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The next. 50 years. Thank. Him science. They are technically every member of Congress will see rapid change during the next 30 years. National Educational radio presents a series of programs expressing a variety of opinions. On the future of the democratic environment plays were given of the 50 of near conference of the American Institute of planners held in Washington in October of last year. In attendance was any our public affairs director Bill Greenwood.
This is the eighth in our 13 week series dealing with the problems of planning for development during the next 50 years. This week we present remarks recorded at the six the National Conference of plans for progress. It was held recently in Washington D.C. dealing primarily with business related aspects of future planning. To speak on this week's program will be the mayor of Washington the honorable Walter Washington civil rights leader Bayard Ruston city planner Colin Buchanan and German planner Garrett Alberta's. More on these speakers in a few moments. First some details about our initial gassed. Mayor Walter E. Washington is the first Negro to head a government of a major United States city. He was first a member then chairman of the national capital Housing Authority. He then moved to New York where he served as chairman of the New York City Housing Authority. He was later appointed mayor commissioner of the nation's capital by President Johnson. To Speak
Now here is Walter Washington. You will find Washington. In three parts all linking together at this time. It is a city to the nation and you will see the many monuments and we urge you to. See these great citadels of. The heritage of this country. You will see the great buildings. And we want you to know that as the seat of your government. They are here representing your interest. The Second City you will see is the city that is the center of the fastest growing metropolitan area in the nation. So that you will be seeing many things that will interest you while you are here in times of economic development. Our effort to.
Get new resources new businesses so that we can indeed provide new opportunities which I and shore is very close to what many of you are here to discuss. Thirdly you see a city that is the home for over a hundred thousand people. It is in this area have that rushing down. Should be looked at carefully because it is in this area that Washington stands as. A representative city with all of the problems all of the difficulties. And all of the great challenges of the urban complex produces today. It is indeed a city and this sense where people live. And I would say to you today and welcoming you here that. We must look at that part of the city. And if your. Challenge and your theme of communication means anything it will mean
something with respect to how a right people live and under what conditions. Should they continue to live and whether or not you're challenging communication will be sufficient to bring them into greener pastures where they may live better. So I would welcome you with this and I would like to say on one other side that I have been somehow tabbed a rocking mare. I think it's sort of. To some people a technique. To me it's a real source of inspiration and it's the kind of communication that keeps me constantly in touch with the problems of our city. I travel the ghettos I travel the far reaches of the city. Basically time to see and understand what we have to do. And I strongly urge. The
representatives and delegates here today to do a little more rocking in your neighborhoods because here are some of the things that I find them of the things that people say to me. We want a better educational system we want a better planet. It's coming out dated in many parts. We want a better instructional system that indeed gets down to the problems of the poor and the disadvantaged in our neighborhood. This is where they say we should have our best teachers. Are they saying to me. We want more flexible programs and welfare programs and welfare that will not forever relegate a person to the public assistance role but one way I will provide for training. So that many of the mothers may have an opportunity to train and learn and indeed in this town we have a dept. O C program which we have just got some additional funding for. And they say we'd like to have more in daycare so
the mothers could. Probably work to have their children adequately and properly taken care of. They talk of the need to massively massively expand the housing program so that it indeed gets to our growing annoying need in the area of housing. And they speak of more opportunities and manpower not simply. The job of meeting the unemployment but working with the underemployed and developing skills that will truly promote economic development in the sense that the training is related to the jobs and the job market that is being produced. And they speak of this in great terms of training so that it is meaningful and finally they say to me that the young people speak with a voice of restlessness and they say we want.
People to plan with us for a change and not simply for us and all of these that I mention are matters of communication this is what I find. And this is what I mean by communication the ability to develop and bring some concern and hope to people who might otherwise be in despair. And this is what a walking mare must do in every town in America. They must concern himself with the meanest of the problems and he must develop programs that will truly meet the needs and get to the doorstep of the people. And these are regarded in many senses as the more material. I think I could not. Stop without concluding with this admonition on communication that all of these programs of education and welfare have housing. Getting to the doorstep is good. But if they do not get there in a way that they create dignity and respect.
