Viewing page 300 of 440

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

[[Six Images, down left margin and across bottom margin]]

and the demonstrations of the sixties. Black people have changed. White people have changed. Our concerns have changed.

The issues are different. The situation is different. We've learned a lot since the days when innocents encountered entrenched power and won. We've learned from bitter experience that what was won can be lost; what was given can be taken away.

And we've learned from past mistakes. We've learned that narrow nationalism is a dead end in a society that is 90 percent white. We've learned that there are no utopian solutions, no foreign models we can copy. We've learned not to trust idealogies and idealogues. We've learned that today's friends can become tomorrow's enemies.

And we learned that today's battlegrounds is economic and political. We learned that green dollars in black pockets make a difference. We've learned that maximizing our vote maximizes our power.

And we have also learned that the black community cannot be served by the second rate, the jive artists, or the prisoners of routine. It may be fashionable to mock traditional values, to underrate hard work, and to seek excuses for failure. But that's a fashion that undermines the hopes and dreams of all black people.

The hopes and dreams of poor black people must be the engine that drives us forward. Those hopes and dreams are the foundations of the Urban League. They helped make the past ten years the most exciting professional experience of my life. I have had a good time. I have been honored to have the opportunity for leadership and service.

Now it is time to say thanks to those who helped make it possible.

Thanks to my wife Shirley, whose independent spirit enabled me to cope with this rigorous task, and whose personal courage is a source of inspiration. My thanks to my daughter Vickee, who somehow always understood their father's mission, and thereby willingly sacrificed precious time we might have spent together. And I want to thank my mother, Mary Jordan, whose faith and prayers of sustained me through good times and bad.

To Be Continued

298