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NAACP REPORT Continued from page 6

opportunity to, first, come into existence, and to put affirmative action to work. The black man and woman and child declared war on bigotry and racial violence. 

Today, to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, we stand on a great battlefield of that war, testing whether this nation, so conceived and so dedicated to the proposition that all are equal, can overcome the legacy and scars of separate and unequal treatment and justice in America.

Whether this nation will emerge as a truly democratic one is a question that gnaws at its philosophical roots, at its executive branch's enforcement of the laws; at its judicial branch's interpretation of the majesty of its Federal Constitution; at its legislative branch's budgeting and political priorities.

I want to say to each Congressperson, judge, and executive of the Federal Government and the governments of local states, whatever their color, whatever their religion, whatever their numerical or moral strength at the polls, that it would be wrong, unwise, foolhardy, and dangerously precipitous to interpret the results of the 1980 elections as a mandate to functionally repeal the civil rights gains of the past twenty-six years, when the U.S. Supreme Court in Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas signaled the destruction of a dual society. It would be wrong because you would be, in effect, offering to reinstate a discredited version of the Constitution, that men of daring and bold defiance can walk over the guarantees of equality if they get enough people to march with them to the polls.

It would be unwise because, you will find (to borrow a well-proven adage) that "what goes around, comes around." By this, I mean to say that the dubious authority by which you would repeal the guarantees promised for blacks you would simultaneously be robbing the American people of their precious liberties and freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution. That instrument either stands up against the interpositions of "states' rights" or it falls between the cracks of a sinking republic.

It would be foolhardy because political trends and circumstances notwithstanding, the genuine cause of morality is on the side of the black's struggle for justice. 

It would be dangerously precipitous because black people have not admitted defeat. The broad span of time proves that we are not people who give up hope. We are not a people who give up in the face of odds, even when the odds are ten thousand to one. We are not a people who are so readily fooled or diverted. We are not going to abandon the cities and run to the Sun Belt seeking mythical jobs. We believe in mobility of all people to move and travel all over the U.S.A. But we will not be pushed out. We want the assurance of better opportunities for decent lives wherever we choose to live. We are not going to stop fighting segregation and discrimination because the media and some renegade liberals have turned their backs on affirmative action, school desegregation, fair-housing, public schools, welfare and tax reform, and have turned a deaf ear to the poor, needy and hungry in America.

I am one who cannot and will not deny the progress we have made in terms of civil rights enactments, and the removal of overt barriers of discrimination. But I am also empathetic with the reply on the part of many, many blacks that not enough progress has been made. This is because not enough action has been taken on the part of the Federal Government, on the part of state governments, on the part of corporate and major institutions, or on the part of private citizens to foster the equalizing of opportunities. It is not enough to declare oneself sympathetic with the goals of civil rights, but situate oneself with those who oppose the principal means of securing racial justice in our lifetimes, and for the benefit of our living children. The days have long-ago passed when white America could counsel patience, and seek delays. Today, the counsel of fiscal and political conservatives urging inaction or cutbacks on social programs is threatening to bankrupt the morality and debase the humanity of our nation.

In England, it is said that royalty puts a face on government. In America, it is the marginal existence of black and non-white citizens alongside of immense wealth and privileges concentrated in the white community which, if allowed to continue, will make a mockery of democracy. If there is anyone in this nation who seriously doubts that poverty still exists in America, let him live among the poorest in Harlem, the South Bronx, Newark, Watts, Miami, and the other urban areas and the many rural areas of this land. Let him visit an Indian family on a reservation in Arizona. Let him go to the barrios in Colorado or California. Let him look at the expression of dire poverty and hopelessness on the faces of white Americans in Appalachia. Let him face the people of these communities; let him subsist on what they and their darling little children have to eat and sometimes don't eat. Let he who believes that the civil rights movement is finished go to Liberty City in Miami and tell the people there that the courts are open and are dispensing "equal justice."

There are some half-hearted reactionaries going around this country calling themselves the Moral Majority. It's always amazing and revealing what people call themselves. Many of these people have an agenda similar to that of people we have, in previous times, called "racialists," and "segregationists." Even when we are calling them by those names, they too had self-righteous designations for themselves. Conservative is in vogue now, and so many identify readily with the tenets of political conservatism. Actually, I don't care about designations, I am more troubled by their targets. Their targets seem to be school desegregation orders, publicly-supported schools, and civil rights pronouncements from the courts and administrative agencies. They are, just as the American Civil Liberties Union has charged, "dangerously deceptive" because "they appear to represent American patriotism because they wrap themselves in the American flag and use words like 'family,' and 'life' and 'tradition.'" It cannot be stated too strongly that in many respects the ranks of the so-called Moral Majority bear resemblance to political conservatives of another era who armed themselves in the American Constitution and proceeded to use its authority to deny certain citizens their rights to liberty and freedom.

To President-elect Reagan I offer this organization's cooperation toward establishing a realistic program that will help straighten-out the national economy. We will offer him and his Administration our ideas, our experiences, our concerns, and our dedication toward the achievement of a continuous, sustained, all-out attack on the enemies of democracy: racial discrimination; joblessness; poverty; slums and crime. We, too, care about the economic well-being of this nation and, we shall support sound fiscal and managerial policies that will strengthen the commitment of all sectors to achieve economic growth and stable prices.

We reiterate our warning that the Federal budget cannot justly or realistically be brought into balance on the backs of the poor and the needy. The issue, Mr. Reagan, is not "welfare." The issue is jobs. Our adults want jobs. Our young people want jobs. Our elderly want dignity. Our afflicted and sickly deserve more than to be robbed of their life-savings because of the skyrocketing costs of hospitalization and health care.

The issue, Mr. Reagan, is not cheating. The issue is being cheated. It is poverty and the direct responsibilities of the Federal Government for assisting people in the fifty states with the provision of basic, adequate incomes for decent shelter, for sufficient fuel, for food, for clothing, transportation and the essentials

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