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How do we persuade those unconcerned and uninvolved millions that our work is important work, that it cannot succeed without them, and that its success will benefit them as it benefits us?

It is a serious mistake - both tactical and moral - to believe that this is a fight that must or should be waged by black or brown Americans alone. That has never been so in centuries past; it is even less so in the century unfolding now. It has never been "just us."

The growth in immigration and the emergence of new and vibrant populations of people of color holds great promise and great peril. The promise is that the coalition for justice can grow larger and stronger, as new allies join the fight. The peril comes from real fears that are common adversaries will find ways to separate and divide us. It doesn't make sense if blacks and Latinos fight over which group has less power; together we can constitute a mighty force for right.

As we find ourselves refighting old battles we thought already won and facing new problems we have barely begun to acknowledge, let us take heart. If there is more to be done, we have more to do it with, much more than those who came before us and who brought us this far.

It is not enough to ignore evil. It is not enough to just do good. It is not enough just to feed the hungry and house the homeless, commendable as these acts are.

It may be helpful to think of our task in this way:

Two men sitting by a river see, to their great shock, a helpless baby floating by. They rescue the child, and to their horror, another baby soon comes floating down the stream. When that child is pulled to safety, another baby comes along. As one man plunges into the river, a third time, the other rushes upstream.

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