Speech beginning with quote from W.E.B.Du Bois about the Problem of the 20th Century being the Color Line, 1970 March (Doc 3 of 3)

W.E.B. Dubois correctly stated that the ^single problem of the twentieth century would be the problem of the color line.

In those few words he summed up the crisis that has occupied men and nations, and that has become the first order of business for millions of oppressed peoples.

The roots of the crisis are as old as the world itself; the roots involve the continuing failure of the minority of peoples in this world to share wealth and power with the majority of the world's population.

It is a struggle that has broken out on every college campus; it has been taken to the streets of most cities in the country, both violently and nonviolently.

It is part of the struggle that inspired Cuban cane cutters to overthrow dictators, a part of the struggle that inspired Vietnamese peasants to resist successfully [illegible] ^2.5 years of attempts to

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dominate their homeland; it is a part of the struggle that inspiresd Alabama sharecroppers to risk life and limb in order to have a chance at controlling their destiny.

Dr. DuBois believed that scientific and rational study of the problems of race and class would yield rational and logical solutions; civilized man, or educated man, is supposed to solve his problems in a civilised manner, we have all believed.

But the problems of the 29th century are so vast that many have quite properly been urged to seek uncivilised solutions to them. These problems include the poisoning of the air and water; the rape of the land; the new colonizations of peoples, both here and abroad; the new imperialism practiced by western democracy, and the continuing struggle of those who have not against those who have.

With the birth of the colossus called the United States, rational and educated men began to believe that civilisation stretched

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to its highest order had begun. Building on a heritage of revolution, expressing a belief in the equality of most, if not all men, this new democracy was to be the highest elevation of man's relations, one to the other, and a new beginning of decency between nations.

Civilisation, as it was then defined, included imposing limitations of war between nations, encouraging the spread of industrialization, the civilizing of so-called heathen elements, the harnessing of nature for the benefit and pleasure of man. It was generally believed that man's better nature would triumph over his base desire to conquer and rule and make war, and that intellect, reason and logic would share equally with morality in deciding man's fate.

Of course it has not been so. Man still makes war, he still insists that one group subordinate their its wishes and desires to that of another, he still insists on gathering material wealth at the expense of his fellows and his environment.

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men and nations have grown arrogant, and the classic struggle of the 20th century continues.

The educated peoples of this world have enslaved the uneducated; the rich have dominated the poor; the white minorities have crushed the non-white peoples of the globe.

Revolutions nations - revolutionary 300 ²⁰⁰ years ago - have turned to counter-revolution.

This country, which has visited ^{after visiting} death of thousands of Vietnamese has found the arrogance to ignore the centuries of pleading from her own domestic colony, the Blacks.

When these pleadings are dismissed, then the problem of the 20th century comes to the fore, and violence is done to the notion that men can solve their problems without it.

In ^{the remainder of} the 1970s, the theme of the struggle is likely to be violence. We have already seen ample evidence of what sort of violence

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has been visited on the oppressed people of the world for centuries. We are likely in the future to see increasing answers in violence from those who have been on the receiving line all too often.

We need to discover ^re-define who is, and who isn't, violent in American.

Violence is Black children going to school for 12 years and receiving five years of education.

Violence is 30 ³⁰ million hungry stomachs in the most affluent nation of Earth.

Violence is having Black people represent a disporportionate share of inductees and casualties in Vietnam.

Violence is a country where property counts more than people.

Violence is an economy that believes in socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor.

Violence is spending $900 per second to stifle the Vietnamese, but only $72 a year to feed the hungry people at home.