Lyndon B. Johnson photo

Remarks Before the Annual Convention of the National Bar Association.

August 01, 1968

Mr. Thompson, Judge Jones, Mr. Bell, Mr. Jackson, Cliff Alexander, and my good friends of the National Bar Association:

I know better than anyone in this room how unworthy I am of all of the thoughtful and generous statements that you have made here on this plaque.

But of this you can be sure: I appreciate hearing it more than anyone in this room, especially and particularly from this organization.

I have, from your membership and from your association, considered many suggestions. In a very short time I will finish 37 years of what I have tried to make faithful service to my fellow man. I have wanted it not only to be faithful, but I wanted it to be fruitful, and most of all I wanted it to be productive and effective. I wanted to have it said that "He was a 'can-do' man and he was a 'doer' instead of a talker."

Yesterday, along with my Cabinet, I heard a very fascinating report of what is really happening in America today. Before I go into that, I want to say to Mr. Thompson and to this Association: Yes, we have made appropriate recognition to a number of men from the first black mayor of Washington, D.C., to the first black city council of the Nation's Capital, through the Supreme Court.

I am going to knock on wood. All of these appointments, including the first lady ambassador and dozens that we should not enumerate--but what is important is this: I am proud tonight of every single one of them.

What is really important is that I can point to each of them with pride. Not a single one has let me down--not one time.

And when you bear in mind that they have all been playing on a fast court in a big league, that says something.

The report that I told you about that I heard in the Cabinet Room yesterday, that Mr. Alexander helped present, came from the Census Bureau and the Bureau of Labor Statistics. It had as its title "Recent Trends in Social and Economic Conditions of Negroes in the United States." The Government, you know, is very famous for these catchy titles.

But what we really heard was a remarkable story. Tonight I want to share it with the American people. The report we heard does not say that everything is wonderful for black people, or that the black people never had it so good. The report does not attempt to gloss over the gap that still separates the white and the black people in this Nation. That gap does exist--and that gap is wide.

But what we heard in that Cabinet yesterday gives hope and gives evidence that our society is on the move, that the gap is narrowing--that in the middle, in the midst of this crisis, a great many encouraging things are taking place.

Almost unnoticed, large numbers of American Negroes, for the first time in all American history, have now begun to enter the middle class.

Almost unheard of, as if it is a secret, large numbers of black citizens--and I say dramatically large numbers--are breaking the old chains of poverty and deprivation.

This remarkable story is told in numbers, in statistics that represent human beings.

Let's take Fact No. 1: The median income in our beloved America tonight is a little over $8,000. In 1962, the year before I became President, only 13 percent of the Negro families in America earned $8,000 a year. Just about one out of every 10 families earned $8,000. Last year, the percentage of Negroes at that income level of $8,000 had already more than doubled during our administration. And if you take them outside the South and don't count the South, you can throw in another 10 percent.

Let's take Fact No. 2: Now we have doubled the number of families that make more than $8,000 per year. Let's look at the numbers in education. In 1960, only 36 percent of all young Negro men had finished high school. The typical young Negro did not even complete his junior year in high school. Tonight, he finishes high school and he goes on beyond. That is nearly double the 1960 rate. That rate is still going up. It is still climbing.

Fact No. 3: Let's look at jobs. In 1960, there were 329,000 Negroes and other nonwhites employed in the professional and technical jobs in this country. By last year, that number had almost doubled--to 592,000--teachers, lawyers, doctors, clergymen, and other highly trained workers.

And what is true for Negro professionals is also true at another level--among white-collar workers and skilled craftsmen, and semiskilled workers.

Last year for the first time in American history there were significantly more Negroes in these good jobs than there were in the menial, low-paying jobs--and that is something.

Fact No. 4: What about the figures on poverty? We created the poverty administration. We read a lot about it. We heard a lot about it. We talked a lot about it--but we didn't do anything about it.

In 1964 we passed the first poverty law in this country and set up the first poverty administration. Last year alone, one million Negroes and other nonwhites lifted themselves up above that poverty line.

I say to you tonight that that is the largest exodus from poverty that has ever been recorded anywhere.

In the past 2 years, more Negroes and other nonwhites rose above poverty than in all the previous 6 years combined.

Now you may be asking some questions:

--What is that President trying to prove, you may say.

--Is he unaware and oblivious to the grim conditions of life in black America? Well, my friends, I am only too deeply aware of those conditions tonight. I cannot ignore those conditions tonight. It has been my constant purpose during the past 5 years to change those conditions. But tonight I think it is important, and most important to you, in the midst of deep concern about all of our difficulties, to put all the facts in perspective. I think it is important for the white American to see his Negro neighbor in some light other than by the glare of crisis.

The facts show that the typical Negro in America tonight--the typical Negro--is a hardworking citizen. He is eager and he is anxious to take his full place in American life. Wherever his responsibility is, on the battlefield, in the courtroom, or at the statehouse, or on the street, he is deeply concerned about the education of his children; he is determined to have for them something better than he had for himself, and he wants a safe and decent environment.

Now, the facts, I think, hold three lessons: First, this is a time for black Americans to be proud of their achievements and to be proud of their progress.

The facts tell a story of millions of mothers and fathers who are working hard to give their children more education than they themselves had.

The facts tell a story of hundreds of thousands of men who are working to qualify for better jobs by training at night after a hard day's work--and these millions are succeeding.

The facts show enormous achievement-against enormous odds.

We hear a great deal today about "black pride." Certainly this data gives ample cause for black pride--and for white pride too-in what the Negroes are accomplishing.

But the second lesson is this: that our great social programs of the past 5 years are working. Make no mistake about it. That is why they are cussing them--they are working, and they are working well.

