
Convocation Dinner to honor Thurgood Marshall

( National Archives/Wikipedia Commons )
This episode is from the WNYC archives. It may contain language which is no longer politically or socially appropriate.
12th Anniversary of the Supreme Court decision on school integration
Jack Greenberg, Director-Counsel of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund ,opens the evenings events by praising Marshall in his actions to grant voting rights to African Americans. Also, his support of open housing equal education, fair sentencing for equal crimes, and welfare inequities.
He introduces the keynote speaker for the evening, Robert F. Kennedy. Greenberg notes Kennedy's role as Attorney General and his activity in promoting civil rights. Kennedy speaks at length about the inequalities faced by African Americans. He discusses the ghettos, the under-employment of African American men. Kennedy describes some plans, though he does not go in to detail. He says that government alone cannot make the changes necessary. Private people must lead the way.
Elements of the plan include a development corporation to manage physical reconstruction of ghettos. Would work with local educational programs to train and employ members of the community. The corporation could also include medical practices that would be rented to young practitioners. He talks also of mortgage loans for low and moderate income housing.
The Honorable Francis E. Rivers speaks. Urges financial aid to the NAACP defense fund. Presents award to Thurgood Marshall.
Marshall speaks.
Audio courtesy of the NYC Municipal Archives WNYC Collection
WNYC archives id: 71962
Municipal archives id: T2496
This is a machine-generated transcript. Text is unformatted and may contain errors.
Peter thank you Judge Roberts Senator Kennedy judge Marshall's sitter General Marshall former director counsel Marshall. We have been meeting here for two days discussing the relationship between law and society and the gap between promise and performance. And I think that I might start in with. A little story about one of the Monday in occurrences that happened in our office not long ago which I think perhaps demonstrates how intermingle then perhaps sometimes even confused all these various factors can be and that happened one day when someone walked in off the street as happens almost every day and happened to end up in the office of a young idealistic. And callous recent graduate of the Harvard Law School. Whose name was Melvin's R. who works in our office and the man was not yet as tough and as we were to the hardships of life and this man told him a tale. Rather confusing I'm like quite sure that I can relate and it's not important that I do of how he was arrested in a bridge in your city on a charge that involved a variety of considerations that included the selling of narcotics and gambling and something to do with the school integration campaign down there. Mel was not quite incapable of on scrambling all this and I don't blame him for it at all and finally told him that there was really nothing that we could do for him and then the man said that he was poverty stricken and This then brings in another aspect of the kind of things we're discussing here and Mal who was. Rather tender hearted gave him two dollars of his own money to go out and get himself something to eat and that evening at five o'clock as we left the building five six seven as people walking out they found this man to take in the two dollars and bought him self a can of paint. And a piece of cardboard made up a sign and was picketing the legal defense fund because it had refused to represent. And I think there is perhaps some profound significance in that I'm not quite sure what it is but in any event it does involve so many of the things that we are concerned about here today this year on the occasion of the twelfth anniversary of the Supreme Court's decision in the school segregation cases we are meeting as in years past to take a look at how far we have come in realizing the principles of equality the clear in those decisions and how far we have to go. It is important to know that in dealing with an issue of justice we do not have a fixed number of issues a closed system and that when we dispose of let us say seven of the issues we know that we have three others when those three others are concluded then the whole thing is over issues of justice like all other aspects of civilization or lack of civilization constantly evolve and the consequences of bygone issues inevitably continue unchanged form. We we lawyers look at the scene however with a particular competence or if you will a special bias because we are an organization of lawyers for many years we were virtually alone in fighting for racial equality. One third of Marshall fought the white primary cases which cleared the way to the ballot box for countless Negroes no one was there but he and a small handful of supporters some of whom are in this room tonight when he and his colleagues battled to outlaw the restrictive covenants which for years with a bulwark of the lily white neighborhood they were virtually alone once more there was not as today the president of the United States proposing a civil rights bill to desegregate housing and the civil rights movement behind that bill might have been difficult to find more than a handful of members of Congress back then in the forty's who would have supported such legislation yet today the president is behind such a law and tells us that it will pass the Congress and at the time of the Supreme Court's decision in the school segregation cases the situation was about the same a small group of lawyers most of whom are in the room tonight. Some of whom we will do honor tonight conceived of and battled through this campaign alone. Now happily all of that has changed the court decisions contrary to the dictum of those who say laws cannot change the hearts and minds of men have changed the hearts and minds of a nation so that's today there is a profound national commitment to the general notion of equal justice under law and furthermore a commitment to take steps to implement that principle but we have no definitive solutions to all of the problems of injustice that concern us or even the problems of injustice that are ink intermingled with racial prejudice we have merely peeled away layers of prejudice and expose even more deeply buried injustices that are and at the same time are not parts of racial discrimination indeed if something happy might be said about so dismal a subject as man's injustice to man it might be that the civil rights movement particularly its achieving the one nine hundred fifty four school segregation decision has provided an impetus to grapple with problems that oppress all Americans black and white for we have learned that unless we solve the problems of the slums and overcome grave shortcomings in our educational system and work towards full employment for wrong and upgrade health care for everybody and provide equal justice in dealing with the police and before the courts for each American We cannot adequately answer our civil rights problems. But we can't attack these problems from a parochial civil rights point of view the issues involved race but won't be resolved unless we transcend issues of race they are the same issues whether the parties involved are Negro or white or Mexican or Puerto Rican or city dweller or farmer or migrant worker it's notable however that such great principles of the right to counsel and the right not to be convicted on the basis of a coerced confession have