Among our people then I think we have lost the big fight. So I urge you. To look at communication not only in the sense of bringing the programs to the doorstep of our people. I urge you to work along the lines of creating the kind of respect and creating the kind of dignity for every human being that affords him truly an equal opportunity and a place in the sun. That was the mayor of Washington D.C. The Honorable Walter E. Washington. Our next guest is widely recognized for his activities in the field of civil rights. He is Bayard Ruston executive director of the a Philip Randolph Institute in New York City. Here now is Bayard Ruston. You're going to be in for a surprise because usually when minority representatives come to speak they do not feel that they have made a contribution and that they have given you hell.
That is not my intention. I do not come to make a judgment on plans for progress. But a very simple reason. That you gentlemen. Represent that group in the world which is the most imagin ative. The most sort of going to have built up the American GNP to astronomical proportions. There is not a single problem. Concerning the 1999 automobile that you have not already begun to examine. You have the resource use for our having built perhaps the most affluent society in the world. And therefore in one sense it would be a waste of my time and your time to analyze what is happening in plans for progress.
You chaps up to new Asli analyzing. And you know. Them for whatever judgement is to be made upon it. You are in a better position than anyone else according to your lights. If there is a problem. With American business in regard to the solution of this problem. I do not believe it springs from your skills. Not being applied but rather. Perhaps. That you do not know and have not yet done enough. As none of us has done enough. Because you do not truly comprehend. The extraordinary nature of the problem which we face. The fact is gentlemen. This nation is in a crisis. Such as it has not been in since the Civil War.
I do not say this by way of threat but by way of analysis. The choice before us is to bring the poor or the lumpen proletariat. Into the working classes. There are very shall guarantee that the society shall be torn asunder. If one knows anything about Revolutionary literature. The term lumpenproletariat is an important one. Because the lumpenproletariat that lose the economic costs have been variably. Been destructive to the society. And invariably have been more destructive to themselves. Then they have the society. People often forget.
That the most vicious riot in this country was in 1863 where 300 people were killed in New York City. Were 30 people were lynched in New York City where babies had their fingers and toes torn off and given away as souvenirs. Read the amount of damage relatively done in Iraq's new Iraq and where we have the cities. Last summer. Was not so great. As it was in 1863. And gentleman there was not a Negro in those riots. Negra arms were the butt of those riots. The only riots were carried on and called the draft riots. By one lump and probably tearing at Irish. And the significant thing and I have done research on this. I went back to
the New York Times files. And I really am only employment amongst young Irish. Runs similar to the rate of unemployment in Detroit. The housing conditions at that period for the Irish were similar to the housing condition for Negroes. For I learned there are just those negroes who are being taken on top questionably into Iran now. Because they are poor. The Irish at that period were being conscripted in larger numbers. And at that period whites who had three hundred dollars could have very good military service. But there was scarcely an Irishman in New York who could have afforded to pay it. My point gentlemen is that no time since the Civil War where have we faced the crisis we now face. But I do not want to speak merely objectively. I went to speak
subjectively. There I hope with an object that they are. Let us face it. When President Johnson spoke. Before Congress. And mentioned the problem of civil rights. And did not get a plethora of applause. But mention crime in the streets. And got more players than any single person has gotten since Churchill appeared before the combined House and Senate. We are facing a proposition similar to the end of the Civil War where the abolitionists were filled with goodwill. Halo effect for that minority did not want slavery. But when that was over we have a mission a speak term a total failure.
