Whitney Young on Civil Rights

You are about to hear an address by Whitney Young Jr. executive director of the National Urban League. Mr. Young is addressing the more than 2000 delegates and guests attending a banquet session of the twenty eighth convention of the League of Women Voters of the United States which is being held at the Conrad Hilton Hotel in Chicago Illinois. Mr. Young has already been introduced by Mrs. Robert Jay Stewart who is presiding over her final convention as president of the League of Women Voters of the United States. And now to the League of Women Voters convention in Chicago Illinois and Whitney Young Jr.. Thank you very much Julia that was a generous and name from the heart introduction which I had deeply appreciate. Mrs. Benson distinguished they ask guests offices members and friends of the League of Women

Voters and lighted to be with you tonight. And there are several facts that I might set forth to document that. And it's more than a routine greeting to an audience like this. It so happened that Mr. Hood did call me and say that they're you know first choice was not available. Anybody who prides himself on being a national leader just doesn't permit that kind of invitation to a year to speak to any group. But I fully recognize that this is a terribly important group. The gentleman who was your first choice had a the jet in the reason we engaged together and great enterprise and the urban coalition. And frankly I had to fall in love like you have with with Julie

and I couldn't turn it down. I am somewhat intimidated since I have been in the hotel today I don't think I've talked to anybody who has not demanded me of the great Strads and the great resolutions and the follow up thrusts and the great liberalism that has emerged out of this conference. And I am therefore left in the position of feeling like I should be here too to applaud you and to praise you and to thank you. Would that the Tams would call for such pleasant Greetings to you of the things you have done. A famous painter was once asked to name his greatest pain ie. He paused for a moment and said My greatest painting. The next one.

And so it is I think with the League of Women Voters. I am deeply and full as is the whole country of the great contributions which you have made to to our society and particularly in the last decade how you have courageously addressed yourselves to serious and current issues the impact which you have had on local state and national legislation. Would that we could spend the time with such pleasant around the nesting. It's not unimportant because a great future must be dependent upon a great past. Nevertheless when asked to name your year greatest accomplishment it seems to me that the League of Women Voters like the great painter

must answer our great issue of accomplishment. The next one. We need you desperately. I think of this group tonight as I was flying in today. It is probably best represented by a story I once heard of a famous option there was auctioning off some furniture from Orland distinguished aristocratic home and he just sad that he would walk up for the auction on a no dust to valley that was lying in the front and he said What a mouthful and follow the old valet and in a rather bemused tone of

allies. Somebody has said $1 $2 and $3. And he said going going and before he could say gone an old man in the back of the room stood up and said just a moment and he came forward dusted off the old valley and tightened the strains in the bowl and began to play the music that came forth would have done justice to the Karalee been a jewel. The audience was hushed and silenced. The old man took a seat in the auctioneer's tied it off again and a much more serious tone. And now what am I offered for the old valley and a thousand and one thousand two thousand three going going gone. And somebody said Padna dramatic calls the increase in the cost of the valley to which the auctioneer

reply had it was a touch of the master's hand. And so it is and house Saturday. There are many human beings who being offshore and off cheap because of the N. ability of people to see beneath the the thin veneer. The thin layer of a man's skin. And to see not only a man and a brain that carry great potential but who feel also to see a heart in the soul that yearned for dignity and for freedom. You must be masters hands. Who will bring forth by this world to see the great potential that beats beneath the skin that might be a little more on a silent hand.

