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--- Begin Message ----Caveat Lector- "Equality is in the air we breathe. Oh yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me and yet I swear this oath. America will be."Speech by Julian Bond, Chairman, National Association For The Advancement Of Colored People at the Campaign for America's Future - Take Back America Conference, Wednesday, June 2, 2004 at the Marriott Wardman Park Hotel, Washington, D.C. http://www.ourfuture.org/ 3:50 - 5:30 P.M. Session, Wednesday, June 2, 2004 Speakers: Roger Hickey, Co-Director, Campaign For America's Future; Wes Boyd, President, Moveon.Org; Joan Blades, Co-Founder, Moveon.Org; Julian Bond, Chairman, National Association For The Advancement Of Colored People Transcript by: Federal News Service, Washington, D.C. http://www.fnsg.com/transcript.htm?id=20040602t3353&nquery=&query=Julian+Bond&SLID=1c2957a694e112c1701460b74566d495 JULIAN BOND: Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Time out. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you a great deal, Roger, for that kind introduction. Thank you, ladies and gentleman for your warm welcome. It's, of course, a great pleasure to be here, a great pleasure to be associated with these two. I was far from the first member of MoveOn, but proud to say I was a relatively early member of MoveOn and just love to, you know, get this sense of feeling that I'm connected to a large body of people who share my thoughts when I open up my email and, bam, that little thing comes on. And when Roger said we did this in past years without email, what could we have done if we had had email? Think what we might have accomplished then. (Applause.) It's a great pleasure to be associated with Roger and Bob, too. I've known them - I've known Roger since he looked as if he was 16 years old instead of just 20 - (laughter) - years and years ago when he was a student at Mr. Jefferson's university. And it's been a great pleasure to be associated with him for years and years. Now, this morning's newspapers, at least the Washington Post and the New York Times, sharply illuminate one important aspect of this year's election. Front page photographs in both those newspapers show President Bush surrounded by black faces, many of them ministers, and in a display of ostentatious piety he's pushing his program of federal dollars for the faithful. But this is more than outreach to racial minorities who are also religious; this is an attempt to reassure the soccer moms that candidate Bush isn't just a Bible believer. He's also racially tolerant. He's comfortable with racial minorities. He's not a bigot. Now, that's how race plays out in American politics today. Not just to voters whose skins are dark, but to voters whose skins are white. Now, that history - that development has a history and I want to spend a few moments talking about it now. As we all know, it is 50 years ago this past April that Martin Luther King preached his first sermon as the brand new pastor of Montgomery's Dexter Avenue Baptist Church. And then a month later, on May 17th, 1954 the United States Supreme Court in the case called Brown v. Board of Education unanimously declared that segregated schools violated the Constitution's promise of equal protection. So, today as we commemorate the 50th anniversary of that landmark decision, it's easy for us to cast a cynical eye at the status of school desegregation in America, or a cynical eye at the sorry state of race relations, and minimize the significance of that 50 year old struggle. But that would be a great mistake, because Brown, by destroying segregation's legality, also gave a nonviolent army the power to destroy segregation's morality as well. Thus, it's no - (applause) - thus, it's really no coincidence that this year we also celebrate the 40th anniversary of the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the most civil rights legislation before or since and our democracy's finest hour. Now, when - (applause) - when he sent what would become the '64 Civil Rights Act to Congress, President John F. Kennedy said when Americans are sent to Vietnam or West Berlin we do not ask for whites only. Today, when Americans are being sent to Afghanistan and Iraq we do not ask for whites only. So, 2004, as we commemorate these anniversaries, is a time to examine our present in relation to the past. And as we prepare for and engage in national elections, 2004 will be a time to examine our present in relation to our future. Now, we can look back on the years between Brown and '54 and the Civil Rights Act in '64 with some pride. Dr. King's first national address was at a 1957 prayer pilgrimage on the third anniversary of Brown at the Lincoln Memorial. In 1963, the year that King, fresh from the battlefields of Birmingham, told the nation of his dream at the march on Washington there were more than 10,000 anti-racist demonstrations. Now, King, of course, was the best known, the most famous of the modern movements personalities. But we ought to remember this was a people's