come out of cases that involve negroes who are victims of racial prejudice but protect all Americans the most profound questions we are asking about American education today have been stimulated by the need to integrate our schools and not sweep Negro children under the rug as has occurred over so many generations in the past and so educators have thought of new methods of Educational Testing. Plans for team teaching and educational parks developing preschool programs like Project Head Start and so forth which are a boon to the population at large the poverty program is an idea that is the child of the civil rights movement I could extend this catalogue almost indefinitely we lawyers must enforce existing rights but I think that our noblest efforts exist in exposing injustices that it might be more comfortable to overlook during the past year lawyers of the Legal Defense Fund have been probing such issues as equality of punishment. Our cases at this point involve only the question of capital punishment of Negroes where they are alleged to have assaulted white women but the principle which these and future cases may develop hopefully will provide a remedy that many have called for but no one has undertaken so far to supply in time from these cases principles may be developed which will require courts to mete out like sentences for like offenses without regard to whether the defendants are Negro or white or wealthy or poor. On the question of fair administration of criminal justice we have a suit for example attacking wanton entry by police into Negro homes without warrants one recent case involves more than three hundred such entries in a brief period of time without reasonable cause what is the citizen supposed to think of the police's if this is what life in his neighborhood means and other cases have involved our insistence in the courts the Negro of defendants whether arrested for misdemeanors a felony cases be given adequate assistance of counsel not as often occurs the perfunctory attention of an overworked court appointed lawyer or no lawyer at all still others concern excessive bail for juveniles and others no lawyers have entered the dense obscurity of the issue of fair administration of welfare benefits indeed when persistent complaints of injustice on this issue began to reach us we were astonished to learn that neither welfare recipients nor lawyers have ready access to national state or local welfare rules without going to a great deal of trouble and examining them in the local welfare office. Keeping welfare law secret long obviously is calculated to discourage assertions of right by welfare recipients who are supposed to view governmental handouts as a matter of grace we have undertaken cases challenging the arbitrary administration of welfare programs because we have felt that there has been too much talk about the so-called problem of the Negro family and that the issue has been viewed as an excuse for doing nothing for blaming negroes for their own plight rather than as a social problem to what to which the best thinking of society should be devoting some of the practices of welfare agencies contribute to family deterioration and that aid to dependent children is cut off if a mother with Dependent Children has any sort of stable relationship with a man not her husband if for example she was seeing a man whom she intended to marry the fact that she is seen in this company frequently is often used as grounds for cutting off payments for her children or addicting them from public housing astonishing is that sound but if we are able to develop this legal program dealing with the total range of unfair treatment of welfare recipients it may not it may mean not only more equitable treatment of this part of our population Negro and white but demonstrate to it that it is not outside the law and the law and society are not apart from it there are innumerable other questions of law and justice that we could not think of approaching only a few years ago when we were concerned with breaking down overt racial barriers none of the new standards that we need to establish involve race on their face but all involve hardship that fall within an equal severity on the gross partly because they are Negro partly because they are poor any games we achieve however well they were down to the benefit of all Americans no matter what their race creed or color. Gunner Murdo it's pioneering study an American dilemma opened by saying The Negro Problem is an integral part of or a special part of the whole complex of problems in the larger American civilization it cannot be treated in isolation as usual his perception was right just because we are exploring new areas hardly means that we are neglecting or can turn our backs on the old ones school segregation cases must be pushed vigorously only five or six percent of Negro children south now have the same education as whites the shameful discrimination against Negroes in health care must be combated Negro infant mortality far exceeds the white right. The defense of demonstrators of whom we now represent many thousands from all the major civil rights organizations must be continued to many police forces north and south think that the answer to a protest about injustice is not to grant justice but to jail the protestors our employment discrimination campaign in which he would which we have filed almost a thousand complaints with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and have twenty five cases pending in court must be pushed the negro unemployment rate is disgracefully twice that for whites and so forth on these kinds of issues alone we might quadruple our resources and still not scratch the surface but our highest calling remains not merely in enforcing recognized precepts of justice in not merely enforcing rights that others would callously didn't it lies rather in exposing where the fundamental defects are in existing institutions that was the underlying contribution of the school cases and other suits we have pursued. Justice Cardozo once wrote that the final cause of law is the welfare of society the rule that misses its aim cannot permanently justify its existence we plan to keep playing our role in finding that aim thank. You Josh. Ritter over and I'm doing somewhat of a double header here because of a switch in the program and it is my happy job to stand up just for another moment and introduce to you Senator Robert F. Kennedy who will be the principal speaker of the evening of him it truly might be said that in view of his historic service as attorney general and now as United States senator he needs no introduction but if I may I would like to make a few personal observations when I was a young man and I just graduated from law school in one thousand nine hundred eighty eight Thurgood Marshall who also had only recently graduated. So I mentioned that the Thurgood needed people wouldn't think that was funny but I was right and he was wrong. They were going Marshall and I and other members of the small staff could take smug personal satisfaction in the fact that we happy few were the good guys and everybody else was ignorant of the fundamental rights of man or at best apathetic this was obviously on True had some small germ of illiteracy the civil rights movement as far as lawyers were concerned consisted wholly of the legal defense one step Plus those few lawyers in the south worked with us and a handful of law professors and perhaps a couple of others. President Truman's one hundred forty eight Civil Rights Committee report called to secure these rights was