I make no apologies for challenging women in general and the League of Women in particular. To assume leadership in this field yoyo potential is unlimited. No obligation is telling and imperative. The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world. Has been said on many occasions and never before has it been more true than today. Given the average man's absence from his home and his preoccupation even when his home. It rests upon you to teach the young children and house a sad what democracy and freedom and decency and the Judeo-Christian ethic are all about. If you fail we we all feel you. The

League of Women Voters and women in general and the Nigro have a great deal in common. We have both been stereotyped in our history. You particularly white women have been stereotyped as genteel little fragile beautiful but not so smart. Can of on demand said one nice to have around the house but not really very relevant when it came to the tough hard decisions of our society. We have put you up on pedestals obviously Saturday. We have worshiped you and loved you but we just didn't feel that you counted. We even ran the terrible risk of educating you. And yet you were still a disaster

and to remain in a certain in significant role as far as the mainstream of life was concerned. And then suddenly the revolution of negroes began and then we began to hear about the equal rights of women. Nagel's marched to Washington bad and fault and finally got a bill. Title 7. The effete PC bill. And would you believe that the last man one who should be tacked on to that bill. And the women. I am getting a little annoyed at letting women rattle on the moral coattails of Negroes. You have a real stake and this is Saturday and it's the steak that

that I somehow believe fits master type of women of people who have an incredible ability a unique ability to empathize to be compassionate. To be humane to put yourselves in the place of another mother. There but for the grace of God go you. Who has the same dreams and hopes and aspirations for her little black Chow that you have for us. But who will never achieve those aspirations as long as they are people in the sad to whom a black skin is repulsive sufficient this soul to keep them out of a neighborhood out of school out of a place of employment even out of a church. Somebody has to

assume the responsibility for a civil asing and this is sad. And the reasons are compelling. The situation has changed in tatted today we are now dealing with a disinherited who are not completely conscious of the cause of their inferior status and they know that it is not God made. They know that it's man made a disadvantage that no long way except the fact that they are congenitally and Therion that they are an eight legged soon to be second class human being suffering all of the humiliation that goes with it. In fact our problem today may be even different in the sense that the only completely operative heart transplant happens

to be a black heart. It's difficult not to acquire the feeling of smugness. But there is certainly not a a feeling of inferiority. Then they grow as completely aware in this country today that that his status economically educationally housing is is obviously inferior. But he does not feel that he is an inferior human being who feels that he is a victim of a callous and different and the selfish the sad. We deal with a disinherited who who is no longer isolated on the sharecroppers farm in Mississippi or Alabama but who is living for the most part in our major urban center as next door to affluence season views on his television

set. How the Other Half of America lives. And he wants in and he's determined and he's read not just about your great Susan B Anthony and Jane Jane Adams Carrie Nation and all of the women who fought for their rights he'd read about Patrick Henry and Eugene Debs and Samuel Gompers and Marian Green and all of the others who have fought for their rights and this is sad. And he recognizes how the Patrick Henry's have become the heroes in American history because they fought for what they believed in and said ultimately give me liberty or give me death. And the American Negro is saying this quite created a day to liberate me exterminate me. And the choice is a clear the American Negro will either have to be

a victim of conscious genocide. And here we can take our model after Adolf Hitler our we will have to formal as a part Tad and here we can take our model after South Africa. Are you must be freed and given the resources with which to achieve true equality and here we can take as our model. The American Constitution. But those are the choices and today the bund of a clear. We face also a very real and challenging situation in our young people of this country. I happen to have the opportunity in the last six months of visiting some 50 colleges and universities around the country where I meet with the young people first in the formal meeting and then later in an informal lounge

and from around the country I get the same message. These young people today deeply care about human rights and they are experiencing an unprecedented cynicism at the best and contempt at the worst. Follow the values in the SAT. And they are challenging group they point out with this accuracy the end consistence is not a sad thing. The pervasive gap between what we practice and what we preach. The over roaming gap between aspirations and attainment between pledge and performance. They talk about the 800 billion dollar gross national product we have in this country and yet 20 percent of our people live in squalor and poverty.

