In Black America; Benjamin L. Hooks

all right? This is In Black America, Reflections of the Black Experience in American Society. Recently, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People held its 76th Annual Convention in Dallas, Texas. 31 years ago, in the summer of 1954, 2,000 civil rights supporters from around this nation moved quietly into Dallas's Black Neighborhoods for the 45th Annual Convention of the NAACP. When the NAACP held its Convention, then, Black Americans were celebrating the Association's landmark victory in the Brown vs. Board of Education case

in what the United States Supreme Court outlawed the secret but equal doctrine. I'm John Hanson and this week, Dr. Benjamin L. Hooks, keynote address before the 76th Annual Convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in Black America. We were only raised on that about $600,000 to date. And one of the reasons I think that we had to stop the efforts, we had a building that we were trying to buy. It's been my experience in 30 years of raising money for the church, you got to have something to be actually buying. And we thought we were extremely lucky to raise a 600,000 without having the building now that we have a building that we can show the pictures of in the site. We anticipate moving right forward that program, don't think we'll have a great deal of problem. But so far, we raised $600,000, but we decided to use it all for the building fund, the part for the endowment and current expenses we didn't have to use that. So we've used it all for the building fund.

Dr. Benjamin L. Hooks, Executive Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. The NAACP is the oldest, largest, strongest, and most effective civil rights organization in this nation. Formed in 1909 in New York City by a group of black and white citizens committed to helping to write the social injustices, the NAACP is committed to achievement through nonviolence, the petition, the ballot, and the courts, and is persistent in the use of legal and moral persuasion even in the face of overt and violent racial hostility. Recently, the NAACP held its 76 annual convention in Dallas, Texas. The purpose of the convention is to send NAACP policies for the coming year, nominate candidates for its board of directors, select sites for future conventions, promote fellowship among NAACP members, and leaders to help maintain organizational identity and commitment, and for training of NAACP leaders for more effective work. In this program, we have the keynote address from Dr. Benjamin L. Hooks, Executive Director of the NAACP.

Dr. Hooks has served in this position since August of 1977. We've come to Dallas, Texas for the NAACP's 76 convention. 31 years ago, we last assembled here. When we came here in 1954, conditions were vastly different from today. Our meetings were held in hot, the unconditioned air, on air condition halls, all over the Scott St. John Wars air condition to where we met. We slept in private homes and black guest houses. We were confronted by a system of rigid segregation and overt discrimination, with signs that proclaimed boldly no blacks allowed or wanted, whites only. These were clearly an evidence. Despite these conditions, the winds of optimism were blowing and hope abounded. Today, 17th, 1954, just a few days before we came, the United States Supreme Court had issued this unanimous decision that segregated public schools were inherently unequal.

This decision reversed the separate but equal doctrine of the Pleasant Versus Ferguson decision of 1896. At the 1954 convention, that was jubilation, for we believe correctly that the brown decision was a decisive blow against the illicit barriers of racial segregation. Today, America is a change to society. It has changed because of the persistent work of men and women of goodwill, of all races, and specifically and particularly because of the work of Euro in double-ACP. We are men and women who believe that evil should not rule, and that injustice should not reign. In small towns and urban cities, black and white Americans fought discrimination in the trenches, in the streets, in the halls of Congress and in the courts.

We fought racism, bigotry, and discrimination because of our firm conviction of the Constitution if it were to be a living document with menin must protect the rights not just of white Americans but all Americans. We fought because we believe that skin color and sex were simply facts of birth that they did not confer inferiority or superiority upon any group or gender. We have never accepted the notion that the Declaration of Independence intended that liberty should be divided into an installment plan and don't out on a deferred payment plan. Today, we are more determined than ever that when the locomotive of history rolls through the remaining years of the 20th century and on into the 21st century, that black Americans will no longer be left standing at fully at dismal and desolate terminals of second-class citizenship. It is no secret that we in the AACP and in the black community have substantial differences with the policies of the present national administration.

These differences are on record and they run deep. Our differences include the belief and conviction that affirmative action is a necessary and legitimate remedy to fight the right the wrongs produced by years of systematic discrimination, segregation, and slavery. We believe that if public policy and practices were used to exclude entire classes of people from participation in the public and private sectors because of race, or gender, or color, then color and race and gender conscious remedies must be used to include in those who have been excluded out. And I tell you tonight that when you hear all of these pious platitudes about a color blinds society, when you hear all of these things, so why is it that for 300 years they had a color conscious society, a gender conscious society, and now that some of us are finally getting up off of the bottom of the ladder, all of a sudden you hear them saying we want a color blinds society.