People's programs, programs for human beings, were not popular in Lincoln's time or in Roosevelt's time, or in Truman's time or in Kennedy's time--and they are under great criticism tonight.

I can't think of a more important message for America to hear tonight than this: It works.

What works? 6,000,000 Americans--6,000,000 black and white--up from poverty in the past 2 years. It works.

I hope, in this political year, that all those who have opposed these laws--and all the naysayers, and the standpatters, and the pooh-poohers--I hope they will study this report and I hope they will learn its lessons.

The third lesson is this: because we know that our system works---because so much has already been accomplished--we must now finish what remains to be done.

We are doing something about that, too. We signed the most comprehensive housing bill ever made into law this morning at the doorstep of that beautiful new office building that houses Secretary Bob Weaver.

But tonight too many millions of black Americans still live in bad housing; still earn meager, substandard wages, or no wages; still suffer from bad education; still are handicapped by bad health--because they are black.

The gap between Negro and white income has narrowed. But still, it is shocking that Negro income is only three-fifths of white income. If you are black, you get just a little more than half of what you would get if you were white.

Tonight, a Negro is three times as likely to be poor as his white neighbor.

Tonight in America a Negro is twice as likely to be unemployed as his white neighbor; he is three times as likely to live in a broken-down house, and his little baby is three times as likely to die in infancy.

That is why all over America, Negroes are seeking parity and seeking justice--quite properly; parity of income, parity of employment, parity of housing, parity of education, parity in the right to participate in their own communities--just parity in treatment.

The America that I see tonight is not a sick America. It is not a broken-down, sick society-but it is a troubled and it is a restless 'people who are yearning to better themselves and are trying desperately to solve their problems.

We are a nation of doers and not doubters. We will match our record with any people-any time in history. But let's write a record that we can match and we are proud to put up there for the world to see.

The question we all face, black and white, is this: Are we ready to get on with the job? Are we ready to show--black and white-that we can live together, that we can build together a land of spacious liberty and ample opportunity?

The facts say--and I gave you those facts in the beginning--the facts say that we can. And I say, I believe we will.

I know that Americans, black and white, will prove they can be real soul brothers. With that knowledge behind us, let us move on from here.

When I was a little boy, I went to the big town for the first time. I heard my father pleading for 7-months school and for building little red schoolhouses. I heard him pleading for a way to get the farmers out of the mud. I heard him pleading for a rural route that would bring us our mail during the week.

I have seen those things come and go and improve. When I came here in 1931, in Mr. Hoover's administration, I came with the ambition and with the hope and with the dream that if I was honest and worked hard and tried with all I had, I could do something that would get every boy and girl born into this land an opportunity to live a healthy life; that I could do something to get every boy and girl born to every parent a chance to take all the education that he or she could take, that if I would work hard I could do something about leading men to heal the scars that had shattered us through the years, where brother would love brother and where we could live at peace in the world without sending off the cream of our manhood to die in foreign lands.

Well, I am leaving. And I have not gotten all those things done. But we have begun.

Those of you who are not leaving, those of you who make up the membership of this great progressive organization, you carry with you a heavy weight of responsibility. Just as those that I have appointed to high office have never failed me one moment and never let me down and never brought me a word or a line of criticism, it is up to you to represent 20 million people in this country who do not have your opportunities but whose pride and joy you are and you mean something to them.

You cannot just speak for yourself or your family. You must speak for millions whose voices out there cannot be heard in this microphone or do not have any dinner coats to come to the Washington Hilton in. There is a job there for you to do. Until every boy and girl who is born in this land has all the food that they need to sustain their body and all the clothes they need to cover their body and a roof to go over their head, and until they have the opportunity to get all the education that they are capable of taking, and until a child, from the time that it is conceived until the time it is 1 or 2 years old, until it has the proper medical treatment-we call it "kiddie care"--until we quit losing all of these babies who become misfits, who die, who have to be nursed all their lives, and waste the lives of two or three people who are trying to take care of them just because we are too busy doing other things to look after the health of our greatest wealth and our greatest resource-our children--until these things are brought to pass: health, education, jobs, dignity, decency, equality, and parity, you are going to have your work cut out for you.

And I will be there backing you every step of the way.

I want to leave one thought with you, if you'll just stay there for a moment. This is a thought I express every day and it is repetitious to a lot of you who have heard it before. But a little lady from the Temperance Union called on Mr. Winston Churchill in the last days of World War II, at a very critical period, and he was going through a good many trials, as we are going through these days. This little lady was criticizing the Prime Minister's drinking habits.

She said, "Mr. Prime Minister, we are told that if all the brandy you have consumed during this war were poured into this room it would come to here."

The Prime Minister looked very thoughtful, and he looked at the floor, and then he looked at the ceiling. And he said, "So little have we done, so much yet to do."

So, although so little have we done---so much yet to do.

Note: The President spoke at 9 p.m. in the Grand Ballroom at the Washington Hilton Hotel. In his opening words he referred to William S. Thompson, a member of the District of Columbia Council and a member of the Executive Committee of the National Bar Association, Billy Jones, a municipal court judge in East Saint Louis, Ill., Edward Bell of Detroit, Mich., attorney and past president of the Detroit Bar Association, Elmer C. Jackson of Kansas City, Mo., attorney and former president of the National Bar Association, and Clifford L. Alexander, Jr., Chairman of the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. During his remarks the President referred to Robert C. Weaver, Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.

The report entitled "Recent Trends in Social and Economic Conditions of Negroes in the United States" is dated July 1968 (Current Population Reports, Series P-23, No. 26; BLS Report No. 347; Government Printing Office, 29 pp.).

Lyndon B. Johnson, Remarks Before the Annual Convention of the National Bar Association. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/237751

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