Lyndon B. Johnson photo

Remarks on Equal Employment Opportunity in the Federal Government

March 17, 1966

Mr. Vice President, members of the Cabinet, Chairman Macy and members of the Commission, ladies and gentlemen:

I asked you to come here today for a very special purpose. I want to talk to you about a goal of this Government that is very close to my heart. I did not invent this goal. It was established by President Eisenhower by Executive order, first, in the Federal Government. But I want to see, and I intend to do everything I can to see, that the goal is finally reached.

With your help, I want this administration to be recognized as one in which we finally achieve full and equal opportunity for persons of every race, color, creed, and nationality in every part of the United States Government.

As long as any American is denied the chance to fully develop and to use his talents, to become all that he can be, then every American is less than he should be. If race, skin color, religious beliefs, sex, or national origin prevent anyone from reaching the heights, then we have all wasted a human being. We have failed that person and, finally, we have failed our country.

Too many of our fellow citizens are still restrained by a straitjacket that was strapped upon them by the mere accident of their birth.

Too many of our fellow citizens do not get the education or the training that they need to become productive members of our society.

Too many of our fellow citizens are prevented from fully using the education they do get.

Yet we expect, and we get, full participation from Americans of all races, creeds, colors, and nationalities in Vietnam. More than 200,000 Americans of every description are fighting there now--some are dying--to protect our own freedom and to preserve the freedom of others.

If our magnificent young men can die for freedom in a foreign land, how can we refuse any of them a full measure of freedom and opportunity here at home?

Our Government has long been one avenue by which members of minorities have entered into full participation of our national life.

As of June 1965 the Government had about 375,000 members of minority groups on its rolls, of which 308,657 were Negroes. Negroes accounted for 13.5 percent of the Federal work force, while they actually made up approximately 10 percent of our overall population. Negro employment has increased during the 3 years ending June 1965 by 5.3 percent, while total Federal employment increased by only 1.6 percent during the same period.

During the same time frame, the number of Negroes in high paying jobs has increased significantly. But we must not rest on our laurels. We still have a long way to go before we can claim full and equal opportunity as a fact in our Government life.

The Civil Service Commission, acting under the authority of Executive Order 11246, has issued new regulations which will become effective on and after April 3d. These new regulations call upon you to undertake action programs. And let me underline that one word "action"--action to achieve the great objective of equal employment opportunity. Chairman Macy of the Civil Service Commission will be my eyes and ears to see that we get action.

These plans must tax the limits of our imagination and our creativity. They must go beyond the limited objective of eliminating discrimination. If we are going to have equal employment opportunity in the Federal Government, we must attack that problem on many fronts.

If members of minority groups can't be employed because they can't find housing, then we must find housing.

If they can't be employed because school systems do not give them the necessary education, then we must work with the school systems to see to it that the right kind of training is provided.

If they can't be employed because there is no vocational training available in the community, then we must see to it that we have programs that provide specialized training to help them meet their needs.

These and a host of other actions are open to us. We must take them. Almost a year ago I spoke to the graduating class at Howard University. Last June, I said, "It is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity. All of our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates."

When the historians catalog these times in which we now live, if it is written that we were fair men who tried to bring decency and equality into American life, then, I believe our great-grandchildren will be proud.

It is more than doing what is needed. It is doing what it right.

If there lives somewhere in this great Nation one man or one woman whose talents could advance the cause of our country, and those skills are buried because of discrimination, the tragedy is vast and the Nation is the loser.

In the last year, we have tried to do some things to break, for the first time, these barriers in leadership.

A Negro scholar and exceptional administrator for the first time sits in the President's Cabinet.

The brilliant Solicitor General of the United States is a Negro, the first to hold this high office. An exceptional Negro is now the first of his race to sit on the Federal Reserve Board of this Nation. A most charming and intelligent lady is our first woman to be both an Ambassador and a Negro. For the first time, an able Negro lady is a United States Federal judge.

These are a few of the breakthroughs in which reason and sanity triumphed.

So I challenge each of you here today, and each of you within the sound of my voice, to try to accept this as your own creed.

With your leadership and with your personal commitment to this objective, I have high confidence and great hope that we can build a government where talent and energy and integrity will prevail and where discrimination will not.

Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 11:10 a.m. in the Civil Service Commission auditorium. In his opening words he referred to Hubert H. Humphrey, Vice President of the United States, and John W. Macy, Jr., Chairman of the Civil Service Commission. During his remarks he referred to Thurgood Marshall, Solicitor General, Andrew F. Brimmer, member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Mrs. Patricia R. Harris, U.S. Ambassador to Luxembourg, and Mrs. Constance Baker Motley, nominated January 26, 1966, to be United States District Judge for the Southern District of New York.

Executive orders of President Eisenhower affecting equal employment opportunity in the Federal Government include Executive Order 10577 of November 22, 1954, of which section 4.2 prohibits racial, political, or religious discrimination (3 CFR, 1954-1958 Comp., p. 218), and Executive Order 10590 of January 18, 1955, which established the President's Committee on Government Employment Policy (3 CFR, 1954-1958 Comp., p. 237).

For the text of Executive Order 11246 of September 24, 1965, "Equal Employment Opportunity," see the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (vol. 1 p. 305), the Federal Register (30 F.R. 12319), or Title 3 of the Code of Federal Regulations (3 CFR, 1965 Supp., p. 167).

For the President's commencement address at Howard University on June 4, 1965, see 1965 volume, this series, Book II, Item 301.

Lyndon B. Johnson, Remarks on Equal Employment Opportunity in the Federal Government Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/239579

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