For two centuries, my own country has struggled to overcome the self-imposed handicap of prejudice and discrimination based on nationality, social class or race
Everywhere we look, we find irrefutable evidence that the Negroes in America have yet to be given full citizenship, and we find increasing evidence, too, that they are no longer willing to tolerate the burdens we have imposed on them.
Those of us who are white can only dimly guess at what the pain of racial discrimination must be—what it must be like to be turned away from a public place, or made to use only a segregated portion of that place,
Today’s problems of intolerance are harder than yesterday’s; tomorrow’s will be harder still.
The intolerant man will not rely on persuasion, or on the worth of the idea. He would deny to others the very freedom of opinion or of dissent which he so stridently demands for himself. He cannot trust democracy.
There have always and everywhere been those, throughout our history, and particularly in times of crisis, who have preached intolerance, who have sought to escape reality and responsibility with a slogan or a scapegoat.
Tags Share The only cure for resentment is progress. The only antidote to agitation is the effort which state, local and Federal officials are making to deal both with discrimination itself and with its deep-seated economic and social effects.
The problem between the white and colored people is a problem for all sections of the United States. And as I have said, I believe there has been a great deal of hypocrisy in dealing with it.
For an American man, woman, or child to be turned away from a public place for no reason other than the color of his skin is an intolerable insult, an insult that is in no way eased by the bland explanation that it has been allowed to go on for a hundred years or more.…
My grandfather came to this country many years ago. He was brought up in Boston and when he went out to look for a job there were signs on many stores that no Irish were wanted. Now after some 40 or 50 years, an Irish Catholic is President of the United States
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