Speech about looking back upon black history, 1976 (2 of 2)

20 are not created equal.

The political process needs to be put to a test not as an election day effort alone, but as another weapon in an arsenal that lately has contained more pop guns than howitzers.

It comes to climax next ^this year with the selection process for a new President of the United States.

candidate - blindfolded boxers The election which will be upon us shortly has obviously not excited as many people as its more frantic predecessor 4 years ago, who could cared to choose between Richard Nixon and George McGovern.

This year's contest, offering only a choice between the man and the poor past performance of both another, threatens to attract even fewer partisans to the polls on November 2nd.

The reasons why are many and varied, and speak most alarmingly to the decline of mass participation in the shaping political process

Through most of 1976, we witnessed a record high number of19 candidates running against each other in a record high number of primaries in which a record low number of voters helped choose the eventual nominees.

Pluralities replaced majorities and elections were won by margins that would have guaranteed

oblivion in the years gone by.

Now two candidates whose debates remind us of blind-folded boxers come before us to ask for our votes in November.

What we need to be about in this election year — and all the other years to follow — is the development of a new American majority, a constituency of the concerned who will create election majorities that can guarantee:

21

- Income and wealth redistribution through a tax structure that reduces the disparity between the needy and the greedy;

- The elimination of poverty through a program of full employment supplemented by a negative income tax for workers on the margin;

- An educational system that dignifies vocational as well as academic training, and permits each American to realize full potential;

- Free, adequate health caare for all Americans, financed through²⁰ the national treasury and not by profit-making insurance companies;

- Effective social control of monopoly, and

- National, regional or municipal ownership of vital services operated for need, and not for profit.

22

These promise no perfect world, but do hold out the hope that man can create a system of laws and relationships between men that promise more than our present system of privilege for a few.

We ought to be reminded of some words from Dr. W. E. B. DuBois nearly half a century ago:

"We are American negroes. It is beside the point to ask whether we form a real race. Biologically we are mingled of all conceivable elements, but race is psychology, not biology, and psychologically we are a unified race with one history, one red memory, one revolt. It is not ours to argue whether we will be segregated or whether we ought to be a caste. We are segregated; we are a caste. Our problem is: how far and in what way can we consciously and scientifically guide²¹ our future so as to insure our physical