Because they substituted an Maro position for an economic and social problem. It was the play liberals who then cry Give us a purpose and I'm no but the abolitionists could not only arise around an economic and political social program. And thus the negro was abandoned and in the election of 1877. 1876 in the year following it the Union Army was withdrawn from the south. I want the simple proposition that we have had years a bro. We are tired of the Negro problem. We want to advance away from it. It has been witnessed too long. And we are in a parallel to that period where people are using every imaginable excuse. Now I happen to believe that anti-Semitism is a horrible thing. But there are very few Negroes involved in any at the summit ism. But there are thousands of people
in the right community who will argue well if that's the way we're going to talk we will have nothing to do with them. I believe that riots or whatever his name was. And I was amongst the Negril leaders who denounced rioting and was almost killed in the riot in Harlem trying to quit. But my friends. Less than 2 percent of the negroes in this country if 2 percent have ever engaged in rioting. And yet there are hundreds of thousands if not millions of people who are now saying that's the way we want to act. They want to and then we will have nothing to do with it. Powell is my friends that in. 1877 the Union Army was withdrawn from the south. Because people got tired of the color question. And today. People are arguing. How much longer are they going to push. What do they run.
And the term crime in the streets is rapidly becoming the slogan for keeping the nigger in his place. Ampere will not work. Surely there is crime. But my friends. There are kinds of crime. The most dangerous crime to the United States is not crime in the streets but crime on the part of organized crime. And preparations. That is not discussed. Furthermore if a city like Harlem. Where there are 77 a new Rockwell there are 77000. Legros and Puerto Rico's and poor whites who cannot find work. And no hope for whom society is not prepared to find work.
We have to have some sympathy for those who then learn to live by their wits by selling numbers and dope. And if a cop puts his hand on the middle class white who is selling numbers in the street he puts his hand on one who has an opportunity for work and didn't take it. If he puts his hand upon a Negro youth who is selling numbers. He may be putting his finger on a man whose only way out. Was to live by his wits. Because we have a society which has not provided him with work nor any incentive that work one day will be possible. That is a crisis. Now our gentleman. The question always arises as to whether or not we are making progress. And I want you to know that the question of whether
we are making progress is an extremely silly question and utterly meaningless question. Now if this were the bottom of the graph. And this were 1940 and if Negroes were demanding that much the white society was prepared to answer by saying we will accommodate to you to that degree looming the gap between aspiration and reality very short indeed. And therefore none revolutionary. Now if you looked at the progress I would be the first one to say that from 1940 to now. Not at all the progress we've made but it's meaningless.
Because what has now happened is that aspiration has gone through the ceiling leaving the gap. Between the degree of progress made and the aspiration to progress so extremely high. As to lead to riots in the street. That is to say we cannot separate what it is people feel they need and must have and there is rightfully there as. To some abstract formula that indeed we have made progress. Because one situation is not revolutionary and the other one despite the degree of problems which has been made is catastrophic. Now I don't have this. Something has emerged. Amongst middle class negroes they are negroes who are middle class a crime a more rapidly in the economic order.
Than any other single segment of the society. Act the same time Negroes at the bottom of the latter are losing ground at every point. Three simple facts. Since 1950 for oh where are murder and Negro youngsters in segregated classrooms. Then before the Supreme Court decision. Now do not misunderstand me. That is not well because of either prejudice or discrimination but it is a complex are many other factors in the society. Since 1950 furled unemployment amongst Negro males has double. Amongst neg rose between 18 and 23. It has quadruple. Here again that is not due to segregation and discrimination.
Nevertheless for those who live in the ghetto where segregation and discrimination does exist they cannot be as analytical as you and I. Only the ghettos are bigger. There are more racks more roaches and more despair in them. And that leads to two Sloan's each of which feeds on the other. When I was first black frustration anger hatred a feeling of being closed in upon. And to the greed that that black frustration is expressed it creates white fear. Now when white fear emerges and you have all kinds of new legislation brought in stop Stokely take away relief checks from people say that babies who are born out of wedlock after they get a certain number the rest can be fed.
