Racial Discrimination
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Televised Press Conference
Tags Share In the last five or six years, the white people have looked at the black people and said, “Look at all we have done. We passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. We passed the [Voting] Rights Act of 1965.” “A Negro has been appointed to the Supreme Court. A Negro has been…
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Eleventh annual Navajo Education Conference
Tags Share Let me say this is a very distressing time—there are some very disturbing matters which I feel must be explored and remedied here in the Indian community. The Indian is our First Citizen. The nurturing and emboldening of the young Indian’s mind should be a priority to all of us here in America……
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Announcement of candidacy for President
Tags Share I am announcing today my candidacy for the presidency of the United States. I do not run for the presidency merely to oppose any man but to propose new policies. I run because I am convinced that this country is on a perilous course and because I have such strong feelings about what…
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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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Solving the Urban Crisis: Testimony Before the Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization
Tags Share Each of our cities is now the seat of nearly all the problems of American life: poverty and race hatred, interrupted education and stunted lives, and other ills of the new urban nation—congestion and the filth, danger, and purposelessness which afflict all but the very rich and the very lucky. To speak of…
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Reflections on the 1965 Watts Riots: State Convention, Independent Order of Odd Fellows
Tags Share I want to speak to you tonight about some of the events of the last week: about the dead and the orphans of the rioting in Los Angeles; about the sick and the distressed of all our urban ghettos; about the hatred and the fear and the brutality we saw in Los angeles;…
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Address to the National Council of Christians and Jews
Tags Share 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…
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Speech at the University of California at Berkeley
Tags Share The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who blend passion, reason, and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and…
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Speech at the University of Mississippi Law School Forum
Tags Share Your generation—South and North, white and black—is the first with the chance not only to remedy the mistakes which all of us have made in the past but to transcend them. Your generation—this generation—cannot afford to waste its substance and its hope in the struggles of the past, for beyond these walls is…
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Testimonial Dinner for John Reynolds
Tags Share We are not in the midst of another political campaign. Elections remind us not only of the rights but the responsibilities of citizenship in a democracy. Yet we live in a time when the individual’s opportunity to meet his responsibilities appears circumscribed by impersonal powers beyond his influence. On the surface the individual…
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The United States and the New Forces of the World
Tags Share The outstanding spirit abroad in the world today is nationalism—nationalism closely linked with anti-colonialism. Nationalism itself, of course, is nothing new. This self-determination performed the essential function of giving people an identity with their country and with each other. It became in some societies not merely an article of faith and common aspiration—but…
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Address at Law Day Ceremonies, University of Georgia
Tags Share For the first time since becoming attorney general, over three months ago, I am making something approaching a formal speech and I am proud that it is in Georgia…They have told me that when you speak in Georgia you should try to tie yourself to Georgia and the South, and even better, claim…
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