Speech challenging the American character, 1984

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^{Think back just 28 27 years ago.}

[Illegible]

1961, [illegible] was a Presidential inaugural year. A tired old general was mustering out a listn^less Republican Administration, and a vigorous, young cold war liberal was preparing to lead the nation toward a new frontier. The inauguration speech of John F. Kennedy in January, 1961, featured some of the more memorable pieces of Presidentail rhetoric in recent memory. It was, as we say, a well crafted speech; its ideas marshalled for maximum emotional effect, its phrasing most articulate, its candences rolled with meaasured eloquence.

It was, in its own way, a most dangerous speech, for if it glistened with idealism, it fairly bristled with challenge.

Whatever else, it somehow managed to capture the imagination of millions, and defined the political motives and moral outline of decades yet to come.

That new President promised to go anywhere, bear any burden, fight any foe in defense of freedom; that promise, translated into public policy, produced the [illegible] ^mindset that gave us Vietnam. The new President also pronounced a clear call to the idealism of [illegible] young and old, to dedication and sacrifice [illegible] ^that call, translated into public policy, produced the Peace Corps and Domestic social programs for the poor.

In the late fifties and early 1960s, something else had begun to bud and blossom, as black Americans revived a then-dormant revolution.

We had borne our share of wartime's burdens, and now demanded a share of the precious and prosperous peace.

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In Montgomery, 30 years ago in December, a small, tired black woman did just that. On her way home from work one evening, Mrs. Rosa Parks set in motion a movement that eliminated legal segregation in america in little more than a decade.

[Illegible]

Nonviolent protest was the only available avenue of expression for a largely voteless people - then only 3% of eligible blacks in Mississippi were permitted to vote, and 28 Southern counties with black populations of 82% or greater had not one single black registered voter, although several had more registered whites than there were whites eligible to vote.

[illegible] The protests that forced the elimination of the barriers of race from places of public accomodation and from the political process resulted ^{almost entirely} from the willingness of young and old, black and white Americans to adopt the disciplines of nonviolence and hard work, and the demands of the changing political market place.

Their bodies - then - were weapons aimed directly at the heart of the beast.

Their votes - then - were a precious commodity, available not just to the highest bidder or most, pleasing psyche, but to the candidate whose record and past performance held greatest promise for some delivery in the future.

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But since that period of great ^{involvement and} activity, some serious [illegible]^set-backs have happened to us all.

The sun set on the '60s, and rose to illuminate the new Nixon era. A national negative [illegible] ^mind set quickly became crystal clear. Idealism and vigor were replaced with cynicism and narcissism. ^Our young people abandoned the war against racism and colonialism and turned inward, toward themselves, ^{toward examination of their id.}

As the sixties ended, a major portion of the population had severed all connection with the movement for equal rights and social justice in America. The 'me' generation had homesteaded the New Frontier.

[illegible]

[illegible]

The 1970s were a decade of reaction and self indulgence, of retreat from national responsibility. New affinities were formed while old alliances disintegrated. In Washington, the Great Society was replaced with malign neglect. A kind of life-boat ethic sailed into the national consciousness, the notion that we are all passengers on a global Titanic, a sinking ship without lifeboats enough to go around. Quite naturally, those to be pushed out of the lifeboats

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constitute that portion of the population that is quickly becoming irrelevant to the productive process - the uneducated young and the useless aged, and most of those whose skins are dark.

But by 1975, the architect of avarice and social policy had been disgraced, dismissed from power, a care-free caretaker installed in his stead.

In 1976, we turned to the polls in record numbers to elect a man who clearly knew the words to our hymns - in less than a year he showed he'd forgotten the numbers on our paychecks.

He ^sadly was dismissed in 1980, and [illegible] four years later, the people [illegible] spoke again. They've reinstalled the evil empire, and reelected an amiable incompetent who clearly intends to take the federal government entirely out of the business of enforcing equal opportunity in America.

He intends to eliminate affirmative action for women and minorities.

ties

They intend, in fact, to erase the laws and programs written in blood and [illegible] ^sweat in the twenty-five years since Martin King was the premier figure in black America, and a majority of Americans [illegible] ^{black and white were} single-minded in pursuit of human freedoms.

As was true more than 100 years ago, a president desperate for power, entered into an illicit arrangement, not just with the unreconstructed south, but with the national unreconstructed mentality, that believed then as it does now that private profit and public arrogance could be pursued at the expense of the people living on the economic edge.

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