Wilkins:
The year 1963 is
particularly fitting for this explosion of concern on the part of Negro
American citizens and their friends over the failure to attain full
citizenship rights in a full century. For it was a hundred years ago
that the Amendments to the Constitution were enacted.
The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth, which
granted citizenship, which granted equal protection of the laws, and
which granted the right to vote. And the last hundred years have been
marked by systematic, deliberate, and massive, and I might add
successful, effort to negate the Constitutional Amendments. The Negro
never won his full right to vote, and the South has not yet won it.
He is just now beginning in the last ten years to
enjoy a semblance of equal protection of the laws, and he has
affirmed only since 1954 the fact that the
Constitution of the United
States is colorblind. Because in 1896,
the Supreme Court said that the separate but equal doctrine satisfied
Constitutional Requirements.
Now, after the Supreme Court's pronouncement in
1954 the Negro waited rather patiently for
the implementation of his new citizenship status. But, it became
apparent very shortly that an effort was underway actively in the South,
and by a sort of acquiescence in the North to defeat him, once more on
his aspirations with respect to the Constitutional Amendments. So, even
though he had his status affirmed, he was not yet to enjoy it.
This was when the sit-ins broke out and the direct
action marches began, and the protests began to take the place of
reasonable discussion around tables. And the slow processes through the
courts and the legislative halls. And, of course, in that time the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People functioned in what we consider to be a most
basic way. From 1909 up until 1954,
it painstakingly laid the groundwork in the law and in the Constitution for the Negro's
liberation from the status of separate but unequal.
And the long campaign was climaxed in ‘54, but in between rights were won as to voting,
registration, housing, employment, picketing, and education as well as
the administration of justice involving serving on juries and equality
before the law. The NAACP,
therefore, laid the groundwork for the direct action programs of the
past few years. They have made it possible for picketing, marching, and
demonstration on behalf of rights.
And the Association is delighted that more than half of the sit-ins
arrested consisted of NAACP young
people. And the bail money put up was put up by NAACP branches. And that along with other
organizations it brought us to the spring of
1963 when
Birmingham and other demonstrations over the South and again in
the North pointed up the necessity of taking the case finally to the
seat of government itself, to the Congress of the United States, to
Washington, DC.
And it was thus that the March on Washington was
conceived. Its first purpose is to call attention to the
disproportionate rate of unemployment among Negroes in this country,
which is two and a half times, sometimes three times as great as that
among white people, to their lack of training, to the failure of
retraining programs to reach them, to their exclusion from
apprenticeship training courses sponsored by unions, by the government
and by others. And, to their denial of work opportunities in certain
white collar and technical fields, and in the building trades and
certain other categories.
The second purpose of the March and close behind the
first one is to support the enactment of the
President's Civil Rights Legislation,
which he proposed in late June. This consists of a package of seven
Titles, Title 2 of which has to do with places of public accommodations
and get rid of racial discrimination in hotels and motels and theaters
and restaurants and other public places.
And, one Title has to do with protecting further the
right to vote, and extending the authority of the government to
intervene in these cases. Another Title has to do with desegregation of
the public schools and the granting of additional powers to the Attorney
General in this respect. Another has to do with permission to the
President to withhold
federal funds from areas that do continue to segregate, and sundry other
matters.
Not included in the package is an FEP, Fair
Employment Practice Bill, which we regard as being essential and which
the March will support. And the whole demonstration in
Washington is designed to
impress upon the capital of the nation, and thus upon the people of the
nation, the deep concern of American Negroes and their allies and
churches and unions and other organizations of the country over the
continued denial of their basic citizenship rights.
The March came about, as I have indicated, because
of frustration over the normal channels of communication, and attainment
and redress of grievances. What will be the outcome? Well, it's hard to
say. The future couldn't be any worse than the past because the Negroes
have suffered terrible deprivation in the past.
The little told story of how they have been
deprived of educational opportunity is one that if told would justify
all the means they have employed to bring their plight to the attention
of the American people. For generations of young people, young Negro
children, have been crippled for life and have had guaranteed that in
ten years from now, they will not be able to function as an efficient
citizens.
The outcome of the March is bound to be the
enactment of Civil Rights Legislation in line with what President
Kennedy has suggested with
some amendments, of course. It's inevitable that the Congress would
permit this package to go through as-is. But we're hoping that the
Amendments will be for strengthening the package rather than weakening
it.
Another outcome of the March will be the
enlightenment of white citizens of America on the continued plight of
the Negro, and a sort of new appreciation of the Negro's status as a
citizen.
A third outcome will be the effect upon the Negro
himself. He will be encouraged to become a whole citizen. And, I'm
confident that he will assume the responsibilities of whole citizenship,
and that he will become more so than he has been today. And, he has been
in many instances a very stable citizen.
He will become a stable element in the community,
and his children will achieve. And, he will come to believe in the
country not simply philosophically because he knows democracy is the
best system in the world? But, he will believe in it because it works
for him. And, this is the strongest belief that we could have in this
country and the strongest guarantee that our country will survive as a
democracy.