They talk about nasty has budget of one hundred and forty billion dollars the national budget and yet less than 17 percent of it goes for programs of health education welfare things cultural in this setting and almost 70 percent goes to weapons of destruction and defense against destruction. They seriously question the value system in a society that permits this and it's routine for them to say to you on a curb for you the words of George Bernard show that sound like Joy sound I Bertram Russell that America might well be the first satin known to man that moved from a state of barbarism to a state of decadence without ever going through civilization that is a harsh indictment. But if you question them they will begin to again point out for you the purpose the immigration quotas and have

absolutely no relation to the word so beautifully and scab on the Statue of Liberty about send me your attack on you poor and your heart's longing to be freed. The immigration quota say send me a tad white pool from the own country primarily from Europe. They have all the facts on the history of foreign aid in this country. And these facts show without without a doubt that our motivation has not been compassion and humaneness and concern for need we spend more money and for years than the Marshall Plan in Western Europe rebuilding the land of our friends and our enemies in four years and we have spent in the whole history of foreign aid to Africa to Asia to India. I don't think you can laugh these kids off as some adults try to do.

I don't think you can pass them off lightly as well this happens in every generation. We were all radicals in the teens and liberals and the 20 isn't conservatives and the 30 years. That's not true. These young people have for the most part never known poverty and deprivation. They were brought in to receive things and they have and they have not the same values that many of you have about things they do care about human being. And you ignore them at your peril. I feel though that challenge comes at a time when when we have some other things going Fossella very important. Many people have KRAD the rads and shouts of black power and the terrible behavior of white people in the suburbs of Milwaukee and

Chicago. Frankly I see in this a glimmer of hope contemporary scholars like you who will not acknowledge that this represents anything positive but I think historians will point out that in spite of all of the disorder and the ugliness of our situation there is something positive because at least we are now engaged in a dialogue that is candid and honest. We're not kidding each other anymore. It is not pleasant. It is often ugly but it designed us for the first time we are now in a position where every person every white person in America. How have a depraved and depressed and ignorant knows that the Negro is here an object to be dealt with.

And it is better to be to be hated than ignored. And more than anything else the black American has suffered in this country not from an abundance of love on abundance of hate but an abundance of apathy and indifference. Not the 10 percent who carried on the 10 percent who would send him back to Africa but the 80 percent of white Americans that big blob of Americans who was so preoccupied with making it or getting ahead would move into the suburbs with knowing their god schools and joining the Country Club and lying about their kids ACCU that. They. Just didn't have time to see to see the slums and to see the plight of the negro and they drove around him on the expressways and under him.

By subway and over him by plane. And today we know that the situation no longer exists. And history will show that that maybe it was positive. The other thing is that we now know why the problem. We now are the beneficiaries of a report from the Presidents Commission on Civil disorders. A group of men and of whom were white and with the exception of one or two they were all a done a fad as conservative almost reactionary representatives responsible white man business leaders wealthy people public officials nobody could have accused this commission of being a bunch of starry eyed liberals sentimental do gooders. They were tough hard men and they sat down that first day and they said we will identify half of this country who the conspirators are

and we will tell you how to control and to suppress. These disturbances will never have them again but a funny thing happened on the way to the foundry pool and we'd take some credit for this but the funny thing that happened was that we prevailed upon the commissioners to visit the Sloan to rock into a tenement house. Most of us feel that television in the newspapers can provide us with this kind of knowledge but as sophisticated as how electronic devices are we have not yet managed to to acquire the dimension the smell the feel. And they said OK and they walked into a tenement house and they walked through the dock than Hardaway's it smelled of Yuan because a little three and four year old Brize was they live in the suburbs go behind the bush couldn't run 14 flights their little bro

lies and they just cane make it and they won't own up the rickety steps and they rocked into the two room apartment where five people were living. And they saw the little baby with a sunken stomach because all she had headed to a clock that afternoon was a bowl of cornflakes. And they saw the model with a blood stain that has who stayed awake all night trying to make sure that a rat didn't bite a chow. And they talked to the father who was better early unaided because he was suffering the daily humiliation of unemployment and not being able to banish beamed home fires chow. And they saw this in place after place and they had to come back and tell it like it is and that's why we got the report we got a report that said in no uncertain language that the essential problem

of race relations in America is white racism and that growing out of that is a pervasive gap economically educationally and in housing. Now this was not an easy indictment to make and certainly many Americans rushed to to deny that the newspapers who had never been in the storm many presidential aspirants even some who are leaders of public office at the present time said this was an exaggeration and tried to reassure and placate guilty America. Ladies and gentlemen that was a social outing done by experts. And you would know it at your peril. You would not ignore a fiscal audit that said that you were near bankruptcy our health audit that said that you had cancer. You will ignore this at the same peril.

