"To Fulfill These Rights;" The Presidential speech you are not supposed to know about because, unlike Obama's speeches, this speech by President Lyndon B. Johnson was followed up with real action.
This is a speech sometimes, but not often, quoted; and almost never published in it's entirety for people to read.
"To this end equal opportunity is essential, but not enough, not
enough. Men and women of all races are born with the same range of
abilities. But ability is not just the product of birth. Ability is
stretched or stunted by the family that you live with, and the
neighborhood you live in--by the school you go to and the poverty or
the richness of your surroundings. It is the product of a hundred
unseen forces playing upon the little infant, the child, and finally
the man."
"We are trying to attack these evils through our poverty program,
through our education program, through our medical care and our other
health programs, and a dozen more of the Great Society programs that
are aimed at the root causes of this poverty."
"These differences are not racial differences. They are solely and
simply the consequence of ancient brutality, past injustice, and
present prejudice. They are anguishing to observe. For the Negro they
are a constant reminder of oppression. For the white they are a
constant reminder of guilt. But they must be faced and they must be
dealt with and they must be overcome, if we are ever to reach the
time when the only difference between Negroes and whites is the color
of their skin."
"The Negro, like these others, will have to rely mostly upon his
own efforts. But he just can not do it alone. For they did not have
the heritage of centuries to overcome, and they did not have a
cultural tradition which had been twisted and battered by endless
years of hatred and hopelessness, nor were they excluded--these
others--because of race or color--a feeling whose dark intensity is
matched by no other prejudice in our society."
http://www.lbjlib.utexas.edu/johnson/archives.hom/speeches.hom/650604.asp
President Lyndon B. Johnson's
Commencement Address at Howard
University: "To Fulfill These Rights"
June 4, 1965
Dr. Nabrit, my fellow Americans:
I am delighted at the chance to speak at this important and this
historic institution. Howard has long been an outstanding center for
the education of Negro Americans. Its students are of every race and
color and they come from many countries of the world. It is truly a
working example of democratic excellence.
Our earth is the home of revolution. In every corner of every
continent men charged with hope contend with ancient ways in the
pursuit of justice. They reach for the newest of weapons to realize
the oldest of dreams, that each may walk in freedom and pride,
stretching his talents, enjoying the fruits of the earth.
Our enemies may occasionally seize the day of change, but it is
the banner of our revolution they take. And our own future is linked
to this process of swift and turbulent change in many lands in the
world. But nothing in any country touches us more profoundly, and
nothing is more freighted with meaning for our own destiny than the
revolution of the Negro American.
In far too many ways American Negroes have been another nation:
deprived of freedom, crippled by hatred, the doors of opportunity
closed to hope.
In our time change has come to this Nation, too. The American
Negro, acting with impressive restraint, has peacefully protested and
marched, entered the courtrooms and the seats of government,
demanding a justice that has long been denied. The voice of the Negro
was the call to action. But it is a tribute to America that, once
aroused, the courts and the Congress, the President and most of the
people, have been the allies of progress.
LEGAL PROTECTION FOR HUMAN RIGHTS
Thus we have seen the high court of the country declare that
discrimination based on race was repugnant to the Constitution, and
therefore void. We have seen in 1957, and 1960, and again in 1964,
the first civil rights legislation in this Nation in almost an entire
century.
As majority leader of the United States Senate, I helped to guide
two of these bills through the Senate. And, as your President, I was
proud to sign the third. And now very soon we will have the fourth--a
new law guaranteeing every American the right to vote.
No act of my entire administration will give me greater
satisfaction than the day when my signature makes this bill, too, the
law of this land.
The voting rights bill will be the latest, and among the most
important, in a long series of victories. But this victory--as
Winston Churchill said of another triumph for freedom--"is not
the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps,
the end of the beginning."
That beginning is freedom; and the barriers to that freedom are
tumbling down. Freedom is the right to share, share fully and
equally, in American society--to vote, to hold a job, to enter a
public place, to go to school. It is the right to be treated in every
part of our national life as a person equal in dignity and promise to
all others.
FREEDOM IS NOT ENOUGH
But freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the scars of
centuries by saying: Now you are free to go where you want, and do as
you desire, and choose the leaders you please.
You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by
chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race
and then say, "you are free to compete with all the others,"
and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.
Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All
our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates.
This is the next and the more profound stage of the battle for
civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity. We seek not
just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and
a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result.
For the task is to give 20 million Negroes the same chance as
every other American to learn and grow, to work and share in society,
to develop their abilities--physical, mental and spiritual, and to
pursue their individual happiness.
To this end equal opportunity is essential, but not enough, not
enough. Men and women of all races are born with the same range of
abilities. But ability is not just the product of birth. Ability is
stretched or stunted by the family that you live with, and the
neighborhood you live in--by the school you go to and the poverty or
the richness of your surroundings. It is the product of a hundred
unseen forces playing upon the little infant, the child, and finally
the man.
PROGRESS FOR SOME
This graduating class at Howard University is witness to the
indomitable determination of the Negro American to win his way in
American life.
