitions instead of permitting those who would manipulate us To set one minority against another including those whites whose interests basically lie with those of the ethnic minorities in this country well now Professor the Williams, you know this question comes up over and over again the question of coalition and Mr. Innes and I suppose that The way groups work in practice Raised this question and it's brought to my attention by a question that just came in from Professor Teller of the University of Texas and that is that the There is an alternative strategy or an alternative way of Having the country in the institutions of the country operate and that's through a competition pluralism Pluralism based in this case on racial and ethnic power groups Do you discard that We've always had ethnic and racial power groups and so does every other complex society. No, I wouldn't discard it But the hazard in that is perfectly obvious from the discussion that's come from the practice politicians With us today, and that is simply that it opens it invites a strategy of divide and rule on the part of those Who do not wish to see any change? I would prefer to see the competition lie elsewhere. I see no reason why cultural integrity of ethnic and racial groups Should lead us into the trap that Results in 30% unemployment In other words, I do not see that the political problem is at all For square with the problem of cultural distinctiveness Mr. Chairman, I think in dealing with the people of this country one of the things we've got to get rid of is big words and Highly sophisticated terms that nobody understands. I think what this question is asking is It should we Continue labor civil rights church others working together for common goals or Should we start doing what I think my good friend Roy it is for suggesting start building a series of black enclaves or Chicano enclaves or some other kind of thing and I want to go on record as saying Anybody who thinks that you can develop in this country a lot of little enclaves for the Polish Americans Irish Americans and the Chicanos and the blacks is aspiring to a mud puddle and I don't have any mud puddle aspirations I think we ought to aspire to be the biggest thing you can be in this country Do the best things you can do in this country and you certainly can't do it if you're all going to retreat into a little clam shell shut the lid and Have nothing to do with the outside world I don't I don't see the question so much as being shall we continue I think I for I for one take it as granted. It's desirable to try to continue I think the question is can you continue? Does there now exist in all the groups that made up that that coalition the same kind of interest in Continuing it are all of the parts exactly the same now as they were Five ten or a twelve years ago. I just don't think they are Well, we do not have the time to go through The rest of these questions as I said they will be responded to in writing by members of the panel and the responses Will be included or at least summarized in the proceedings of the symposium I asked these last questions partly Because they were questions in here and there were not just the questions that there that I referred to there were a number of the questions particularly Addressed to a mr. Bond and also congressman Gonzales and mr. Eman as that were along the same lines of Whether the coalition strategy is a proper strategy I think that the panel has responded to that in my judgment correctly, so thank you very much. Thank you Ladies and gentlemen the 36th president of the United States the honorable Lyndon Baines Johnson Meddleton esteemed former chief justice and there's one And all of you wonderful people who have come here to Try to make life better for your fellow men I sat in a joining room and watched the panel this morning and got great satisfaction compensation in my own way In feeling that all is not lost all has not been in vain all we have to do is kind of reorganize Re-evaluate wasn't built in the day and we can't overcome All the injustices are Make this a perfect world overnight but we are on our way and We are going to do just that before it's over. I don't speak very often or very long my doctor Admonished me not to speak at all this morning but I'm going to do that because I Have some things I want to say to you I have a touch of sentimental sentimentality about me Which has cost me a great deal in my 40 years in public life I'll say to all you Women this is Rostow and Barbara Jordan Yvonne Burke and Mrs. Cram and so many of you that I can't list them all that it's natural for me to Get a certain amount of glory by seeing the advances you're making and I guess it's Just human for us to admire and Be fond of the other sex, but when I Listened in the joining room to Burt Marshall and Henry Gonzales Clarence Mitchell and Julian Bond whom I don't know so well, but admire a great deal. I said to myself that I Love these men more than a man ought to love another man and that's my way of saying to you great honor you Do me by your presence and participation in these proceedings Of all the records that are housed in this library 31 million papers over a 40-year period of public life It is the record of This work that we've been discussing the last two days Which Has brought us here That holds the most of myself within it and Holds for me the most intimate meanings In our system of Government honorable men honestly differ in their perceptions of government and What it's really all about and today I can speak only of my own perception And I'm so proud I live in the government for I can do that. I believe that the essence of government Lies with unceasing concern for the welfare and dignity and decency and innate integrity of life For every Individual I don't like to say this wish. I didn't have to add these words to make it clear But I will regardless of color creed ancestry sex or age Before I go any further. I won't interject I'm so happy miss Whitney young is here Her husband gave me great inspiration and leadership and along with some of his colleagues advanced this nation's centuries in a decade and He's somewhere doing his good work today and it's in Behalf his fellow man wherever he is. I do not want to say that I've always seen this matter in Terms of the special plight of the black man as clearly I came to see it in the course of my life and Experience and responsibility Now, let me make it plain That when I say black as I do a good many times in this little statement I also mean brown and yellow and red and all other people Who suffered discrimination? The cause of their color or their heritage Every group meets its own special problems, of course But in a very broad sense the problem of equal justice Applies to us all Up on the second floor of this library in a special exhibit design, especially for this occasion You will see the original Emancipation proclamation By which our great president Abraham Lincoln Ordered that the slaves should be freed of their bondage a decade ago in the year 1963 We observed the hundredth anniversary of that proclamation signing on Memorial Day of that fateful year I Was called upon as the vice president to speak at Gettysburg Cemetery For a century before Words had been spoken which All of us have long remembered And on that occasion I said this Until justice is blind to color Until education is unaware of race Until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skin Emancipation Will be a proclamation But not a fact to the extent that the proclamation of emancipation is not fulfilled in fact To that extent we have fallen short of Assuring freedom to the free When I spoke those were urged as vice president. I could not know That the future would present me