This is a country that has been preoccupied with racism racism in its real sense means the assumption of basics a periodic on the part of some people over others. The basic assumption of inferiority in this case on the part of the negro by a large majority of white Americans and it's reflected in their day to day habits of how they let people live and work and play. Now we might as well face up to it. It's ugly it's like a ball. You need to put a Band-Aid on it and let it get worse so you can lance it and that the pulse run. But in that way you cure it. Now you are going to have to assume the major part of trying to change this. This isn't going to be easy. And particularly today you will run into people every day every

moment of the day who will tell you how they have a lot of sympathy with this cause a fellow told me this a builder. When I spoke to the National Association of Home Builders how he used to love my people so much. He was a great liberal he said but now since the rats in the shouts of black power he is no longer sympathetic. I told him I didn't want to debate with him. The logic of indicting a whole group because of the excesses of a few. But I would like to document for posterity the extent of our loss. And so I took out a piece of paper and a pencil and I said sir will you please tell me before you allow sympathy how many integrated housing developments did you Bill. How many Negroes did you employ and at what level. How many girls have you had to get into your neighborhood into your school your country or your church. And I said please say it slowly.

I want to write this down to document the extent of our loss now that we have lost your sympathy and he said Wow. Well I didn't do any of those things. And I said to him Did it ever occur to him that if he'd been doing all of those things when he loved my people so much and all of the sympathy that we might not have had the rats and the shouts of blacked out. So before you are any of your friends lose your sympathy or become disenchanted and disillusioned. Because a handful of negroes threw a Molotov cocktail. Stop and ask What did you really do before the rads. But it is this tendency to generalize that bothers us. Two years ago that summer a man stood on a tower in Texas and a phatic that shot 40 people and killed 14 two weeks before that a man in a nurse's home in Chicago thought Iki assaulted and killed eight nurses.

A few years before that a man shot and killed President Kennedy. And I suppose a man a white man killed Martin Luther King but nobody calls these people white. We call them steak. And yet last summer A-Rod breaks out in Newark and the papers say the negro is rad to Newark when actually it was 4 percent of the Negro population. The niggles Radin Detroit less than 3 percent of the Negro population one out of fab of the rioters in Detroit happened to be white. That's why it was by far most destructive rad white people more experienced of violence and it was by far the most integrated and violent rat. Nobody has ever said that we should withhold the opportunities and rights from from our assessment because they produced a courier who would make Adam Powell look

like the epitome of political morality. But there isn't a day that passes somebody now 20 million negroes are going to suffer because of the unrestrained habits of Adam Pao. Nobody says US take away the rights of Italians because there appears to be a disproportionate number of attacks in the how arche of the Mafia. But nobody says this take away their rights. But when they grow it's Europe people are going to suffer. Because some rat. And what annoys me most of all is to get it from some members of the labor movement who if they remember just a few years ago would make the civil rights actions of the present including the rats look like a picnic. The rads a sit ins of violence. The bright cops I was

there and know I read the books I've seen the pictures and the labor movement in those days was a far cry half from what I saw down in Florida at the AFLCIO Executive Council meeting when all the lads were walking around this luxurious hotel and Pekinese dogs with me. Waiting follow their chauffeured limousine cars coming from Wells stocked suites up stairs. There was none. We're not then talking about overthrowing the system like they were 40 years ago but the reason was they got a piece of the action. It's a simple as this. You've got to give people a piece of the action. But my basic point is is that we we have a loss. If you generalize you must give us the right to have our crackpots like anybody else. There's no reason why white people should have a monopoly on crackpots.