The number of Negroes in schools of higher learning has almost
doubled in 15 years. The number of nonwhite professional workers has
more than doubled in 10 years. The median income of Negro college
women tonight exceeds that of white college women. And there are also
the enormous accomplishments of distinguished individual
Negroes--many of them graduates of this institution, and one of them
the first lady ambassador in the history of the United States.
These are proud and impressive achievements. But they tell only
the story of a growing middle class minority, steadily narrowing the
gap between them and their white counterparts.
A WIDENING GULF
But for the great majority of Negro Americans-the poor, the
unemployed, the uprooted, and the dispossessed--there is a much
grimmer story. They still, as we meet here tonight, are another
nation. Despite the court orders and the laws, despite the
legislative victories and the speeches, for them the walls are rising
and the gulf is widening.
Here are some of the facts of this American failure.
Thirty-five years ago the rate of unemployment for Negroes and
whites was about the same. Tonight the Negro rate is twice as high.
In 1948 the 8 percent unemployment rate for Negro teenage boys was
actually less than that of whites. By last year that rate had grown
to 23 percent, as against 13 percent for whites unemployed.
Between 1949 and 1959, the income of Negro men relative to white
men declined in every section of this country. From 1952 to 1963 the
median income of Negro families compared to white actually dropped
from 57 percent to 53 percent.
In the years 1955 through 1957, 22 percent of experienced Negro
workers were out of work at some time during the year. In 1961
through 1963 that proportion had soared to 29 percent.
Since 1947 the number of white families living in poverty has
decreased 27 percent while the number of poorer nonwhite families
decreased only 3 percent.
The infant mortality of nonwhites in 1940 was 70 percent greater
than whites. Twenty-two years later it was 90 percent greater.
Moreover, the isolation of Negro from white communities is
increasing, rather than decreasing as Negroes crowd into the central
cities and become a city within a city.
Of course Negro Americans as well as white Americans have shared
in our rising national abundance. But the harsh fact of the matter is
that in the battle for true equality too many--far too many--are
losing ground every day.
THE CAUSES OF INEQUALITY
We are not completely sure why this is. We know the causes are
complex and subtle. But we do know the two broad basic reasons. And
we do know that we have to act.
First, Negroes are trapped--as many whites are trapped--in
inherited, gateless poverty. They lack training and skills. They are
shut in, in slums, without decent medical care. Private and public
poverty combine to cripple their capacities.
We are trying to attack these evils through our poverty program,
through our education program, through our medical care and our other
health programs, and a dozen more of the Great Society programs that
are aimed at the root causes of this poverty.
We will increase, and we will accelerate, and we will broaden this
attack in years to come until this most enduring of foes finally
yields to our unyielding will.
But there is a second cause--much more difficult to explain, more
deeply grounded, more desperate in its force. It is the devastating
heritage of long years of slavery; and a century of oppression,
hatred, and injustice.
SPECIAL NATURE OF NEGRO POVERTY
For Negro poverty is not white poverty. Many of its causes and
many of its cures are the same. But there are differences-deep,
corrosive, obstinate differences--radiating painful roots into the
community, and into the family, and the nature of the individual.
These differences are not racial differences. They are solely and
simply the consequence of ancient brutality, past injustice, and
present prejudice. They are anguishing to observe. For the Negro they
are a constant reminder of oppression. For the white they are a
constant reminder of guilt. But they must be faced and they must be
dealt with and they must be overcome, if we are ever to reach the
time when the only difference between Negroes and whites is the color
of their skin.
Nor can we find a complete answer in the experience of other
American minorities. They made a valiant and a largely successful
effort to emerge from poverty and prejudice.
The Negro, like these others, will have to rely mostly upon his
own efforts. But he just can not do it alone. For they did not have
the heritage of centuries to overcome, and they did not have a
cultural tradition which had been twisted and battered by endless
years of hatred and hopelessness, nor were they excluded--these
others--because of race or color--a feeling whose dark intensity is
matched by no other prejudice in our society.
Nor can these differences be understood as isolated infirmities.
They are a seamless web. They cause each other. They result from each
other. They reinforce each other.
Much of the Negro community is buried under a blanket of history
and circumstance. It is not a lasting solution to lift just one
corner of that blanket. We must stand on all sides and we must raise
the entire cover if we are to liberate our fellow citizens.
THE ROOTS OF INJUSTICE
One of the differences is the increased concentration of Negroes
in our cities. More than 73 percent of all Negroes live in urban
areas compared with less than 70 percent of the whites. Most of these
Negroes live in slums. Most of these Negroes live together--a
separated people.
Men are shaped by their world. When it is a world of decay, ringed
by an invisible wall, when escape is arduous and uncertain, and the
saving pressures of a more hopeful society are unknown, it can
cripple the youth and it can desolate the men.
There is also the burden that a dark skin can add to the search
for a productive place in our society. Unemployment strikes most
swiftly and broadly at the Negro, and this burden erodes hope.
