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FREEDOMWAYS FOURTH QUARTER 1972

out the Black Community and mobilizing it as the spearhead of the Human Rights Movement. The South now became our main battlefield; a new chapter in our history as working people was opened up as we picketed, marched and boycotted in the struggle to end public segregation. The successful struggle for Civil Rights brought us, en masse, into the political arena seeking Civil Power-a radical reformation in the political life of the nation through the ballot.
When we went to Selma in 1965 we had elected only five black Congressmen and women. In November we will increase that number to seventeen. When we went to Selma, just seven years ago, there were 400 black elected or appointed officials and no mayors. Today there are more than two thousand officials including some 84 majors. The number of black registered voters, nationally, has doubled to more than seven million. 

the unfinished business of the human rights movement

We have reviewed briefly this history of our common struggle in order to better understand where we are now, and the central role we must play together to resolve the present national crisis. It is in this context that I have three challenges to put to you today. 
The first challenge is to use the power we have to put economic rights the number one point on the human rights agenda of the nation. We have the right to go to almost any school in America, but we can't pay the tuition. We have the right to move into almost any neighborhood in America, but we can't pay the house note. We have the right to buy almost any car in America and we do buy them, for about two months, but we can't keep up the notes. So now we find ourselves in an era where we have the right to swim in a pool where there is no water; the right to go on a vacation without the money to take that vacation.
Several months ago, we organized Operation PUSH for the purpose of dramatizing this fact of life-that the struggle for economic well-being, for the general working population, is the highest priority for this decade.
We, in PUSH, have prepared an "Economic Bill of Rights" that puts forth the proposition that the right to a healthy, physical and social environment-adequate housing, full employment-these things are human rights-indispensable to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. The struggle to make these economic rights a reality for all is going to require the use of the special kind of power that we haven't used yet. 

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