Viewing page 8 of 158

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

As far as marketing is concerned, we have to be behind a full-production economy, where all men are able to produce and consume at their optimum – because only in this way can our system of free-enterprise grow and flower into the thing of beauty for all mankind to which many of us believe it is destined.  Any time a potential consumer is denied the training needed to take care of his needs, the sense of dignity needed to inspire him to produce sufficiently to take care of those needs, and the opportunity to engage in productivity sufficient to his needs – all of us, to a great degree – and our nation as a whole, become less than what we and our nation can or should become. Further, this denial brings dollar burdens of dehumanizing or crippling support, along with the incalculable costs of crime, disease and all sorts of human and physical decay. 

The riots of last summer were self-destructive events.  They were self-destructive because black men have not been empowered with the sense of dignity and worth, which are unalterable and undeniable gifts of our Creator.  Reared in a nation whose very founding was on a racist belief by many that black men were soul-less chattel, small wonder that the traditions that permeated all our religious, business, social and economic institutions were racist in character.  Black men, or rather black "things," were left out.  Black men were not humans – they had no soul – they had no personhood, according to the overpowering majority in control of white America at one time. 

"Persons" have a sense of being.  They experience a creative give-and-take with others.  They recognize a sense of power over their own destiny.  They know that they are more than "things."

Black people in America have been treated as though they were things.  Some young black people who are yearning for identity and are seeking an explanation for their past sense of negative identity, see in the failure of black people to be "black" as the root of our racial difficulties.  Hence, for them there must be a glorification of blackness.  "Black is beautiful."  "Black is glorious."  "Black is best."  These expressions become pathways toward being.  They are seen as the vehicles which make for fulfillment. Fulfillment must come for black Americans, for only as fulfillment is achieved by black Americans can it come to the nation as a whole. 

Indeed, the term "Black Power" speaks not only to two of the basic problems in the life of Black Americans, but also to the two problems which are most pervasive in our national life.  They are the twin concerns of identity and fulfillment. 

Black people often have a negative concept of whom or what they are. 

Black people, in our census, are "non-white." 

Look up "black" and "white" in the dictionary.  Webster's New World Dictionary: College Edition, 1964, speaks of black thus: "1. Opposite to white... 2. Dark-complexioned... 3. Negro... 4. Totally without light; in complete darkness, dark.. 5. Soiled, dirty... 6. Wearing black clothing... 7. Evil, wicked, harmful... 8. Disgraceful... 9. Sad; dismal; gloomy... 10. Sullen; angered... 11. Without hope as, a black future..." 

The same dictionary defines "white" in far different terms.  White means: 

"1. Having the color of pure snow or milk; of the color of "radiated, transmitted, or reflected light containing all the visible rays of the spectrum; opposite to black...  2. Of a light or pale color; specifically, a) gray; silvery; hoary, b) very blond, c) pale; wan; pallid; ashen; as a face white with terror, d) light-yellow or amber; as 

[[image - black & white photograph of the Presidential committee to investigate city riots]]
[[caption]] Members of the new Presidential committee to investigate city riots assembled last week at the White House.  From left, seated: Roy Wilkins, N.A.C.P. director; Illinois Gov. Otto Kerner, commission chairman; President Johnson; New York Mayor
[[/caption]]

Transcription Notes:
Reviewed