a deeply needed affirmation of principles most of which interestingly enough have been fulfilled in law if not yet indeed today the Civil Rights Act of one thousand nine hundred fifty seven upgrade of the civil rights section of the Department of Justice and made a full fledged civil rights division but not a great deal began to happen until our speaker of the evening came on the scene as attorney general of the United States in one thousand nine hundred sixty one then our smug satisfaction began to be Jordan a little when we found that there were other Americans and other lawyers willing to step into the courts to do battle as we had done alone in years past Civil Rights Division under returning General Kennedy and his right arm has a purpose system to turn general Burke Marshall whom we are happy to have here tonight and also happy to have as a member of a little Ulrich's and who were also happy to have as a member of the board of directors of Legal Defense Fund began to do battle in earnest in the name of the United States side by side with our there to four lonely legal forces now that he is in the Senate of the United States. Senator Kennedy's energies have been directed also at other aspects of what this conference has called the tragic gap issues of society the economy education and other aspects of life that are not strictly speaking legal but without which abstract legal pronouncements mean nothing and therefore it gives me profound satisfaction to introduce to you tonight Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Panetta. Judge Rivers Jack Greenberg Thurgood Marshall Roy Wilkins and my old associate Burke Marshall and ladies and gentlemen I'm delighted to be here I'm delighted to see all of you and I'm delighted to be a participant in the honoring of their good Marshall. Had a role in furthering his career putting it back on whatever it might be when he became. A judge here in the circuit court New York and know how highly regarded by all those who are associated with him perhaps I wanted to get him on the court so he wouldn't be bothering me as the any he but in any case we are very honored not only those of us in the Department of Justice who made the recommendation to the president of the United States but also President Kennedy in being able to appoint him so I'm delighted that he's been further honored this evening Jack Greenberg I know well frequently on the telephone Why haven't you done more he'd say to me so I'm delighted to see him and I'm delighted to see all of you you are met here to call. The Conscience of a nation to close the tragic gap between civil rights law and performance tonight were to speak with you about another tragic gap which Jack Greenberg touched on between the promise and performance of American life the discrimination in the urban ghettos of the north the rights denied there the basic human rights of employment of education of the decent living the right really to dignity itself here is a tragic gap for more than fifty percent of the American Negro. Those who live in the ghettos of our urban cities you here tonight know how those rights are denied by the fathers without a job and the young men without a future of the children without learning and the babies without medicine families without housing and neighborhoods complete neighborhoods without hope that the promises of the Constitution the hopes of all of our work over the last decade are to be fulfilled that all this must change and it must change now just as a bit as been time for change since the first Negro stepped off the first slave ship onto American soil we must first be determined to stop dealing with the forgotten and the dispossessed the unemployed and the dropouts those on welfare and those who work less than the minimum wage as liabilities as numbers we care for out of our charity instead we must deal with them as human beings and fellow citizens. And as a valuable resource as people who can take an equal part and a major part in the building of a better society in this country I believe the solution to the problems of the urban ghettos must begin with our determination and begin with a program because all those in this room already possess that determination it is about the program that I wish to speak with you tonight if first component of that program is physical reconstruction to rebuild the inadequate dwelling units to build the hundreds of hospitals and thousands of clinics that we need to bring decent medical care to all of our people to build the thousands of new classrooms we need just to start teaching the children who are being born now to build the parks and the playgrounds to refurbish the subways to renovate the beaches and the rivers that will reclaim for our cities their rightful heritage of grace and beauty These are the things that are worth doing for themselves they are also worth doing however because of the hundreds of thousands of jobs that would be created jobs for the peoples of all of our Harlem's jobs for the fathers and jobs for the young men jobs for the graduates and the dropouts alike jobs enough to ensure for many years the full employment for all Americans that we promised in the Employment Act Twenty years ago creating these jobs bringing decent and dignified and well paid work to the people of the ghetto with say to them that there is hope that all of us are truly determined to change the conditions under which they now live. Such a massive rebuilding effort moreover would be the foundation of a new educational system able to teach those for whom our present system holds neither promise nor reward giving them skills and knowledge that can last them a lifetime just as millions of young men first discovered their potential in the armed forces in World War two and later went on to college in new positions of leadership so I think the young men of another generation could discover their potential in this effort such a program could have many components to lead to describe in full but which I outlined in a spirit series of speeches last January the essential point is that the scattered and disjointed efforts of the past must now be joined in a unified and coordinated program which attacks at once all the major ills of our Get a life for a life and living are not in compartments education and housing cannot be separated from job creation programs nor can any or all of the in my judgment have serious effect if they are separated from an effort to help the people of the ghettos build a true community a community not dependent on the large yes of government a community able to manage and give direction to its own a Fayose its own progress toward full participation in American life government and government must help but I think we must frankly accept the fact that government can do only part of the necessary job and reliance on government is dependence and what the people of the ghettos need is not great a dependants. But full independence not the charity and favor of their fellow citizens but equal claims of right and equal power to enforce those claims and even if we wish to rely on government for the principle effort in my judgment we could not even now the presidents demonstration cities Bill criticized by some as inadequate has succumbed to the opposition of all those who think it is too much and perhaps more important it may be that the bill is stymied by a lack of example government tends to act after but not before private citizens have shown the way as the legal defense fund is shown time and time again but how is all this to be done how is it to be accomplished