President John F. Kennedy on this night 50 years ago addressed the nation on African-American civil rights issues. While we have come a long way since June 11, 1963, we still have a long way to go.
We have far too many people (including a few Supreme Court justices) in this country that think the progress we African-Americans and our allies have paid for in blood to the country that Dr. King envisioned needs to be rolled back or is 'racial entitlement'.
To remind you TransGriot readers the struggle continues, here is the speech President Kennedy made on that June evening 50 years ago.
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Good evening, my
fellow citizens:
This
afternoon, following a series of threats and defiant statements, the presence of
Alabama National Guardsmen was required on the University of Alabama to carry
out the final and unequivocal order of the United States District Court of the
Northern District of Alabama. That order called for the admission of two clearly
qualified young Alabama residents who happened to have been born Negro. That they were admitted peacefully on
the campus is due in good measure to the conduct of the students of the
University of Alabama, who met their responsibilities in a constructive way.
I hope that every American, regardless
of where he lives, will stop and examine his conscience about this and other
related incidents. This Nation was founded by men of many nations and
backgrounds. It was founded on the principle that all men are created equal, and
that the rights of every man are diminished when the rights of one man are
threatened.
Today, we are committed to a worldwide
struggle to promote and protect the rights of all who wish to be free. And when
Americans are sent to Vietnam or West Berlin, we do not ask for whites only. It
ought to be possible, therefore, for American students of any color to attend
any public institution they select without having to be backed up by troops. It
ought to to be possible for American
consumers of any color to receive equal service in places of public
accommodation, such as hotels and restaurants and theaters and retail stores,
without being forced to resort to demonstrations in the street, and it ought to
be possible for American citizens of any color to register and to vote in a free
election without interference or fear of reprisal. It ought to to be possible, in short, for
every American to enjoy the privileges of being American without regard to his
race or his color. In short, every American ought to have the right to be
treated as he would wish to be treated, as one would wish his children to be
treated. But this is not the case.
The Negro baby born in America today,
regardless of the section of the State in which he is born, has about one-half
as much chance of completing a high school as a white baby born in the same
place on the same day, one-third as much chance of completing college, one-third
as much chance of becoming a professional man, twice as much chance of becoming
unemployed, about one-seventh as much chance of earning $10,000 a year, a life
expectancy which is 7 years shorter, and the prospects of earning only half as
much.
This is not a sectional issue.
Difficulties over segregation and discrimination exist in every city, in every
State of the Union, producing in many cities a rising tide of discontent that
threatens the public safety. Nor is this a partisan issue. In a time of domestic
crisis men of good will and generosity should be able to unite regardless of
party or politics. This is not even a legal or legislative issue alone. It is
better to settle these matters in the courts than on the streets, and new laws
are needed at every level, but law alone cannot make men see right. We are confronted primarily with a
moral issue. It is as old as the Scriptures and is as clear as the American
Constitution.
The heart of the question is whether
all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether
we are going to treat our fellow Americans as we want to be treated. If an
American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the
public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, if
he cannot vote for the public officials who will represent him, if, in short, he
cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us
would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place?
Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay?
One hundred years of delay have passed
since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are
not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not
yet freed from social and economic oppression. And this Nation, for all its
hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are
free.
We preach freedom around the world,
and we mean it, and we cherish our freedom here at home, but are we to say to
the world, and much more importantly, to each other that this is the land of the
free except for the Negroes; that we have no second-class citizens except
Negroes; that we have no class or caste system, no ghettoes, no master race
except with respect to Negroes?
Now the time has come for this Nation
to fulfill its promise. The events in Birmingham and elsewhere have so increased
the cries for equality that no city or State or legislative body can prudently
choose to ignore them. The fires of frustration and discord
are burning in every city, North and South, where legal remedies are not at
hand. Redress is sought in the streets, in demonstrations, parades, and protests
which create tensions and threaten violence and threaten lives.
We face, therefore, a moral crisis as
a country and a people. It cannot be met by repressive police action. It
cannot be left to increased demonstrations in the streets. It cannot be quieted
by token moves or talk. It is a time to act in the Congress, in your State and
local legislative body and, above all, in all of our daily lives. It is not enough to pin the blame on
others, to say this a problem of one section of the country or another, or
deplore the facts that we face. A great change is at hand, and our task, our
obligation, is to make that revolution, that change, peaceful and constructive
for all. Those who do nothing are inviting
shame, as well as violence. Those who act boldly are recognizing right, as well as
reality.