It's real I've been able to put up our little heroes with a George Lincoln Rockwell is in the Ku Klux Klan and the White Citizens Council the John Birch Society killing our people lynching them and still we haven't given up hope and faith. White people black and white people put up with a Rob Brown in the Stokely Carmichael. We had segregation and discrimination and slavery longest before Stokely Carmichael and Rob Brown were even bone. Anybody who uses this as an excuse is looking for a reason to cop out. And if you look at the far reason to hate Negroes you can fan them. But we can do the same thing. I don't want to. And you've got to help us. I believe this can be done I have to say it's tough. But the thing

that's going to do what I want to be the willingness of groups like this to stand up and to be counted I call the other day for it white march on Washington. I've tried to carefully explain that I was developing a concept. And this macho was figurative. I don't care what font it takes I was calling father a willingness of those who have benefited the most from society the American society the willingness to witness their conviction to to stand up in the tangible visible way and say that prejudice has got to gold that bigotry is no longer in those of us who have benefited the most have decided we are no longer going to leave the problem of purifying America to black people that you don't ask a man to be the patient and the

surgeon too. There's no reason why the fight for civil rights in this country must be led only by black people. This is an American dream an American concept obj. Instead of today's papers talking about the poor people's march to Washington which is a tragedy that poor people have to minds that Washington Washington should be much into the plight of people like the Kerner Commission the Congress ought to go look in a slum. And if and if they won't then why can't we have white people wealthy people middle class people's march to Washington. This in no other way would solo.

Convey the message to Congress that the decent people of America have decided to take over all that no allowing on the coops in the crackpots whatever their colors speak for America. That you're tired of this. Thanks. Group you'd walk with your family with your children your fabulous six year old you hask kid in your college boy and he look up and smile at you because dad and mom of one now living up to their conviction the dead in Mama were now in fact being the kind of people we can respect not just making money and giving us allowances and tuitions and nice clothes and cars but they were standing up and they were being counted and their value system was intact as they always try to tell us to keep our value system intact.

This would be a great a great victory for America and father for the newspapers or for anybody else to write this off as as cavalier and facetious kind of gesture. It will be it will be sad because it will be those same newspapers. If the poor people's motto ends up in another SAS nation another march I mean another rat another ugly tragedy in the history of American life. I want history to know that I said it happened not because they had a pool of people as much but because they had to have a pool of people not because decent people wouldn't do it father. And that's history boy. Oh what can you do. This is a question that comes in over and over these days. My first

reaction is one of a little irritation. Why do we have to tell a society that can send a man to the moon. I can build television sets and all kinds of elaborate devices and cars and how to treat other human beings I mean how to how to get along with people who just happen to have those pigmentation that's a little darker. But OK if we have to we have to. I like that song below and let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me. It starts first in your own home. It starts first with the. Treatment of your help. Do you in fact insist that your maid his own Social Security even though she says I don't want to be bothered with it. Do you say well I'm going to pee and because you have a right to that kind of insurance do you have little for one 5

yo youngsters refer to a 35 40 year old adult. By their first names. Even though the maid says that's the way I like it when they don't refer to other adults by their first name. I had this personally experience I remember some 7 years ago when we finally got enough money to have somebody for one day a week and the lady came in and my wife came out and introduced herself as Lucille. My wife said What is your full name and she said Lucille Fisher. After the conversation my wife decided to employ. She decided to stay that day and at four o'clock the two girls daughters came home from school and Mrs. Fisher met them at the door and she introduced herself to the kids as I'm Lucille and my wife came in and said Marsha no

on this is Mrs. Fisher. Mr Fisher said. Just call me seal and my wife said I'm not doing this for you. We don't let out daughter call adults by their first names and we're consistent with it. We don't change it because of the occupation of the person. The next day the phone rang and the little boy I said is Lucille there and my wife said there is no Lucille here. And then she told Mrs. Fisher that she thought that was a son. A little 4 year old boy. Mrs. Fisher went and called him and she said Son you don't need to call me Lucille here. Here I am somebody. I'm Mrs. Fish. Call me mother now. That's the way you teach dignity. You teach not bags to a