if government is not just to step in and appropriate the federal funds to carry out the necessary program of total regeneration to bail it to begin the task of rebuilding to lead the way for future reference a private agencies and of government we must in my judgment create new institutions new organizations for action and development and social change we must in fact develop new answers recognizing that the answers of the past are not satisfactory for the present let alone for the future I think we can develop these institutions to work with the government yet remain a part and independent of the government we can do it and we must and this program I might say has not been tried before but with others I have been studying it for some period of time I believe it is possible with the right kind of commitment and with the abilities and the energies of this nation. And with that commitment it can be successful and make a major difference to the lives and to the future of millions of Americans what are the elements of such a plan first I believe we should establish an institution a development cooperation its broad outline we can now set forth we must all work in the months ahead to do the hard and the difficult work of detail execution its purpose would be to engage in and to manage the physical reconstruction of the urban ghettos beginning with housing but extending to include parks and play space and other neighborhood facilities as well it would employ the neighborhood residents training them in class and on the job in cooperation with existing federal and state manpower programs and working with state and local school officials under existing federal aid to education programs that would supervise special educational projects for those employed but even this formidable task might only be a beginning for there is hardly a single need in our Harlem's that a corporation with a major financial resource could not go far further toward meeting to help meet the chronic shortage of medical Teja for example the corporation could include in some of its buildings physician group practice facilities equip them with corporate funds and rent them to alert young practitioners who might spend three or four years there before establishing a more lucrative practice elsewhere for another example we know that the poor pay more for inferior goods but a development corporation could establish a demonstration store selling quality goods at discount prices. To act as a yardstick against which to measure other stores just as a T.V. A acts as a yardstick against which to measure private power companies indeed a corporation engaged in rebuilding the urban ghetto could also lead the way to ensuring the housing segregation which now probates our cities is ended for a private corporation such as I propose would have the resources and the interest to develop neighborhoods and communities open to new growth outside of the ghetto and it would also give to tens of thousands of Negro families the new employment and education and security they need to enable them to break out of the ghettos as more fortunate Negroes have been able to do so in the past the obvious question in all of your minds I'm sure is how would such a corporation be financed and is this truly a practical program of development I believe it is and I think that those with whom we worked over the last few months people in important areas of our society believe that it is also possible the major portion of the funds as with all real estate development would come from mortgage loans from conventional sources the great banks insurance companies and other financial institutions of our society and it is here that the federal government would come in and help their already in existence program so I put the federal government and New York state guarantee private lenders against loss and subsidize the interest rate for the construction of low and moderate income housing. These programs can be expanded further there is good really reason to believe that private charitable foundations would also help reduce the interest rates which are a major influence on the cost but such a subsidy on interest rates a principle already accepted in our law experienced figures in the construction and real estate industry reported to me that mortgage investment in such a corporation could be competitive with other real estate investment in certain areas especially in New York City assistance may be required for the acquisition of land as is now provided under urban renewal but no significantly greater assistance is required for projects such as I have described with all their advantages of employment and education dignity and hope and is now given to projects which are more no more than brick and mortar and their other possible sources of money universities labor union welfare and pension funds industrial corporations all these are recognized on many occasions that their funds can both bring monetary return and serve a major social purpose that double return is possible above all in the kind of effort that I have or how finally would a Development Corporation be organized and constituted the precise form and organization cannot now be descried many questions must remain unanswered even until it's begun. But the principle elements the broad outlines are clear First it must have substantial participation by the business community not just financial investment but the more important investment of skill and knowledge and experience which has brought abundance and security to a more fortunate part of the nation Second it must have the full participation of American labor of skilled workers to act as foreman and teachers and leaders of organizers to help the people of the ghetto Well group institutions to represent group interests and of the many far sighted innovators who have built within the labor union movement itself some of the most advanced social service education and recreational institutions that this nation knows there it needs the participation of the universities for assistance in the work of the corporation itself and even more for the great educational effort which must accompany training businessmen for the new shops medical workers for the new clinics and finding and developing engineers and administrators from than among the newly energized young people of the ghetto this is the university's could do fourth and most important of all such a corporation must have the full participation of the residents of the ghettos themselves through the purchase of a condominium or cooperative apartments the subscription of membership shares and taking some part wages in equity shares they must be encouraged in every way to contribute and they have after own a major part they perhaps controlling equity interest in the development effort with such a participating interest. The people of the ghetto would by every tradition of corporate law exercise significant control of the circumstances of their daily lives they would vote and speak on matters of a median importance to the community such as whether a high rise building should be erected so as to lease space for a neighborhood park or whether space in a planned building should be taken from each apartment and reserved for communal use and it's a local participants were to gain more experience in deciding questions like the they might even develop for us a new kind of approach to government in the metropolis a system in which all neighborhood manage themselves as corporate entities there are many other things such a corporation might do the basic point and the