Blighted hope breeds despair. Despair brings indifferences to the
learning which offers a way out. And despair, coupled with
indifferences, is often the source of destructive rebellion against
the fabric of society.
There is also the lacerating hurt of early collision with white
hatred or prejudice, distaste or condescension. Other groups have
felt similar intolerance. But success and achievement could wipe it
away. They do not change the color of a man's skin. I have seen this
uncomprehending pain in the eyes of the little, young
Mexican-American schoolchildren that I taught many years ago. But it
can be overcome. But, for many, the wounds are always open.
FAMILY BREAKDOWN
Perhaps most important--its influence radiating to every part of
life--is the breakdown of the Negro family structure. For this, most
of all, white America must accept responsibility. It flows from
centuries of oppression and persecution of the Negro man. It flows
from the long years of degradation and discrimination, which have
attacked his dignity and assaulted his ability to produce for his
family.
This, too, is not pleasant to look upon. But it must be faced by
those whose serious intent is to improve the life of all Americans.
Only a minority--less than half--of all Negro children reach the
age of 18 having lived all their lives with both of their parents. At
this moment, tonight, little less than two-thirds are at home with
both of their parents. Probably a majority of all Negro children
receive federally-aided public assistance sometime during their
childhood.
The family is the cornerstone of our society. More than any other
force it shapes the attitude, the hopes, the ambitions, and the
values of the child. And when the family collapses it is the children
that are usually damaged. When it happens on a massive scale the
community itself is crippled.
So, unless we work to strengthen the family, to create conditions
under which most parents will stay together--all the rest: schools,
and playgrounds, and public assistance, and private concern, will
never be enough to cut completely the circle of despair and
deprivation.
TO FULFILL THESE RIGHTS
There is no single easy answer to all of these problems.
Jobs are part of the answer. They bring the income which permits a
man to provide for his family.
Decent homes in decent surroundings and a chance to learn--an
equal chance to learn--are part of the answer.
Welfare and social programs better designed to hold families
together are part of the answer.
Care for the sick is part of the answer.
An understanding heart by all Americans is another big part of the
answer.
And to all of these fronts--and a dozen more--I will dedicate the
expanding efforts of the Johnson administration.
But there are other answers that are still to be found. Nor do we
fully understand even all of the problems. Therefore, I want to
announce tonight that this fall I intend to call a White House
conference of scholars, and experts, and outstanding Negro
leaders--men of both races--and officials of Government at every
level.
This White House conference's theme and title will be "To
Fulfill These Rights."
Its object will be to help the American Negro fulfill the rights
which, after the long time of injustice, he is finally about to
secure.
To move beyond opportunity to achievement.
To shatter forever not only the barriers of law and public
practice, but the walls which bound the condition of many by the
color of his skin.
To dissolve, as best we can, the antique enmities of the heart
which diminish the holder, divide the great democracy, and do
wrong--great wrong--to the children of God.
And I pledge you tonight that this will be a chief goal of my
administration, and of my program next year, and in the years to
come. And I hope, and I pray, and I believe, it will be a part of the
program of all America.
WHAT IS JUSTICE
For what is justice?
It is to fulfill the fair expectations of man.
Thus, American justice is a very special thing. For, from the
first, this has been a land of towering expectations. It was to be a
nation where each man could be ruled by the common consent of
all--enshrined in law, given life by institutions, guided by men
themselves subject to its rule. And all--all of every station and
origin--would be touched equally in obligation and in liberty.
Beyond the law lay the land. It was a rich land, glowing with more
abundant promise than man had ever seen. Here, unlike any place yet
known, all were to share the harvest.
And beyond this was the dignity of man. Each could become whatever
his qualities of mind and spirit would permit--to strive, to seek,
and, if he could, to find his happiness.
This is American justice. We have pursued it faithfully to the
edge of our imperfections, and we have failed to find it for the
American Negro.
So, it is the glorious opportunity of this generation to end the
one huge wrong of the American Nation and, in so doing, to find
America for ourselves, with the same immense thrill of discovery
which gripped those who first began to realize that here, at last,
was a home for freedom.
All it will take is for all of us to understand what this country
is and what this country must become.
The Scripture promises: "I shall light a candle of
understanding in thine heart, which shall not be put out."
Together, and with millions more, we can light that candle of
understanding in the heart of all America.
And, once lit, it will never again go out.
NOTE: The President spoke at 6:35 p.m. on the Main Quadrangle in
front of the library at Howard University in Washington, after being
awarded an honorary degree of doctor of laws. His opening words
referred to Dr. James M. Nabrit, It., President of the University.
During his remarks he referred to Mrs. Patricia Harris, U.S.
Ambassador to Luxembourg and former associate professor of law at
Howard University.
The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was approved by President Johnson on
August 6, 1965; followed by...
Federal Executive Order #11246 (Affirmative Action) was signed into law by President Lyndon Baines Johnson on September 24, 1965.
Source: Public Papers of the Presidents of the
United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965. Volume II, entry 301, pp.
635-640. Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1966.