patient you teach by example. That's when you say to a chow. That that you believe in freedom and democracy and dignity for all people. And then you don't sit back and you say well we never use an ugly epithet. It's not enough what you don't do they are about to enter into a world that is prejudice and full of racism. And so you have vaccinate these youngsters against racism just like you vaccinate them against smallpox and you vaccinate them by teaching them strong democratic ideals and you try to expose them early. It isn't easy to to people who are different. And then you move into your school rooms. You look at the textbooks they have. You look around you see if they're in and they go teaches and you try to do something about it you may not have been in it goes in your neighborhood. Mexicans Puerto Ricans but you can get some teachers

and then you finally get to I suppose your you know your League of Women Voters meeting. And while I am most appreciative of the of the scientific method. Would you please join me just on this crisis and emergency in declaring a moratorium on all studies particularly of the negro. I have called for. I know this is your usual procedure I understand that you might waive it but we cannot wait. We have had the negro started five generations now. He has been dissected and all as I inspected the horizontal a vertically diagonally. Thank you very much. You now know only we now know the problem. The answer is same. They had a rat in Chicago in 1919

and they formed a commission and the commission came up with a report in the 1920s in 1920. They had a rat in 1966 in California in Watts and they appointed a commission and it came up you know with the study and the recommendations and they are identical. The 900 20 recommendations in the 1900 to 6 identical I mean it's been no changes. Same problem same answers. Now I don't want to throw people who've been making their living off of studying the Negroes out of business mainly white people you know like Pat Monahan and all the others who are studying the negro. So what I am suggesting is that we just redirect. The focus of our study since the Kerner Commission this group of responsible representative white people have said the problem is wide racism and they say that I mean that's I forget that I didn't make that

statement. But they said it and they're white people and I've always been taught to believe that white people were the smartest people in the world. And I'm too old to change I'm conditioned so if they said it that must be the truth. So what we will do now is try to get these people to study white racism. We've had all these studies on the anatomy of watts the sorrows of black folks in the path ology of the Negro family. When I go on to have studies dealing with the sorrows of white folks the past knowledge of Congress the anatomy of Cicero Illinois I mean what's wrong with Cicero. What's wrong with a community or group of people who would voluntarily choose to live in these. GLENN STERLE antiseptic gilded white ghetto Jimi saying this to each other compound in mediocrity in a world that is 75 percent nonwhite in a world where in 15 minutes you can fly from Cape

candidate to Africa. Why would people want to grow up. And that kind of situation. Why would the people of Cicero say Ralph Bunche you cannot come in but Al Capone you're wrong and something is wrong with people like this. Let's do a study of the sort of rightful path knowledge of Congress and here I'm thinking now we might make use and this can solve the unemployment problem of niggles we will use Negroes to study white people. This will be a very very. I mean but who's But I qualified to do research or research and study the souls of white folks and an unemployed farm a domestic worker. You know I've always been told by people that they love their maids or they're best friends and they they share with their maids their most intimate secrets and they do for the most part.

So who would be better equipped you know to pull out that kind of material. Who would be better equipped than unemployed Fama bellhops of Washington hotels to discuss the Morales and the character and the path ology Congressman. This will be a you know what what's wrong with a Congress that that listens to the State of the Union message and applauds wildly when the president calls for the saving a redwood trees in California and then sits on his hands in silence when he talks about saving black bodies in the ghetto. What's wrong with people like this who respond to Arad by raising the appropriation for the National Guard and the next day defeat decisively a

bill to get rats out of the ghetto. I mean something drone I needs to be a study made. Join us in this. You've got a right to Congressman. They get letters all the time from the John Birch Society in the White Citizens Council. It's one of our real realities that we face today in this country this large growing group of Americans who have acquired middle class economic status but who are not on the girded by the the ascetic in the cultural and the educational things that normally go into making one a middle class person. These are what I call the affluent peasants in our society. They're one generation most of my one generation removed from welfare. They don't read anything except John Welch's or Robert Walsh's Blue Book. They don't know Karl Marx from Groucho's brother.