essence of what I propose is the creation of a structure with substantial economic technical and physical resources fully dedicated to full opportunity for the Negro American of our central city and the control by those same people of that great engine of change similar proposals have been made and more are under consideration by others just in New York City Mayor Lindsay has already formed corporations for industrial development and might well extend them to encompass development in the ghetto Senator Javits is also vitally interested in this area having already formed a Development Corporation in Latin America. Scholars and independent thinkers notably Milton KOHLER have proposed the incorporation of ghetto neighborhoods for several years and his concept of neighborhood self organization has already had great success in Columbus Ohio What is new and what must be different in the effort ahead is a combination of job creation education and physical reconstruction on a scale large enough to meet the needs of all of our people and a manner which leads not to dependence upon the government but to the independence and to the freedom which is the foremost promise of our Constitution and in this effort your work your help will be vital after all this organization is the organization which led the fight for civil rights throughout this country for so many years your efforts now as Jack Greenberg described you must concentrate also on the urban ghetto to develop a program perhaps not exactly of the kind that I've described but along these lines which can make a major difference we cannot afford to wait for the next decade we cannot afford to wait to the mid one nine hundred seventy S. our the one nine hundred eighty S. we must act now in this room sit the people of talent and energy and devotion to the cause of full equality for all of our people all the plans and all the hopes and all of the dreams will be useless unless you and others like you energize and stimulate the agencies of government the institutions of business and finance and labor the universities and the foundations and the general people of this country great enterprises equal to great challenges are not planned are managed into existence by small groups no matter how expertise they might be they must grow out of the inexhaustible energy and imagination and will of the American people that energy and that spirit and that dedication. Is what all of you must now arouse for Francis Bacon tells us that hope is a good breakfast but I mean. And these last five years we have asked the people of our urban ghettos to the breakfast of hope but the supper of fulfillment we eat without them breakfast as long ago been eaten and hunger again walks the streets it is time in my judgment to make room at the table thank you. Now before our latest down on I get into this great moment all our program presenting this award to the distinguished Solicitor General I want to make you feel remarks myself and if you'll bear with me I'll make them as brave and honest to the point and I hope as a fact in this possible. I want to hear them lower the light. I confess. After hearing so envision the speeches Senator Kennedy one has the problem of just how to make remarks which make the program and efforts of the Defense Fund relevant to the things he discussed I thought as I sat there of the first speech of our convocation speech by Mr Byard Ruston who detailed the many types of revolution caused by the one nine hundred fifty four decision and he showed how they affected the mainstream in so many different ways and I thought as I heard the senator talk and prescribe remedies for they get all the de facto segregation that we have in the north that Mr Ruston could feel that the revolution would come full circle and certainly here if I can be accomplished I think that we will have solved all our problems and I certainly hope that when they really venture into that that they will permit these many lawyers who work so hard with the friends fun to take a big part in it on the theory that they have been faithful over things and they should be made rulers over many. I want to say that. We do what happened by the way I should say that it's kind of hard for a person who works in a field of law not think in terms of exhibits and the first exhibit to which I'll call your attention you'll find in those booklets there and there's an envelope that's addressed to Judge Francis he revers I might say those who might think that I'm violating some canons of judicial ethics and trying to collect money but I'm retired judge so I'm not violating ethics and I my name on it and I want to say my remarks well be pointed toward why you have this envelope that makes me the addressee I think that one of the things which is very necessary to remember is that this matter of whether or not the government and the passage of these law has achieved a situation where private initiative and I was glad to hear the senator tell of the need for a private initiative to spark and dynamiters government where private initiative will have an opportunity despite and you'll have a need despite whatever might be the programs which government has ascended to try to carry on now I thought of this about the tremendous difference in attempting to get the aid of citizens and when I say aid I'm referring to financial aid of course we do want to spare we do want the good words but it's very difficult to carry on without that financial aid and I think of how back in one thousand nine hundred sixty five what a difference it was just take this as an example and I'm not going to refer to many figures because they say the governor I offered Smith could make figures sound romantic but I don't have much skill along that. Line and so I won't refer much to them but it is a fact that in March one thousand nine hundred sixty five when you have the demonstrations a creation of tremendous national emotion shot feelings that the amount of money which was received by the friends phone was two hundred thousand dollars more than what was received in March one thousand nine hundred sixty six and yet the needs were just as great in March of one thousand nine hundred sixty six because the money spent for disbursements and carrying on the work was practically the same in March one thousand nine hundred sixty six as it was in March one thousand nine hundred sixty five and I might say the same outrages were going on but the public conscience was not on fire as it was in one thousand nine hundred sixty five and the problem for organizations like ours is how when you do not have the shocking things that create emotion how are you going to be able to get the support of the people I was very interested talking to Mr Turner Mr Turner some of you may know is running for the Lower House the House of Representatives in a legislative district in Alabama this three counties involved there and I was questioning him because I have had some experience in running and losing and running and winning for office and so I was trying to talk to our about it on a professional basis about just what kind of propaganda did the yos what it does do by way of training persons to be of opposing challenge to bring people in and have them vote probably said Judge the main thing we do is to stardom up it's like making a salmon and if you make them feel then they'll go out and vote and so you have that problem. As regard to getting support of our friends how can you get them to give this great support without stirring up all that great emotion and it has to be on the basis of projecting our