We do too when we get to the place where we can enjoy that color blinds society. We differ or many of the priorities which have been set by the present administration on social programs. We believe it is a appropriate role of any civilized society and enlightened government to provide humane assistance to those persons who need it for whatever valid reason. Be it old age, a handicap, an infirmity, or any other valid reason. This was include our children, the family farmer, the steel worker throw out of work by cheap imported steel, the textile worker whose throw out of work, and those who cannot find work through no fault of their own. We differ sharply with the policy of this administration in its failure to appoint blacks and women in meaningful numbers to vacancies in policy making positions and to the federal courts.

The record is that this present national administration, if I remember correctly, has only reported three black federal judges in almost five years and that is not a record that anybody ought to be proud of. We are unalterably opposed to the appointment of William Bradford Reynolds. We are opposed to the concept of promoting a man who hadn't done the job right where he was. Our position is based upon documented evidence of his open hostility to civil rights, his proven track record of circumvention of court decrees, congressional intent, and anti-discrimination laws and policies which have already been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States of America. He has willingly participated in exacerbating the differences between groups, white and black, male and female, Jewish and non-Jewish.

He has given aid and comfort to the enemies of civil rights. He has made a mockery of the civil rights division by his spoken word and by his reactionary actions. He has narrowed the meaning of fair housing laws by restricting fair housing enforcement to cases of intentional discrimination. He has sought to modify affirmative action, consent, decrees in some 51 cities, states and municipalities. Can you imagine our illustrious President Mr. Reagan going thousands of miles to Bitburg, Germany to heal old wounds while William Reynolds travels all over this country to open up old wounds? He has opposed the use of girls and timetables even on a voluntary basis. He has advised federal agencies to discontinue maintaining records which document racial and sexual imbalance.

He has challenged legalist sanctions set aside for minority contractors. We refute Mr. Reynolds' position. Number one, that a misplaced emphasis on school segregation has led to an neglect of education quality. This simply is not true. The schools are not going down because they are integrated. That Magnus schools alone will desegregate the nation's public schools. There is no body of evidence to support that assumption. That volunteer programs of schools segregation will work. The facts indicate otherwise that Colorado bussin has been counterproductive. It is strange that wherever they talk about forced bussin, they forget that of the 42 million American school children, 21 million catch a bus every morning of their life to go to school. And less than 4 million are catching that bus for purpose of racial desegregation.

Why don't they talk about the 17 million owned buses for all the reason? Let me say in the words of Jesse Jackson, it is not the bus in us. That's the problem that we're having in this country. We refute the assumption that the U.S. Justice Department may willfully ignore judicial decisions. And that the U.S. we refute his position that this justice department has in fact enforced the law. The evidence against Mr. Reynolds confirmation runs deep. It is compelling. It is irrefutable. And we ought to say, we ought to some dollars, that if the United States Senate confirms Mr. Reynolds, it will be an insult to black Americans, to women, and all other minorities. His confirmation with signal is the render of the U.S. Justice Department by our elected officials, to the force of darkness. It was signal to legal terrorists that they can bomb the 14th Amendment, hijacked the Civil Rights Act of 1957, 64, 65, and 68.

And whole hostage, those who are trying to go into the full sunlight of equality. But we would be ill-advised to spend all of our time tonight to engage in endless recriminations against the Reagan administration. While we have many differences with many of its policies, we are aware of the fact that even if there were no Reagan administration, even if there were not a William Batford Reynolds, black Americans still have many problems, difficult problems. And they do not lend themselves to easy solutions. Black Americans have experienced different degrees of adversity with every president that has ever been in office from George Washington to Ronald Reagan. We have never, ever received, even during the most progressive periods of our nation's history, full justice, full equality, or full parity.