movement which produced leaders of its own. It relied not on the noted but on the nameless, not on the famous but on the faceless. It didn't wait for commands from afar, it saw wrong and enacted against it. It saw injustice and it brought it down. Now, those were the days when women and men of all races and creeds worked together in the cause of civil rights. Those were the days when good music was popular and popular music was good. (Cheers, applause.) Those were the days when the president picked a Supreme Court and not the other way around. (Cheers, applause.) Those were the days - those were the days - (Audio malfunction.) -- with many of today's Negrophobes, he liked individual African-Americans but believed the mass was less than human. His successor, William Howard Taft said his little brown brothers - that's us - would need 50 to 100 years to become equal with whites. Woodrow Wilson, who institutionalized segregation in the federal bureaucracy, succeeded Taft. The NAACP's James Weldon Johnson said of him, my distrust and dislike came near to constituting keen hatred for an individual than anything I ever felt. Warren Harding, who followed, joked with Johnson about the rumor Harding had African blood. Where have we heard that before? Whatever kind of blood he had, Harding had neither the heart or courage to right the wrongs that afflicted people of color. NAACP Secretary Walter White was pressured in the Calvin Coolidge years when he said the Republicans will absorb the anti-Negro south and become the relatively anti-Negro party, while the Negro will find refuge in the Democratic Party. Walter White said that the next president, Herbert Hoover, showed nothing to indicate he regarded Negroes as citizens and human beings. Franklin Roosevelt served almost four terms. By the time he died in '45, his economic policies, the personality, the politics of first lady Eleanor Roosevelt had hastened black conversation to the Democratic Party. Harry Truman became the first president to speak to an NAACP audience. The next president, Dwight Eisenhower, told nigger jokes in the White House but he made some black appointments, and his reward was 60 percent of the black vote against Adlai Stevenson in '65, temporarily reversing the blackslide to the Democrats that Franklin Roosevelt had begun. John F. Kennedy's '60 campaign reversed the Eisenhower shift when he pledged to eliminate housing segregation with the stroke of a pen, and when he made a famous telephone call - ignored in the mainstream press - to the wife of jailed Dr. Martin Luther King. An assassin's bullet brought Lyndon Johnson to office. He pursued civil rights as had no president before him and no president since. The - (applause) - the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 are part of Johnson's legacy. But the passage of these two laws in '64, '65 marked a beginning of the dependence of the Republican Party on the politics of racial division to win elections and to gain power. By playing the race card in election after election they've appealed to that dark underside of American culture, to that minority of Americans who reject democracy and equality. They preach racial neutrality and they practice racial division. They celebrate Dr. King and they misuse his message. Their idea of reparations is to give war criminal Jefferson Davis a pardon. Their idea of a pristine environment is a parking lot before the lines are painted in. Their idea - (laughter) - their idea of equal rights is the American flag and the confederate swastika flying side by side. Their idea - their idea of compassion is to ask the guest at the millionaire's banquet if they want an extra helping or a second dessert. They've tried to patch the leaky economy and every other domestic problem with duct tape and plastic sheets. They've written a new constitution for Iraq and ignored the Constitution here at home. (Applause.) They - they draw their most rabid supporters from the Taliban-wing of American politics. And now - now - now they want to write bigotry back into the Constitution. They want to make one group of Americans outsiders to our common heritage. They want to do what has never been done before, to amend the Constitution to create a group of second-class citizens. Our Constitution is the last hope of freedom, it - (applause) - it cannot become a carrier of prejudice and ignorance. And what about the opposition party? Too often they're not in opposition; they're an amen corner. With some - (applause) - with some notable exceptions, they've been absent without leave in this battle for America's soul. (Applause.) When one party is shameless, the other can't afford to be spineless. (Applause.) These economic imbalances not only mean difficult times for many, they also undermine democratic values. The danger is that plutocracy will prevail over democracy, that the free market will rule over the free citizen. The reason for the current deficit and the vanished surplus can be faced (?) squarely on the tax giveaways to the rich. To make up for just the initial tax