program and our needs now I want to say this about whether or not the passage of law was and it is a fact that as regards laws against segregation laws to try to break up the caste system in the south that they're not many more laws that they can pass and it is a fact that the government has in the various titles been injected as a very responsible agent and leader in attempting to wipe out segregation but now is that sufficient cannot operate without private initiative can operate without the spur of an organization like the defense fund gives it cannot for these reasons and I just want to state them briefly to you One is that as again our first speaker Mr Austin referred to the matter of government becoming a bureaucracy if you think for example of attempting to fight a tough battle like civil rights by means of the red tape that generally attends a government effort you realize how frustrated you would be in the whole thing another thing as regards government enterprise and civil rights we have to remember that to a certain extent it's a contest it's a competition between two forces for the aid of government just as the Defense Fund and other organizations and civil rights attempts to get the government to work for them you have the opponents of civil rights and sometimes a much greater power attempting to make that government let alone you probably. They read about the number of governors of the Southern states who are going to Washington to prevent then Foresman of this title six to make it so that even though they continue discrimination in the schools and hospitals and so forth that they'll still be able to get these federal grants and you have to remember too that in the case of the government you have this deficient person now as regards numbers and as I'm sure you have a man of high quality but you I'm sure you have read of how the amount of monies appropriated for these public agencies to carry on that type of civil rights work is so small that they only have manned and they can't put across an effective program and consequently a private agency like that of friends fun is just as indispensable as it was before all these laws were passed and to a certain extent it's more indispensable because on this matter of putting the fight for civil rights within the rule of law and the creation of the Civil Rights Act of sixty four and sixty five it is a matter of trying to put the struggle within the rule of law it means that you got to have lawyers to fight that work and I just think of how the defense farm hands in an attempt to meet this rule of law development for civil rights has expanded this think in one thousand nine hundred sixty three the number of individuals defended by the fund was four thousand two hundred and in one thousand nine hundred sixty six it was more than three times that fourteen thousand and this point let me say that I wish I hope. All of you well take away one of these books of the tragic gap because you have their statement by a great director counsel Jack Greenberg on the first page that really gives the net of this problem oh what a tremendous job remains to be done and just what a tragic gap does exist continuing know about the friend's farm you see I must various figures with comments on the number of cases listed in the French fund docket in sixty three it was one hundred seven and in one thousand and sixty six more than three times or three hundred seventy five and the number of cooperating lawyers in sixty three was seventy one and today it's one hundred and eighty seven and I'd say it shows you what a Spartan band we have in our stay out of one hundred seven seventy nine lawyers on the legal staff in one thousand and sixty three and sixty six only seventeen I does not twice as many lawyers carry on this three and four times as much work now of course in order to meet the expanded needs for this we have to have mounting budgets and so whereas in one thousand nine hundred sixty three we had a budget of seven hundred fifty thousand dollars and in one thousand sixty five one million seven hundred sixteen thousand dollars We've got to increase it by at least three hundred thousand dollars and in one thousand and six to six have two million dollars Now I talking with Anna Frankel a great person working on putting these things together she was saying how we have this greatest appreciation for the small gift as a law. And I was talking a lot about that saying the socialists had from every one according to his ability and to each one according to his need and our case is from each one according to his ability but I would like we'd like it to be the maximum Now it is a fun. As we would like for it to hurt. Not heard so much so you would want to come back but it is a fine for members of our board and this is talking of persons who for whom the maximum their ability means more than for others but we have four members of our board but agreed to make contributions of fifty thousand thirty thousand and ten thousand and three thousand five hundred dollars each and I'm happy to say at this point and regarding this one of my read here right now it makes me think of one time when I was in a restaurant up with blends falls and I was a priest there who said hello to us and went on out and after he left the wait up brought us for martinis he had given the order but he hadn't stayed to be thanked and so here we have a similar situation here's a letter that I have. Addressed to myself and Mr Jack Greenberry they that made tea and it read their Francis and Jack and it's from the Charles Evans Hughes Memorial Foundation the Charles Evans Memorial Foundation intends to contribute fifty thousand dollars to the N.A.C. P. Legal Defense and Educational Fund during one thousand nine hundred sixty six check for twenty five thousand dollars of this amount isn't closed here where there are a main that will be paid after September thirtieth of this year and this is check for twenty five. Thousand dollars for a. Man it's chancy a lot Al had to leave for Europe six o'clock so he couldn't be had to hear the applause which you gave him now I feel latest gentleman that this car this and all of the rest of me and I so hope I have brought back my remarks to make them relevant and pointed to this particular envelope to just Judge Francis irreverence is one of those things that we would like for you to execute in your calm judgment and not filled out say with the emotion of the kind which makes you send some something that. Makes you feel somewhat bad I would like for you to read that book when and reflect on those facts and having made those remarks I can get him till I more esthetic phase of our program. We're fortunate to have had a Mr Stanley life L A. Sculptor great talent to have cast in bronze this award which is to be given an award very award very properly well be given to the one who was the chief person in the brown against the Board of Education decision which had all these revolutionary consequences. And this person whom we all know you see setting yeah with his priorities think of Castile personality physically and spiritually. As a person who for me. As a stance has always stuck as having his main attribute of confrontation I did as he would confront the charges he would confront all the lawyers and he would never banned in his personality and I was a courage which enabled him to give an argument to a judge which even if it wasn't the most logical thing the judge would feel as the truth Lulu. And so this award may I say. Has on its. Words taken from the Brown case which proudly are the most significant