Next week I shall ask the Congress of
the United States to act, to make a commitment it has not fully made in this
century to the proposition that race has no place in American life or law. The
Federal judiciary has upheld that proposition in a series of forthright cases.
The Executive Branch has adopted that proposition in the conduct of its affairs,
including the employment of Federal personnel, the use of Federal facilities,
and the sale of federally financed housing. But there are other necessary measures
which only the Congress can provide, and they must be provided at this session.
The old code of equity law under which we live commands for every wrong a
remedy, but in too many communities, in too many parts of the country, wrongs
are inflicted on Negro citizens and there are no remedies at law. Unless the
Congress acts, their only remedy is the street.
I am, therefore, asking the Congress
to enact legislation giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities
which are open to the public -- hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and
similar establishments. This seems to me to be an elementary
right. Its denial is an arbitrary indignity that no American in 1963 should have
to endure, but many do.
I have recently met with scores of
business leaders urging them to take voluntary action to end this discrimination,
and I have been encouraged by their response, and in the last two weeks over 75
cities have seen progress made in desegregating these kinds of facilities. But
many are unwilling to act alone, and for this reason, nationwide legislation is
needed if we are to move this problem from the streets to the courts.
I'm also asking the Congress to
authorize the Federal Government to participate more fully in lawsuits designed
to end segregation in public education. We have succeeded in persuading many
districts to desegregate voluntarily. Dozens have admitted Negroes without
violence. Today, a Negro is attending a State-supported institution in every one
of our 50 States, but the pace is very slow.
Too many Negro children entering
segregated grade schools at the time of the Supreme Court's decision nine years ago
will enter segregated high schools this fall, having suffered a loss which can
never be restored. The lack of an adequate education denies the Negro a chance
to get a decent job.
The orderly implementation of the
Supreme Court decision, therefore, cannot be left solely to those who may not
have the economic resources to carry the legal action or who may be subject to
harassment.
Other features will be also requested,
including greater protection for the right to vote. But legislation, I repeat,
cannot solve this problem alone. It must be solved in the homes of every
American in every community across our country. In this respect I wanna pay tribute
to those citizens North and South who've been working in their communities to
make life better for all. They are acting not out of sense of legal duty but
out of a sense of human decency. Like our soldiers and sailors in all
parts of the world they are meeting freedom's challenge on the firing line, and
I salute them for their honor and their courage.
My fellow Americans, this is a problem
which faces us all -- in every city of the North as well as the South. Today, there
are Negroes unemployed, two or three times as many compared to whites,
inadequate education, moving into the large cities, unable to find work,
young people particularly out of work without hope, denied equal rights, denied
the opportunity to eat at a restaurant or a lunch counter or go to a movie
theater, denied the right to a decent education, denied almost today the right
to attend a State university even though qualified. It seems to me that these
are matters which concern us all, not merely Presidents or Congressmen or
Governors, but every citizen of the United States.
This is one country. It has become one
country because all of us and all the people who came here had an equal chance
to develop their talents. We cannot say to ten percent of the
population that you can't have that right; that your children cannot have the
chance to develop whatever talents they have; that the only way that they are
going to get their rights is to go in the street and demonstrate. I think we
owe them and we owe ourselves a better country than that.
Therefore, I'm asking for your help
in making it easier for us to move ahead and to provide the kind of equality of
treatment which we would want ourselves; to give a chance for every child to be
educated to the limit of his talents.
As I've said before, not every child
has an equal talent or an equal ability or equal motivation, but they should
have the equal right to develop their talent and their ability and their
motivation, to make something of themselves.
We have a right to expect that the
Negro community will be responsible, will uphold the law, but they have a right
to expect that the law will be fair, that the Constitution will be color blind,
as Justice Harlan said at the turn of the century.
This is what we're talking about and
this is a matter which concerns this country and what it stands for, and in
meeting it I ask the support of all our citizens.
Thank you very much.