cuts, we'd have to cut spending by $5 billion five days a week for over a year. That, after all, was the whole point. To further enrich the already wealthy. To starve the government, to make it unable to meet human needs, signing a death warrant for social programs for decades and decades yet to come. We have a president who talks like a populist and governs for the privileged. We were promised compassionate conservatism; instead we got crony capitalism. We have an attorney general who's a cross between J. Edgar Hoover and Jerry Falwell. (Applause.) And we have a Senate majority leader who has voted consistently against labor rights, against civil rights, against women's rights, and he's the one who replaced the bad guy. Now, we know that war and fear often cause hasty mistakes, costly both in economic and in human terms. We need to remind ourselves what America is fighting for. In the summer of 1918 on the eve of America's entry into World War I, one of the NAACP's founders, Dr. W.E.B. DuBois, urged black people to forget our special grievances, close ranks shoulder to shoulder with our fellow citizens and the allied nations that are fighting for democracy. The criticism he faced was immediate and loud. He quickly reversed his position and he realized then, as we must realize now, that calls for a retreat from our rights are always wrong. He understood then - (applause) - as we must now that when wars are fought to save democracy, the first casualty is usually democracy itself. We ought to instead remember the words of Theodore Roosevelt, who said in 1918, to announce there must be no criticism of the president or to stand by the president right or wrong is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonous to the American public. (Applause.) And we - we ought to remember the words of Ohio Senator Robert Taft - and I never thought I'd be quoting Robert Taft - who said two weeks after Pearl Harbor had been attacked, I believe there can be no doubt that criticism in time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government. It has taken 40 years and more to put in place a framework of civil rights enforcement, a framework now threatened on several fronts. The administration's judicial nominees are hostile to the basic principles of civil rights law and civil rights enforcement. They oppose the core constitutional principle of one person, one vote. They support federal funding for racially discriminatory schools. They've tried to rewrite anti- discrimination laws from the bench. They've eroded congressional authority to pass laws that protect civil rights. Organizations dedicated to overturning the gains of the civil rights movement now dictate public policy. Their very names are fraudulent and their aims are frightening. They've stolen our vocabulary and now they want to steal the just spoils of our righteous war. Sophisticated and well funded, over the past decade they've already won several victories in the plot to dismantle justice and fair play. For more than a decade they've waged an ideological war against moderation on the federal judiciary, and then they squealed the loudest when the extremists they support are rejected. Now they've ascended to unprecedented positions of power within the federal government. As has been said from this platform twice before today, there is a right-wing conspiracy. It controls the administration, both houses of Congress, much of the judiciary and a major portion of the news media. (Applause.) President Bush chose Dr. King's birthday last year to unilaterally elevate Charles Pickering to the federal bench; Pickering's hostility to civil rights and his leniency for cross burners, notwithstanding. And the president chose Dr. King's birthday last year to announce that even though he admits society continues to do something special against racial minorities, his administration will not do anything special for them. He opposed Michigan's efforts to promote diversity in its student body. Frankly, I was afraid to listen to his speech at the Brown commemoration in Topeka two weeks ago. I was afraid he'd repeal the 14th Amendment. Now, the election this fall is a contest between two widely disparate views of who we are and what we believe. One view wants us to march backward through history, surrendering control of government to special interest, weakening democracy, giving religion veto over science, curtailing civil liberties, despoiling the environment. The other view promises expanded democracy and giving the people, not the plutocrats, control over their government. Grover Norquist - if you don't know his name, he's the man responsible for putting Ronald Reagan's on something in whatever state you came from. (Laughter.) Grover Norquist explained what is at stake in November. What will happen if progressives lose. He told Elizabeth Drew if after the election Kerry is president but the Republicans control the House and Senate, we can keep him from getting anybody up on the Supreme Court. We won't let him raise taxes. No part of the Republican coalition