words in case there's a thing that Kenneth Clark of a social psychologist worked on to convince at least the chief judge and the other judges in the opinion they joined then it unanimously and the sentence says and that's on this piece of sculpture here it reads to separate children from other because of their race generates a feeling of inferiority and may affect their hearts and minds in a way on unlikely ever to be on. And so it's a great pleasure that I want to present this award to Judge Marshall and I do want Judge Marshall after receiving it to make remarks and also remember some of his coworkers in his remarks. I'm sure are there the arrow are there I am not a. Thank you Frank and friends. It's good to be back it's good to have that but I know Frank. And I know Jack. I know the board and I know all of my people on the board. I don't they don't let me take it they don't keep it up but. I'm still glad to get it and the reason I'm more thrilled than ever about I didn't know what it was. And I got a hint yesterday and Greenberg wouldn't tell me what it was. And my only question was can up on it. And. He very sheepishly says I don't think so. I want you know I still and glad that it ideas lots of it. And in accepting it we want to point out some people who are here and some we're not here first of all we want to list some of those. Who the more I look back in the older I get the more I realize how fortunate. There are lawyers here who know how fortunate it is when you can get in a Supreme Court once in your life and how doubly fortunate you are if you happen to win on that occasion and but for the fact that I had clients which many lawyers would give their right on to have that I had an organization that would pay the bill so the odds are I would never have gotten a one. And I'm also reminded of the fact that in the present position I mean the president of United States said on the day I was sworn in I'm very glad he said it privately and publicly. I want you to keep on now that you're my lawyer and the lawyer for the United States government keep on keep winning I'm in don't lose. And. You know he's not a man that promises and doesn't deliver and he promised me what would more likely happen if I didn't continue. And. The job of the solicitor general is to one decide which cases are appealed and which are not in all of the eleven circuits and the Supreme Court and not to mention the cases that come up in all of the circuits but in the Supreme Court alone solicitor's office passes on whether or not the cases are file we handle about sixty five percent of the business has been good and that runs up to around eleven hundred cases a year on Social run Thirdly the solicitor general when cases get in a Supreme Court himself decides who the law I give which case anybody grain of salt knows that. The man who makes that decision or be rather careful. Saul from my first case says solicitor general of the United States I picked a very nice case rather insignificant case. A very simple case. A case that couldn't be logged. And then proceeded to lunacy. But. Some hours I still got my job temporarily. But I mention that because of the importance to the lawyers who argued the case in an addition to myself and Jack Greenberg here the lawyers who were fortunate enough to argue no school cases where the following Georgie C. havens but was there. Are all. The two worst things I can say about him is that anybody with a name that runs George Ed would say is has got problems with his name along Secondly George Hayes is an old man and I can prove it because he taught me and. That person at the same table as. James M. neighborhood Jr I. Am not Saddam. Number two man in the United Nations and knowing both he and. The top man Jim is not number two man it's a teen only thing I think. That our government did not quite play fair. When Jim was first sent to the United Nations because. Not that we should be friendly with the communist nations but just out of. Decency since I'm sure they didn't know him like many of us know him I've always thought that our government should have set an official message to Russia and the other communist nations and told them with all of the things you have done in the past and with all of the things you have tried and failed but speaking for the future don't try I'm on big red which is what we call Jim Nabors I think we should all warned them but that is purely academic I'm sure they now know Thirdly we have lowest reading of Wilmington Delaware. And I'm sure that those of us here. Hang down our laurels and recognize the fact that of all of the group of cases that went to the Supreme Court a total of five every one of the others other than the Delaware case we had lost in the lower court but I want you to know Lewis won he is in the lower court he was just going up to Supreme Court to protect it. We are going to war not here number one is Box What got you Robinson. Formerly of Richmond Virginia West. When I was talking about. And important the boys don't even shaking anymore. But. It's alright with me because after all. He's a district judge and there's always a possibility that he decided case which will come before me and I can confess error and find he was wrong but I mean I wouldn't think of doing it but spot and. I saw. We were classmates together in law school. And. As we were saying earlier. We don't talk about certain things because I wouldn't mention it because all of and I have a deal with each other that if I don't call him peanuts he will call me Turkey so I will mention that to your tall but they bought the brunt of the whole for Genya struggle day in and day out from the day they got out of law school the one who I know is not here is Robert Carter. General Counsel of the N.A.C.. Notified us quite in advance that he couldn't possibly be here yes another engagement that couldn't be broken but I understand as the time I talked to him late yesterday that he did have to break it because he is working on a petition for rehearing in a case involving. Which only involves eighty five thousand bucks you know I mean you know you take a pocket but Bob handled it to pick a case he was also interviewed Ginia K.'s He was also in our case in South Carolina he was also a lawyer read and got away case and he was also in addition of Columbia K.'s barbers all over the lot and we all a tremendous debt to all of these guys I also want to mention not the names too many. Of the guys who didn't get the chance doggie because after all the rules of the court prevent everybody from arguing but I want to mention from begin one who was not there because he was never arrived. Ninety. Days started all of it and as long as I was involved with this work I doubt that any of us can remember. A single case or a single conference on a case that somebody didn't say what would Charlie do he started it. And whatever is done legally in the field of civil rights and civil liberties you can chalk it up to chalk because everybody else was someplace else when Charlie was planning it and then I want to mention people like Pollak here Bill Coleman Charlie Black and a host of others run in over one hundred who worked months on these cases and didn't get over it Nichols and then I want to mention people like to two ladies we heard this morning from Mississippi which stood up and are standing up today because you see when we went down on these cases we got an awful fair and we got out even faster and it was the plaintiffs who stayed there and the local lawyers who stayed there I think these two ladies would be the plaintiffs I think typical of