Speech concerning Ronald Reagan, 1982

-6Proving the intent of acts committed in secret years ago is nearly impossible. If the president prevails, voting rights will perish, and black Americans will be a voteless -- and a hopeless -- people once again.

Sixty-Five members of the United States senate have promised to support the Act's renewal, but the administration is adamant in insisting that the house version be weakened. This is a measure of the administration's intent toward black America. They intend, if we let them, to dilute the precious right to vote. They intend, in fact, to turn back the civil rights clock until it becomes a sundial.

Attorney General William French Smith has resolved -- even over objections of the FBI -- to roll back the reforms that protect us from illicit government surveillance.

He wants to eliminate the independent special prosecutor, to legitimize corporate bribery overseas, to permit surprise searches of newsrooms, to restrict public inspection of public information.

For the first time since the Nixon years, the actions of the Justice Departmentare subject to the review and approval of the White House, and to political intervention from powerful Republican politicians.

For example: - The White House inserted itself into school desegregation litigation in Louisiana and Missouri, the latter action at the urging of Missouri's Republican governor, Christopher Bond.

- The justice department -- At the request of senator Jeremiah Denton -- removed the term "white supremacy" froma suit against white supremacy in Mobile, Alabama. - After house republic whip Trent Lott of Mississippi objected to a suit against jail conditions in his state, the attorney general's office announced that no longer would justice bring such suits.

- At the insistence of senator Jesse Helms (Republican - North Carolina), the department of justice agreed to an integration plan for North Carolina's public colleges that violated the standards set by the department of education.

- In school integration classes in Seattle and in Chicago, the justice department shifted sides. In both cases the Reagan justice department reversed the position taken by its predecessors, and supported school desegregation plans that would reinforce segregated schools.

- In school integration cases elsewhere, the department has abandoned the principles of Brown vs. The Board of Education, and sought voluntary remedies that reduce the chances for equal education.

- With increasing frequency, the attorney general has attacked the federal courts for protecting the rights of minorities.

- The assistant attorney general has declared that the Weber case, endorsing voluntary affirmative action, was "wrong decided."

- In further repudiation of Brown, the attorney general has said that children who do not want to attend integrated schools, will not be forced to do so.

- The assistant attorney general has restricted enforcement of federally-mandated plans for equal employment opportunity, and has retracted the requirement that federal agencies obey federal law in hiring and promotions.

- Twenty-four hours before a voting discrimination case involving senator Strom Thurmond's (republican - South Carolina) home town was to be heard, the justice department switched sides and abandoned their support of Black plaintiffs who charged intentional political discrimination. In civil rights generally, the retreat has been sounded, the government's forces leading the way toward the dismal, distant past. It is here their actions are most frightful, their purposes most sinister, their design a deliberate attempt to restore white-skin privilege and white-male dominance in American life. The new chief of the civil rights division of justice has announced that no longer will the government insist that a guilty employer promise to do wrong no more. Vice-president Bush has announced an administrative review of guidelines designed to protect women from sexual harassment on the job and discrimination in college athletics. The secretary of labor has proposed new rules that will exempt three-fourths of presently-covered workers from civil rights protection.

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he has ordered rescinding a Carter-era prohibition against federal contractors purchasing membership in discriminatory private clubs for their employees.

Under immense pressure from the corporate community, the administration proposes to let the market system regulate full and fair employment for minorities and for women.

The last time capitalism provided full employment for blacks was over 100 years ago -- it was called slavery then.

For the Reagan administration, equal opportunity means a better than even chance for minorities and women to be unemplyed. It means an unequal chance at the welfare rolls, a head start in hopelessness, an affirmation of the opportunity America has always provided blacks to be last hired and first fired.

In a speech in late May, the attorney general came dangerously close to saying that government lawyers would not obey the nation's laws. Moreover, he revealed that he either did not know or did not care about case law in civil rights.

He apparently thinks that court cases can be overturnedat the polls, that Ronald Reagan was elected to overthrow supreme court decisions that his supporters do not like. He seems to believe that unpopular laws do not have to be obeyed and that their violators do not require punishment.

Such ignorance is dangerous in a private practitioner. In the nation's top lawyer, it is an invitation to anarchy and an appeal to the racist instincts that he has pledged by solemn oath to oppose.

This assault on civil rights is coupled with an all-out attack on the yet unfulfilled right of every American to be free of want and economic worry.

-10Millions of families, poor and working poor, are being herded into poverty as they slip through a safety net so fragile and pourous it could not hold Moby Dick.

A study conducted by a former Nixon administration official for the university of Chicago center for the study of welfare policy concluded: "The effects of thew Reagan proposals will be to drive many low-income families deeper into poverty while inflation continues to deplete the value of their diminishing incomes, and to shift significant fiscal administrative and political burdens onto states and localities whose budgets are already in the red. The president claims that he will leave a 'safety net' intact to protect low-income Americans. This is simply not so." In fact, many working poor families suffer not one but several cuts. A ceta worker loses his or her job, only to confront the consequences of other cuts in employment insurance, food stamps and medicaid.

A low-income worker is knocked off AFDC. Loses medicaid for her family as a result, and faces cuts in subsidized housing, child care, and energy assistance as well. One cut poses a serious problem for a fmaily, a chain of reduced assistance will be devastating. Many poor or working - poor families face double or triple jeopardy under the administration's cuts and a disproportionate number of them are black.

Federal aid to education -- slated for more cuts -- helps 2.6 million Americans pursue a college education.

One in every three of them is black.