They listen every morning to life and this radio program that's beamed out of Texas to somewhere out paid for by a Texas money and all they're concerned about is tax cuts. These are insecure frightened people and if you think for one moment that they represent a threat and a danger omitted to black people then you haven't. Done your homework. This is a first attack. These people have every intention and we have had to infiltrate them because we want to know where they are going to bomb our houses. Well one of the problems is always all we have to take to liberals. To infiltrate one of these meetings to match one conservative liberals apparently don't have the same stamina. Something that. We have some

immense spit chips. But at any rate in those meetings what happened is then talking about taking old school boards you know talking about pedo the lab or bill and the kind of books in there against the United Nations against all kinds of domestic legislation. They think the why debian the why am I have no business being integrated and swim together and dance and all of this. They're going to take the SAT what books are going to be read in the school room. Obviously they're against Jews and they're against anybody who's different. They'll soon take over the newspapers. That's their goal. And if you sit back and say well gee I wish they wouldn't act like this. They use a courier the clip is now very clear. Nobody says we are today opposed to integration. We have fought segregation and they talk about. Home is your castle. Crime in the

streets. Law and Order. The neighborhood school. I mean these are these are terms now for racism we know what they mean. Most are make no sense. Sure your home is your castle but the neighborhood is not your own castle. A man has a right to select his neighbor's body but only if he can bag the whole neighborhood. Then he has that right. And nobody wants to move into anybody's home in an hour. Not when he's there. All the people who talk about neighborhood schooners are quick to bust their kids 10 and 12 mouths to some private school some sectarian school to a state and they bust some of the camps and the school is out to get rid of them so they won't have to be bothered with them. No you've got to be able to read the code and to decide you're going to stand up and and be counted.

You gotta support a rent supplements model citizen legislation. You've got to go out and register in Springfield Mass my executive up there when you heard I was coming to speak call me up and he said please Mr Young tell about how that Springfield Massachusetts League of Women Voters really working with us. We couldn't exist without them. How they impact. I got we got we got 88 Urban Leagues and I don't mind opening up 88 letters telling me the same thing in those Urban League's about how you were working with us we need voluntary help we need to expand the number of voters. I know many of you are but we can't stop now just with negroes. You've got to take on that tough task of going into Cicero Illinois and not I don't want to go in Cicero that all kinds of suburbs right around Chicago and suburbs you come from Bronxville in New York City. I can move and Bronxville New York.

Now you got a job too I can go on as time educational program. I'm willing to go down in Harlem and face the wrath of many angry young niggles who say What are you doing down there talking to those why folks at the Conrad Hilton. And I have stand up and explain it to them but I want you to know I have my problems to associate with you. Bob I don't mind doing it but but can't you bring yourself to talk to some some white races and try to educate them. I can reach you know maybe we will be willing to start a white urban E.. I mean it and some of these places. But that's that's your job. It is it will really be too hard. As I said these people are not independent thinkers.

That's why I wanted to I mean they're pretty cheap like this. This is why I wanted men of the caliber of Henry Ford and David Rockefeller who I felt were two pretty good examples of people who've done pretty well in the system. You know to to lead the march because they see them doing the march then you know we can get you to follow we can get you to follow look at all the others that will go you know people began to rethink this saying well it's the attitude that you really got to move in on and I do want to move to close the speech to be immortal does not have to be eternal. After all I was a substitute and I have come a long ways. I always envied the leaders of other nations like India and Cuba. Their leaders stand up and speak for seven and eight hours and then their followers stand up in the hot sun crowded around and listen nobody anywhere. If Americans want everything in a capsule you know they were in the midst of the graves

crisis and Ms Benson is probably getting ready to write me a note. Well the attitude is I have intimidated her that is probably the most crucial thing is getting over this attitude business. I mention the generalization let me just tell you one of two short stories and then bring this to an end. I got on the plane the other day and the couple sat across from me. Had a couple of my teen years and she went to sleep and he leaned over and whispered pardon me Mr young but I've got a problem. My wife and I are great liberals we love your people very much. I'm getting a little nervous when I start this way. And but our problem is as we would like to invite into our home a colored couple into the simple martini and said maybe even two or