shortly with the opportunity and the responsibility To contribute more Toward fulfilling the fact of emancipation Even if I could have known what lay ahead, I'm not sure now that I could have believed at that time That the progress which has been won in these past ten years Is a fact Black Americans Are voting now where they were not voting at all ten years ago, but let me said say quickly That not enough are voting a little more than half of all eligible Americans Voted in the last national election. I don't know how many of those that didn't vote were black But I do know this We have to come up with some kind of plan our incentive To perfect our democracy By seeing that more of our people do vote and I certainly mean To include more of our black people. I don't know how to do it. I don't want to get into it from the hip with compulsory voting But we ask our young men to We require them by law to all go and register for the draft We require all of our children to go to school we require people under Great loss of privilege have a social security number. I Have no doubt But what this would be a better country and a pure democracy If 95% of our people voted and the 5% that didn't Had an exemption because of illness or whatever it might be but when the Hand of government reached out to them if they had to reach in their Persia Hockey book and show a stamp that they had voted the party of their choice the individuals of their choice This would be a better land Black Americans are working now Where they were not working ten years ago Black Americans brown Americans Americans of every color and every condition Are eating now and Shopping now going to the bathroom now and Riding now and spending nights now and obtaining credit now and Giving now and attending classes now Going and coming in dignity Where and as they were never able to do in Years before I walked out of this room yesterday and looked at this sea of faces And I thought how proud third good Marshall must be I first met him when he came here on behalf of Herman sweat So a black boy could come to the University of Texas and to look at this audience in this beautiful University auditorium and See the groups that are participating today Must make him feel and must make the groups that supported him feel that all has not been in vain But now that I've said that I want to say this I Don't want this symposium to come here and spend two days talking about What we have done the progress has been much too small We haven't done nearly enough I'm kind of ashamed of myself that I had six years and couldn't do more than a dead I'm sure all of you feel the same way about it. I often tell the story about that was purported to in a fact about Churchill and the Women's Lib Movement maybe a prohibition movement a little ahead of our women over here went into him after the war and said they were shocked to hear that If all the alcohol he consumed during the war The brandy that he had drunk were emptied in the room. It would come up to about here and Churchill looked on with a certain amount of Satisfaction and amusement Instead of letting his feathers rise up and he purported to have replied my dear little ladies So little have I done so much yet So let no one Delude themselves that our work is done by unconcerned by neglect By complacent beliefs that our labors in the field of human rights are completed we have today Can seed Can seed our future With storms that would rage over the lives of our children and our children's children Yesterday it was commonly said the back problem was a southern problem Today it is commonly said that the Brock black problem is an urban problem a problem of the inner city But as I see it The truth is that the black problem today as it was Yesterday and yesteryear is not a problem of regions our states Our cities our neighborhoods It is a problem a concern and a Responsibility of this whole nation Moreover, and we cannot obscure this blunt fact The black problem remains What it has always been the simple problem of being black in a white society? And that is the problem to which our efforts have not yet been addressed To be black I Believe to one who is black or brown or whatnot is to be proud is to be worthy Is to be honorable But to be black in a white society is Not to stand on Level in equal ground While the races may stand side by side white stand on histories mountain and black stand in histories holla and until we overcome Unequal history we cannot overcome unequal opportunity That is not nor will it ever be a very easy goal for us to achieve Individuals and groups who have struggled long to gain advantages for themselves Do not readily yield the gains of their struggles or their achievements so that others May have advantages or opportunities But that is just the point now and always there is no surrender. There is no loss involved No advantage is safe and no gain is secure in this society Unless those advantages and those gains are opened up To all alike where we have been concerned in the past for groups as groups Now we must become more concerned with individuals as individuals as We have lifted the groups the burdens of unequal law and custom The next thrust of our efforts Must be to lift from individuals Those burdens of unequal history Not a white American in all this land would fail to be outraged if an opposing team Tried to insert a 12th man in their football lineup To stop a black football black fullback on the football field yet off the field away from the stadium Outside of the reach of the television cameras and the watching eyes of millions of their fellow men Every black American this land man are one Plays out life running against the 12th man of the history that they did not make and to fate They did not choose in this challenge our churches our schools our unions our professions our trades our military our private employers and Our government have a great duty from which they cannot turn It is the duty of sustaining the momentum of this society's effort to Equalize the history of some of our people So that we may open opportunity equally For all of our people some may respond to these suggestions with exclamations of shock and dismay Such proposals they will say ask that special consideration be given to black Americans Rather than giving equal consideration to all Americans. I can only hear such protest through ears that Are tuned by a lifetime To listening to the language of evasion all that I hear now I have heard before for 40 long years in Many forms and many forums Give them the vote. I saw a murder almost committed because I said that in 37 Most people said unthinkable Give them the right to sit wherever they wish on the bus impossible Give them the privilege of sitting at the same hotel Using the same restroom Eating in the same counter Joining the same club Attending the same classroom Never never Well this cry of never I've heard since I was a little boy all my life And what we commemorate on this great day is Some of the work Which has helped in some of the areas to make never Now and I do not to speak falsely Most of that never would have done with been done without men of Burke Marshall and Roy Wilkins putting a young Chief Justice Warren Julian Bond all of those that are here today Vernon Jordan just never would have been done now Here's what I want to say that what I have said is precisely the work which we must continue and This is a whole important part of this meeting not what we have done what we can do so much So little have we done It ought to take much place what we must do So I think it's time to leave aside the legalisms and euphemisms and eloquent evasions It's time we get down to business of Trying to stand black and white on the level ground for myself. I believe it's