the lawyers who gave of their time and knew they would not only get money they would get recognition represented by people like the pilot and I see people like my friend Gaston over here from Birmingham Alabama and you see Amanda had something. Because he's loaded. And I know that when the time came in a case. Law in a case by me ham a case involving Mary means Mung colored woman who had been bombed out of the house three times and we got a federal court to give us an injunction and wonder judge Mullins issued injunction Bull Connor. And the head of the Ku Klux Klan who just got out of jail that morning said in open court going out to. Buy deceive he said wanted nothing else to do we'll have to get those nigga lawyers tonight and Judge Mullins himself called me in his chambers and said Are you going to leave and I said I'd like to do both. But I gotta stay he said well you better come out of my house it's only place you'll be safe in Birmingham I said. I went by sure. And I don't know you better remember it is because I know you. And Mrs shores and I missed the shores to Shores has got more courage than anybody's got blood and Mrs shores and I both suffer from acute trouble a big yellow stripe running up. And we went in body started getting out there oh where we saw we said well when the time comes we're going to take the back door and author said you know the woman next door has got a big vicious police dog. We said we would go out in challenge that dog unless but if necessary we'll run him. And Gaston showed up and did negroes in Birmingham that had more to lose in anybody else showed up that night they call it down there sitting up with a sick friend and they sat there with a wherewithal to protect it. I say that because today we have so many things that we've forgotten so much about like I was at our good school. Just before made one day. When I got through talking a youngster came up to me and started telling me off about I was going down. I didn't have any. And I certainly wasn't. And I argued with him then he says well you know down in. I said when I know he says. You know what I'm talking about when we had that good. Why weren't you there I said I have been. He said that I said I was there before you were born in your father you never got snuff to go across the street. And I see you people forget things like that's what I like to mention of to find out how far we came and I say all of that to say how far we've got to go because yesterday and today you have heard about the problems and everybody in here. Up against we even know what my good friend Bob Kennedy suggests. We've come a long way for years the federal government went out of the civil rights business because federal government is back in the civil rights business and president has made it clear that he will not rest until his job is finished and his message on his last. Everything to rest his government is dedicated to it but he also has said like when he signed the Voting bill and when he put in his last measure. That is a lot it has to be done by the people themselves a whole lot as a whole lot the negroes have to do his whole lot that the other people have to do. When people in Mississippi put their children in an integrated school and then have their house shot into and they're not strong off of the land and thrown out of their jobs. It is nine hundred sixty six you know how far we've got to go but I'm struck with how far we must go to the extent that I don't think many of you realize it not too long ago I was fortunate enough to be invited by a justice of the Supreme Court to the manual for his which is law clerks given I was the only outsider there and I noticed one thing they were all white and take it from me that justice didn't have a prejudice bone in his binding he gets to a year he didn't discriminate against Negroes and I suddenly realize that there's only been one. Negro law clerk in the history of the Supreme Court one so member board here Bill Cohen and that means believe it or not there are nineteen Every year there's never been one and all of us know that it's not a justice on that Supreme Court who would have trained down. A qualified negro who was eligible for the job. Did we say there were none my answer is what else are you going to say I know I had four terms on the United States Court of Appeals I picked one law clerk a year only one I never had less than twenty eight applicants in Iran from twenty eight to thirty eight I never had a single name to apply I never had one Negro school graduate that thought he was qualified to be my. Solicitor General of the United States in an office here ten years. On he's never been a negro in the solicitor general's office and you think that's not true I'm telling you that's true because the president's new program which bill works was talking about it the president says one thing you don't clear government. Grows up one into the other and in the Department of Justice they had a special committee that's working on it and a few weeks ago they had a meeting and one guy said Well you know to this list is office and one. And one system Attorney General president meeting says well I know what you're talking about he might be passing but I know what I'm up to. Taking the solicitor general himself out of the picture. There are no Negro years and then never have been in the solicitor you know. Because he's the highest government for government to get new solicitor's office everyone in there's been. This Supreme Court justice or Court of Appeals just nobody else and then you know the street points and up to we are not developing competent capable Negro. And the reason we're not is because we're not doing enough on educating Negroes proper away otherwise we'd have them I say that because as we celebrate nineteen fifty four. As we celebrate the end of segregation in public education. We celebrated with a complete understanding. That we just. Begun to get started toward moving I think you could take what I have shown you in the legal profession and carried over into every other profession we had we have not developed in our young negroes the determination. That just to get by is not good enough we have got to convince them that they can't rely on the crutch of excuse of racial segregation and discrimination. We have got to from community to community. To convince our young people that with the dogs wide open they have got to measure up there is not the slightest possibility of a qualified Negro professional whether he be engineer scientist lawyer or what have you if he's qualified. And has a blessing of being black there is no way today for him to be on employ but that is not enough we have come possibly that far but we have gone no further I say despite the fact we haven't come as far as we wanted to come we haven't come as far as we have expected because. We still must raise our sights so that qualified Negro. Worked at their education to come out to come Pete for the top level of employment not the average level because that is one thing in this country that we can't stand is mediocrity and I say to you tonight that while we haven't yet gotten that far where we've got mediocrity all over are we still are obliged to raise our sights to pull out that ten percent that can measure indie. Category and teach our young people perfection and what they want I urge you to raise our site I believe that with the government with the Great Society program we have cares no hindrance in years to come for the greatest in each profession even though he happened to be a Negro but let's put some grass on perfection.