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BLACK POLITICAL ACTION IN 1972

CARL B. STOKES

At the outset let me issue a disclaimer. The views I will express are those of Carl B. Stokes. They do not represent a policy statement of any closely or loosely-knit, official or unofficial group or organization. Not of the Black elected officials. Not by Congressional Black Caucus. Not by the Black Panthers nor the Baptists. The views are those of Carl B. Stokes alone, and you should take them for just that because there are as many differing opinions, different judgments, different points of view among black folks as among white folks.

I have never been able to understand why white Americans can support, with widely varying degrees of order, intelligence and justification, such widely disparate individuals as Richard M. Nixon, George C. Wallace, Hubert H. Humphrey, George M. McGovern and John V. Lindsay, and yet at the same time believe, or act as if they believe, that black Americans are some kind of completely homogeneous, monolithic, one-opinion group. It doesn't make sense, but that's what white Americans, perhaps especially the white news media, so often seem to believe. Obviously they have never been to a black ministers' meeting.

Another disclaimer, if you will: not only are the views to be expressed those of Carl B. Stokes only, they also do not represent, in any sense, a beginning of a campaign on my part for the presidential nomination next year. I trust it goes without saying if I don't want to be president, I am certainly not available for vice-president!

I am delighted to have been asked to contribute from my experience and knowledge some ideas and suggestions for effective and significant political activity. That campaign for effective Black political action in 1972 is the only campaign I seek to advance. This is not an ego trip for me at your expense, at the expense of Black progress.

It would be easy to abuse this invitation, but I will not. Several weeks ago the able and distinguished congressman from Michigan's First Congressional District, the Honorable John Conyers, held a news conference in Washington and said he was going to personally lead a

Portions of address by Carl B. Stokes, former Mayor of Cleveland, at Black Expo 1971 held in Chicago, Illinois.
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