three couples. Couples. But the problem is my wife does not feel comfortable with Negroes and I don't know what we can do about it and I hope you won't be offended if I ask you about it what can we do and I told him I was not offended that I understood this. It was not unusual that most people feel all been uncomfortable even inferior around Ralph Bunche this is not unusual. I mean here is a man with a fabricated capital he has Nobel Prizes Ph.D. He's were allayed you know he's traveled He's sophisticated and cosmopolitan most people I'm sure his wife fell in that category. I feel that they might ask some stupid question I give some elementary response and do not feel bad I was glad he'd come to the ebony because I was sure we could identify some below average negroes. That is wife would feel more comfortable around. But you see it's this business of generalizing again.

It's the attitude without recognizing that whites blacks you know they run the whole spectrum. Even General Westmoreland said that to me when I was in Vietnam to show you again that I don't generalize you from South Carolina and I understand the greatest speech that was made in this meeting so far was made by a woman from South Carolina. Thank you. I'm not surprised. I'm really not surprised. But if she can say that. What should you do. You know from Minnesota North Carolina New York and the other place where the attitude really get you though is when these people come up to you and they say well Mr. Young I agree with you but these prejudices are deep seated and it's going to take a lone time to get rid of. And I say how long. It's interesting of the fellows 50 years old

he'll say 15 years if he's 30 he will say 35 years. That seems to be an amazing correlation between how long it takes and when he's out of the decision making process. But actually it doesn't take any time at all. One time we can even manufactory establishment in this country has changed Americans attitudes about Russia for attack and in the last 30 years what have you. Thank you. But just to show you how quick you can change and I ran into this fellow Vietnam this young white boy from Mississippi. Nice enough fella not too bright but he was a nice guy and he and one week hed have developed the greatest degree of respect and admiration for his backside and that I had ever seen Amanda vector develop for another. He kept her in the midst of Sarge and I was kind of embarrassing the sergeant said just you know

just Sergeant son and nothing was too intimate he wanted to put his bid right by the sergeant an issue Sergeant been over there some 18 months he was killed a lot of survival in the war and made a really rather basic decision. You decided he could either be a. Liberal white dwarf of Mississippi did bigoted white boy infamous and he had no difficulty got over that deep seated prejudice in one week. No it wasn't. This is if you would put applauding I could get through this. I and the prejudice disappear at it so really and then there's nothing to get rid of it. If we believe it well the stakes are high at the time to show our country and its image overseas you've heard about it in terrible shape mainly because of the race

problem. I'll say it is threatened with facts. And. Rats. The only thing that would threaten them is that if white people were in the shape the Negro people win instead of having a FAQ and a rat Occasionally we would be having one every day. But what is more important is you as a human being at stake. There is no single issue that better separates the phony from the real. And this issue of human rights and anybody who can not identify and empathize with the canned of suffering that I have indicated then you are in worse shape than the victim. You are a vegetable with clothes on and the person who knows it best other than yourself your children.

This is a chance for you to show that you I civilized human being with the carriage of your convictions an ancient Greek scholar was once asked to name the date up when we would achieve justice in Athens and he replied we shall achieve justice in Athens when those who are not engine. As indignant as those who walk and so shall it be here in this country we shall achieve true freedom and equal as a life chances in life results of human beings. When people like you in this room as indignant as as those who were injured and by your invitation to me and your attentiveness to another set of remarks I am assured under the

leadership of Miss Benson that you are indeed becoming as indignant as those who were injured. Thank you very much. Ah was. You have just heard Whitney Young Jr. executive director of the National Urban League Mr. Young address the more than 2000 delegates and guests attending the banquet session of the twenty eighth convention of the League of Women Voters of the United States. This program originated in the international ballroom of the Conrad Hilton Hotel Chicago Illinois. And your announcer LEO or so.