The unfinished business at hand is the most difficult and dangerous that we have ever faced. Today’s problems of intolerance are harder than yesterday’s; tomorrow’s will be harder still.

One reason for this difficulty is that racial intolerance is harder to combat than religious intolerance. Most people, after all, have to be told whether the man they are talking to is a Catholic, or Protestant, or Jewish; none need instruction on which are the Negroes or the Puerto Ricans. Most of us can walk on each other’s street without arousing comment. If our children go to school together, few of us will know what religion their classmates practice.

But if a Negro walks down a quiet suburban street, or Negro children attend a school, all know it immediately. Simply by being more visible, the Negro is more vulnerable to prejudice…

The Negro’s heightened visibility makes easier another kind of prejudice and intolerance: prejudice agains the poor, intolerance for the unsuccessful. Because Negroes are twice as likely to be unemployed, because their children are three times as likely to be slow in school, even to the point of mental retardation—because of these things, prejudice against Negroes often masquerades as adherence to principles of individual freedom and responsibility. “This is a free country,” says the new voice of intolerance. “They have the same chance as anyone else. If they don’t take advantage of what we offer, that’s their responsibility.” And these voices then use the continued extent of Negro poverty, Negro unemployment, and lack of education as an excuse for not doing more…

The brutalities of Selma, and its denial of elementary rights of citizenship, were condemned throughout the North; and thousands of white northerners went there to march to Montgomery.

But the many brutalities of the North receive no such attention. I have been in tenements in Harlem in the past several weeks where the smell of rats was so strong that it was difficult to stay there for five minutes, and while children slept with lights turned on their feet to discourage attacks…

Thousands do not flock to Harlem to protest these conditions—much less to change them…

Action at home requires change in our own way of life. And—in a world already beset by change—to people whose lives are tragically insecure—further unsettling change is unacceptable…

It is not enough, in these circumstances, to preach for fair employment, or even to pass a fair employment law. If there are not enough jobs for all, the elimination of Negro unemployment and poverty will be impossible.

Another example: We all know the importance of education for our children, and how severe is the competition for admission to college.

It is not enough to tell a worried parent that prejudice against Negroes is undemocratic: if he hears that desegregation will handicap his child’s education, he will fight it almost to death.

If we wish to achieve peaceful desegregation of the schools—if we wish to improve the quality of education afforded Negro children-we must improve the quality of education throughout our schools, and assure every qualified child the chance for higher education…

Education, while vital, st no longer enough…We have gone as far as goodwill and even good legislation will take us, and…we must now act to bring about changes in the conditions which breed and reinforce intolerance and discrimination.

And is this is true for those who practice discrimination, itis even more true for its victims. If we are to meet our responsibilities—to them, to ourselves, to all our children—we must address ourselves to the difficult and dangerous problems of the urban North…

To solve these problems, to ease this frustration, it is not enough to teach brotherhood in the schools; we must assure that they educate each child to the limit of his capacity. It is not enough, in this technological society, to hire qualified Negroes, nor even try to raise the number that are qualified; we must create new jobs for all that can work, regardless of their level of skill…

These are not easy things to do. But the fulfillment of American ideals has never been easy, if only because they are so high.

Three hundred and thirty—four years ago, on a ship sailing to New England, John Winthrop gathered the Puritans on the deck and said, “We must consider that we shall be as a city, set upon a hill, and the eyes of all people will be upon us.”

The Puritans were in the middle of the Atlantic when they shared that vision of the city upon the hill. We are still in the middle of our journey. As long as millions of Americans suffer indignity and punishment, and deprivation because of their color, their poverty, and our inaction, we know that we are only halfway to our goal—only halfway to the city upon the hill, a city in which we can all take pride, a city and a country in which the promises of our Constitution are at last fulfilled for all Americans.