would be damaged or destroyed by a Kerry victory. But with another four years of Bush labor unions will decline further. We'll get tort reform, which will cost the trial lawyers millions and millions. We'll be reducing government employees, which will hurt the public employee unions. There's no opportunity for a Democratic united government, but there is, he said, an opportunity for a united Republican government. So the stakes are high, higher than ever in recent memory, the consequences of loss almost too dire to bear. African-Americans are our nation's largest racial minority and will remain so in the future. Their centrality to victory in 2004 can't be overlooked and it can't be left to last minute afterthoughts or early November drive-by politics. We have to ensure - (applause) - we have to ensure that every citizen registers and votes and guarantee the irregularity, suppression, nullification, outright theft of black votes that happened on election day 2000 never, never, never, never, ever happens again. (Applause.) These votes can be a reward for advancing justice or a punishment for a betrayal. We're tired of fattening of frogs for snakes. Now, election 2000 - election 2000 confirmed our deep national divisions. Not only did Al Gore receive 90 percent of the black vote, George W. Bush, a majority of the white vote, whites made up 95 percent of Bush's total votes. Although 57 percent of voters with incomes under $15,000 voted for Gore, even poor whites cast a majority of their votes for Bush. Similarly, 54 percent of women voted for Gore, but white women slightly favored Bush. In politics, as in life, race trumps class and race trumps gender. But the election also revealed a cultural as well as a racial divide. Gore won every major city and almost all suburbs, while Bush took every small town on a straight line from Redding, California to Springfield, Illinois giving new meaning to Woody Guthrie's old song, "This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land." The only demographic groups that cast a unified vote were blacks, Latinos, Jews, union members, residents of large cities, all of whom voted 60 percent or more for Gore, and white males, who voted 60 percent for Bush. We know these divisions, for the most part, have deepened since the last election, so this divide pretty much tells us where we must begin. We can begin to close the divisions that separate us if we can bring cyberspace and city sidewalk together, if we can tell the evil empire move out or we'll move on all over you. Now - (applause) - as a - as any long-suffering Red Sox fan ought to know, your team won't win if you don't touch the bases or if you run too far outside the base path. You can't win this race by ignoring race. In the 50th anniversary year of Brown we have a chance to become the first nation in human history to wholly assimilate a racially distinct former slave class. We know that if whites and nonwhites vote in the same percentages as they did in 2000, President Bush will be re-defeated by 3 million votes. (Cheers, applause.) And we know that blacks are increasingly angry about the economy and the war. A recent poll in six key states - Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Florida, Michigan and Nevada - found that 73 percent of blacks believe Iraq is not worth fighting for, and a whopping 77 percent believed Bush intentionally misled the nation about the war. These are voters ready to turn anger into action, to work for a regime change here at home. But they have to be asked. They have to be registered. They have to be organized. They have to be mobilized. And not just by the welcome new organizations with big treasuries; we have to use existing grassroots organizations that have a track record, that have earned and won their community's trust. And we have to be ready for a repetition of the systematic attempts to intimidate minority voters that have been the hallmark of Republican Party campaign efforts for at least 40 years. If we want to count on these voters we have to ensure them that their votes will count. African-Americans have always worshipped at the altar of the American ideal, believing deeply in participatory democracy. Together with likeminded minorities and likeminded whites we can, in the words of poet Langston Hughes - and I knew Langston Hughes. In the words of the poet Langston Hughes, we can let America be America again, let it be the dream it used to be, let it be the pioneer on the plain seeking a home where he himself is free. Oh, let my land be a land where liberty is crowned with no false patriotic wreath, but opportunity is real and life is free. Equality is in the air we breathe. Oh yes, I say it plain, America never was America to me and yet I swear this oath. America will be. Thank you. (Cheers, applause.) _______________________________________________________ portside (the left side in nautical parlance) is a news, discussion and debate service of the Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism. 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