New York, NY
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Address at the Sixth Annual Westside Community Conference, Columbia University, New York City
In our country it is no longer enough to count the poor, to sympathize with the Negro struggle for equality, to watch with sadness the decay of our urban life. We must acknowledge—and do something to change the facts of our present life.
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Address at the American Medical Center Judy Holliday Memorial Dinner, at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel, New York City
Old age is something that happens to everybody, and if we are wise enough and unselfish enough and effective enough, then we can make those years a time in which to live, not just linger.
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Address at the Overseas Press Club
Tags Share Last night I sent the president the following telegram: Mr. President: First of all, let me say that I fervently hope that your new efforts for peace in Vietnam will succeed. Your decision regarding the presidency subordinates self to country and is truly magnanimous. I respectfully and earnestly request an opportunity to visit…
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Air pollution control conference
Tags Share On a trip to Latin America last year, I saw people in Recife, in the poorest part of Brazil, who ate crabs which lived off the garbage that the people themselves threw in the shallow water near their shabby homes. And whenever I tell this story to Americans, the reaction is: How sad,…
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A Holiday Reflection for White America: Citizens Union
Tags Share Long ago it was written that “to everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.” Now we approach the season which, in every year, we mark our higher purpose and our common humanity. In this year, this season is also a time to pause and a time…
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Commencement Address at Queens College
Tags Share Around the world—from the Straits of Magellan to the Straits of Malacca, from the Nile delta to the Amazon basin, in Jaipur and Johannesburg—the dispossessed people of the world are demanding their place in the sun. For uncounted centuries, they have lived with hardship, with hunger and disease and fear. For the last…
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Speech at the United Auto Workers Regional conference
Tags Share Tonight I want to speak with you not about labor unions, but about the common future of those who labor; about what has too often happened to the great American dream, and about how we can bring new opportunities to millions of Americans. The Americans of whom I speak, however, are not the…
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Speech at the Borough President’s Conference of Community Leaders
Tags Share Since the dawn of their freedom a century ago, Negro Americans have been advised to “cast down your bucket where you are.” But those who offered this advice too often did not bother to look at whether its recipient was standing by a river of opportunity—or in the midst of a desert from…
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Speech at the Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York
Tags Share My remarks today are the first in a series of three speeches about one major aspect of the unfinished business that is ahead: the quality of life for the Negro in the urban areas of the North. I do not mean to downgrade the problems that remain in the South. But my purpose…
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