But we are not strangers to adversity. What could be more adverse than the period of slavery, or the post-reconstruction period, or the Woodrow Wilson era? We must not just recriminate. We must rise to the challenge of erasing every vestige of inequity and inequality. We must rise up. Dr. King used to say that in life there is an autonomous, and there is an easiness. Black Americans in 1985 ought not to have to struggle, ought not to have to struggle for rights which other people take for granted. The easiness is that we have no alternative but to fight for equal rights as long as doors remain closed doors. Black Americans ought to be employed and fully integrated in every industry, and in the public and private sectors.

The easiness is that we have been historically and systematically denied many opportunities. Black Americans ought to be better represented in the highest levels of government and business. The easiness is that we still have a long way to go before we can achieve parity. And so, all of us who have opposed my age, and I have spent one half of my life fighting for rights that other people take for granted. And I tell you what, America, I'm getting somewhat tired. I think that before I die, I ought to be able to sit down fully and completely at the overwhelming table of equality, justice, and equity. And that is my determination before I leave these mundane shores. If affirmative action is knocked out, our struggle will become even more difficult.

If remediation is knocked out, it will become even more difficult for our children, tripled by socioeconomic conditions to catch up and receive a quality of education. If job problems are eliminated, it becomes more difficult for our unskilled to secure employment. If subsidized housing is discontinued, it becomes more difficult for one-third of black Americans who are now living in substandard housing to secure decent and safe housing. If nutritional problems are reduced, black children will be the victims of stunted physical and mental grove, as more black infants will die an infancy, and more mothers will die in childbirth. If social security benefits are curbed, more black elderly will be forced into poverty. Senator Holland has made it very clear that we will either feed the child or jail the adult. You make the choice. We believe that programs of social uplift are necessary, and that the measure of a nation is determined by how it treats the least fortunate in its midst. In addition to the assaults' ways against civil rights by the Justice Department, we have victims of economic warfare.

Basic elementary economic programs to support those at the bottom of the economic ladder have been slashed while military expenditures have continued at an accelerated pace. Despite escalating expenditures in military spending, there is no proof that there has been a correspondingly high increase in our ability to repel aggression. $1,000 coffee pots and $40 screwdrivers and $150 pliers are only symptoms of the sickness in our military supply picture. It is a tip of iceberg. By every readable account there are billions of dollars of waste and some outright fraud in our military supply system. And there is no vigorous effort to stamp out this kind of fraud while on the right of the lease, the loss, the level, the poor, the powers and the poverty stricken have been trampled on. And Mr. David Stockman is trying to knock out every social program while the fat military contactors in this ungodly alliance are taking everything that's not nailed down.

And we must rise up and tell them we've had enough of it. Then there are the polyadows of this administration, some of whom are black. And they shall remain nameless. I won't give them that much publicity tonight. I shall not call their names. They do not say that blacks shall overcome. They say that blacks have overcome. These apologists point out that in each and every instance blacks are treated badly. They are treated equitably, that every barrier has been eliminated, and that every row of black has been removed. Therefore they say we no longer need affirmative action.

We no longer need goals and timetables or judicial remedies. They further suggest by that illogical logic that the Civil Rights Act of 1957, 1964, 1968, 1972, and 1982, they suggest that those civil rights were not only written by white men, but they were written for white men. Now, no more illogical thing can be said. The fact of the matter is that white men did not need these laws because they were the only for in the world who were already protected. The Congress, aware of discriminatory treatment against women, blacks, and other minority groups, passed these laws to protect the rights of those who had been discriminated against. And let me say in passing that it is to the eternal credit of white men who composed the majority of the House and the Senate that they passed those laws. It is to the credit of white men who set on the bench of the Supreme Court and the various federal and circuit courts that they correctly interpreted those laws.

And history will record favorably that they rules above petty selfishness to write, interpret, and enforce some good laws. Let it not be the verdict of history. That if this critical juncture in the life of our nation, that white men who now occupy seats of power and authority will bring shame upon themselves in this nation by turning back the clock. Let my history record that verdict against those. Now, for those of us who say that we have got it made, let me just briefly give you some facts. We are proud of our progress. We made a great deal of progress. And I have to be crazy not to admit that we have come a long, long way. The very fact that the last time we were here, we met in those hot halls in the day, even though we couldn't get our rooms straight, we are still in the hot regions that are walking around in the lobby.