When you get that kind of thing that they are which is a result of white fear. That increases Nigro frustration. Then of course negroes behave more irrationally which then makes white people more fearful. That is the cycle which you judge women must break and they cannot be broken by asking people to be nice. Any psychiatrist will tell you if a man is afraid of the dark there's no need to sit in a dark room with him and tell him he ought not to be afraid. And the same is true of frustration. The only answer to white fear and Negro frustration is whether this society will create ampler housing for all so that none need be afraid. Ample wealth for all. So none need be afraid and adequate schooling for all. Yes you Chicago very threw stones said King. There are
nuns here all those who marched with King. But let us not fool ourselves by a simple analysis of racism. Racism is always there. The problem is do you create a society which increases it so it can be brought to the surface and politically and socially when AIs. Want to create a society which reduces the possibility and racism. Being organized. Politically and socially. Where there were adequate housing whose welfare of the people in Chicago. And adequate jobs for all the people in Chicago who want to work. I submit that that racism which king faced would not have been there. There will be nicest but they could not Americanized themselves in that context. Now I will problem gentleman even with your record and with mine. I'm not pointing any
fingers. Is this. That the programs we have devised are so no n adequate for the need to create any hate mail or frustration. If there were riots in Holland tomorrow. The hotel Theresa would be the building they'd want to set on fire. Because that's where the higher you act has this office for getting jobs for young people. Does that mean how you act is not good jobs for young people. It does not. I know people who work there they have done a marvelous job with what they have to work with. But that place would be the first to be set by our. Bequest forty thousand youngsters have gone. And 5000 have got jobs. Leaving the 45000 who had hope that that building would do something for
them. When I do prefer feeling of frustration. I am describing the act the courtesy. For example in the entire world on poverty there is not a single project. And addressed to economic security for the heads of families. Now I do not understand that I am against the war on poverty. I am not one of the Southern senators. I am friendly but I must point out that there is a problem where you have a head start for failure rules and I jogged her are in a situation where jobs often do not exist for 19 year olds. But the hand of families still do Marlise the family still Demar lies. Because the society will not face up to the problem.
I'll go on showing the question How now do you create economic security for the head of a family whether he is educated an educated skilled or unskilled. And I want to point out to you businessmen that some of you are saying now the man with the track How can you create a situation where people who are under skill untrained lacking in motivation can can can make it. Well I'll take your own experience. Because there was a commitment in 1941 to win the World. There was also a commitment and a scramble for bodies to produce the goods to do it. Now what you gentlemen did with the government. West just to go out and see our people to see if they were wrong. You did not say this one's too feminine that once to chronicle this
ones to black list runs to her all the same ones too young. Oh no American business much commonality for there. They said come one and. And these people were absolutely so ignorant of industrial life that you fellows had to so to live now look that's a saw. That's a hammer. That's a castle and that's a drill. Now growing under these factories which we and our government have set up and got to work. American business created America.
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Series
The next fifty years
Episode
Role of Business in the Future Soci
Producing Organization
WAMU-FM (Radio station : Washington, D.C.)
Contributing Organization
University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/500-cv4bt040
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Description
Series Description
For series info, see Item 3455. This prog.: The Role of Busines in the Future Society: Walter Washington, Bayard Rustin
Date
1968-07-01
Topics
Social Issues
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:29:55
Credits
Producing Organization: WAMU-FM (Radio station : Washington, D.C.)
AAPB Contributor Holdings
University of Maryland
Identifier: 68-26-8 (National Association of Educational Broadcasters)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Duration: 00:29:44
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Citations
Chicago: “The next fifty years; Role of Business in the Future Soci,” 1968-07-01, University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 29, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-cv4bt040.
MLA: “The next fifty years; Role of Business in the Future Soci.” 1968-07-01. University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 29, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-cv4bt040>.
APA: The next fifty years; Role of Business in the Future Soci. Boston, MA: University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-cv4bt040