We were raised in sand and stand on the counters and saying, we shall not be moved. And they are going to hear from us some more. I don't want to dwell on that too much. They are going to hear all of some more from that. We look back with pride on the strides we have made. But the fact is that today, the unemployment rate in the white community is somewhere around 7%. In the black community is 19%. In the black youth community, unemployment is at least 42%. And the urban leaks suggest it may be as high as 50%. While the unemployment rate in the white youth community is only 14%. The median family income of the black family is only 56% of the median family income of the white family. Out of more than 2,000 daily papers in this country, two-thirds of them do not have a black person in the newsroom at all. Two-thirds are the two-thousand. There are more than 10,000 commercial radio stations this nation and black folk are less than 250.

There are more than 800 commercial television stations this nation and black folk are on ten. You couldn't throw dice that many times and lose unless somebody had loaded the dice. There are approximately 2,000 predominantly white institutions of higher learning and I think there are about 15 black presidents. In the fortune rank of 1,000 top companies, they have more than 15,000 members on their boards of directors and scarcely 150 of them are black. And somebody wants to say, we are taking over. Honey, the revolution ain't come yet. We are still trying to get on that bottom wall. We're less than 2% of all the doctors. We're less than 2% of all the lawyers. We're less than 4% of all the prison guards of 100 senators. There's not a single black senator.

Our 50 governors, there's not a single black governor. There's not a single black lieutenant governor. Of all the state elected officials, only three blacks have been elected one in Connecticut, one in Michigan, one in Illinois. We brag about the fact that we've got more than 5,000 local elected black officials. But I remind you, there are more than 500,000 that have been elected and still we have only one percent. How in the name of God can anybody say that we have made it? We still have a long way to go. The NAACP will not stop until we've made it all away. We must stop the concept that somehow affirmative action is reverse discrimination. That's a lie. And we've got to call it what it is. That affirmative action is preferential treatment. The concept is that every time a woman gets a job, there's a job that a white man could do better. But they have to have a woman for a quota. And we ought to stop letting them get by with that.

When I said the economics 101, they told me that there could never be a depression and a recession and an inflation in this country at the same time. Every time I go back to Memphis, I call up the ghosts of all this price and I said, Dr. Price, these white men in power succeeded in doing it. Women didn't do it. Black folk didn't do it. Hispanic Americans didn't do it. I'm not mad at white men. I know the entitled or something, but I want to tell you, God told me to tell you, you weren't entitled to everything. We're not saying come down, but for God's sake, move over because we're going to take our seats right by you. We expect results everywhere. In the recent fuel crisis, they said they wanted so many miles per gallon by a certain date. That's the goal of the timetable. We pass speed laws. April 15th, all of you know about that. They have a timetable. The goal is to collect taxes. In everything they do, they have goals and timetables. But when it comes to human rights,

they become so pious and hypocritical. And as for me, I am tired of it. I am sick and tired of it. And I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. And I don't intend to take it much longer. Why then, or some of these blacks, happen to perpetuate this evil? We have our suspicions. I will not name them. My advisors asked me to do so and I refuse. My advisors said I should call them mercenaries. You know, people who can be bought to fight for any cause. My advisors told me I should call them fools. But I ain't going to do that. My advisors told me that I ought to call them Uncle Tom's and Aunt Jemima, but I'm not going to do that. My advisors told me that they're not innocent. My advisors told me that they have become a part of the administration's hit squad.

They have formed to dismantle the hard one rights of America's least powerful group. And they do it with their eyes wide open. They do their jobs really late and they do it with gusto. During this convention, we are going to sharpen our skills and meet them like they did in Los Angeles. Everywhere they open up their line papers, we're going to open up some truth papers and let the truth shine in. Our challenge is to bring truth and morality and effectiveness to fight that our enemy is waged with their rhetoric. Dr. Benjamin L. Hooks, Executive Director of the National Association for the Advancement of Color People, delivering the keynote address before the 76th Annual Convention in Dallas, Texas. If you have a comment or would like to produce a cassette copy of this program, write us the address is in Black America, Longhorn Radio Network, UT Austin, Austin, Texas, 7-H7-12.

Friend Black America's Technico producer, Cliff Hargrove, I'm John Hanson. Join us next week. You've been listening to In Black America, Reflections of the Black Experience in American Society. In Black America is produced and distributed by the Center for Telecommunication Services at UT Austin and does not necessarily reflect the views of the University of Texas at Austin or this station. This is The Longhorn Radio Network.