WEBVTT 00:00:09.104 --> 00:00:11.649 [music] 00:00:17.252 --> 00:00:19.990 Narrator: The following program is from NET: 00:00:19.990 --> 00:00:22.680 The National Educational Television Network. 00:00:25.200 --> 00:00:29.303 - Debate: James Baldwin versus William Buckley. 00:00:29.303 --> 00:00:31.689 Subject: Has the American Dream 00:00:31.689 --> 00:00:34.869 Been Achieved at the Expense of the American Negro? 00:00:34.869 --> 00:00:39.639 This debate was held recently at the Cambridge Union, Cambridge University 00:00:39.639 --> 00:00:44.360 England, and was recorded for use by NET. 00:00:44.360 --> 00:00:47.040 Norman St. John Stevas, M.P: Well, here we are in the debating hall 00:00:47.040 --> 00:00:52.918 of the Cambridge Union, hundreds of undergraduates and myself waiting for what 00:00:52.918 --> 00:00:57.387 could prove one of the most exciting debates in the whole 150 years 00:00:57.387 --> 00:01:00.726 of the union history. It rarely... I don't think I have ever 00:01:00.726 --> 00:01:04.253 seen the union so well attended. There are undergraduates everywhere. 00:01:04.253 --> 00:01:07.506 They're on the benches and on the floor and on the galleries. And there are a lot 00:01:07.506 --> 00:01:12.855 more outside clamoring to get in. Well, the motion that has drawn this huge 00:01:12.855 --> 00:01:18.708 crowd tonight is this: That the American Dream has been achieved at the expense 00:01:18.708 --> 00:01:23.980 of the American negro. The debate will open with two undergraduate speakers, 00:01:23.980 --> 00:01:27.417 one from each side, and then we shall have the first distinguished guest, 00:01:27.417 --> 00:01:32.855 Mr James Baldwin, the well-known American novelist who has achieved a worldwide 00:01:32.855 --> 00:01:38.132 fame with his novel "Another Country." Then opposing the motion will be 00:01:38.132 --> 00:01:42.759 Mr. William Buckley, also an American. Very well-known as a conservative in the 00:01:42.759 --> 00:01:46.594 United States. I must stress a conservative in the American sense. Author of a book 00:01:46.594 --> 00:01:51.610 called "Up from Liberalism" and editor of the "National Review." One of the early 00:01:51.610 --> 00:01:55.880 supporters of Senator Goldwater. Well, this is the setting of the debate, 00:01:55.880 --> 00:02:00.720 and at any moment now, the president will be leading in his officers and his 00:02:00.720 --> 00:02:05.031 distinguished guests. He will take his chair, and the debate will begin. 00:02:07.191 --> 00:02:09.381 [applause] 00:02:46.213 --> 00:02:49.913 President: The motion before the house tonight is "The American Dream is at 00:02:50.006 --> 00:02:53.554 the Expense of the American Negro." The proposer, Mr. David Heycock of 00:02:53.554 --> 00:02:57.414 Pembroke College, and our opposer, Mr. Jeremy Burford of Emmanuel College. 00:02:57.414 --> 00:03:01.702 Mr. James Baldwin will speak third. Mr. William F. Buckley Jr. will speak fourth. 00:03:01.702 --> 00:03:04.024 Mr. Heycock is the ear of the house. 00:03:04.024 --> 00:03:06.988 [applause] 00:03:15.123 --> 00:03:19.099 David Heycock: Mr. President, sir, it is the custom of the house for the first 00:03:19.099 --> 00:03:22.869 speaker in any debate to extend a formal welcome to any visitors to the 00:03:22.869 --> 00:03:26.931 house. I can honestly say, however, it is a very great honor to be able to welcome 00:03:26.931 --> 00:03:31.005 to the house this evening Mr. William Buckley and Mr. James Baldwin. 00:03:31.005 --> 00:03:35.099 Mr. William Buckley has the reputation of possibly being the most articulate 00:03:35.099 --> 00:03:39.240 conservative in the United States of America. He was a graduate of Yale, 00:03:39.240 --> 00:03:42.614 and he first gained a reputation for himself by publishing a book entitled 00:03:42.614 --> 00:03:44.419 "God and Man at Yale." 00:03:44.419 --> 00:03:46.934 [laughter] 00:03:46.934 --> 00:03:50.393 Since then, he has devoted himself to the secular, and this has included 00:03:50.393 --> 00:03:54.613 Norman Mailer, Kenneth Tynan, Mary McCarthy, and Fidel Castro, none of whom 00:03:54.613 --> 00:03:57.063 have come out of their confrontations unscathed. 00:03:57.063 --> 00:03:58.250 [laughter] 00:03:58.250 --> 00:04:02.782 At present, his principal occupation is editing a right-wing newspaper in the 00:04:02.782 --> 00:04:04.923 United States entitled "The National Review." 00:04:04.923 --> 00:04:09.011 Mr. James Baldwin is hardly in need of introduction. His reputation both as a 00:04:09.011 --> 00:04:13.881 novelist and as an advocate of civil rights is international. His third novel 00:04:13.881 --> 00:04:18.238 "Another Country" has been published as a paperback in England today. Mr. Baldwin 00:04:18.238 --> 00:04:21.843 and Mr. Buckley are both very welcome to the house this evening. 00:04:21.843 --> 00:04:24.128 [applause] 00:04:40.973 --> 00:04:45.947 Imagine, Mr. President, a society which above all values freedom and equality. 00:04:45.947 --> 00:04:49.247 A society in which artificial barriers to fulfillment and achievement 00:04:49.247 --> 00:04:51.267 are unheard of. 00:04:51.267 --> 00:04:54.319 A society in which a man may begin his life as a rail splitter 00:04:54.319 --> 00:04:56.089 and end it as president. 00:04:56.089 --> 00:05:01.029 A society in which all men are free in every sense of the word. Free to live 00:05:01.029 --> 00:05:04.720 where they choose. Free to work where they choose. Equal in the eyes of the law and 00:05:04.720 --> 00:05:08.264 every public authority and equal in the eyes of their fellows. 00:05:08.264 --> 00:05:11.724 A society in fact in which intolerance and prejudice 00:05:11.724 --> 00:05:15.745 are meaningless terms. Imagine, however, Mr. President, 00:05:15.745 --> 00:05:20.019 that a condition of this utopia has been a persistent and quite deliberate 00:05:20.019 --> 00:05:24.889 exploitation of one ninth of its inhabitants. That one man in nine has 00:05:24.889 --> 00:05:28.870 been denied those rights, which the rest of that society takes for granted. 00:05:28.870 --> 00:05:32.769 That one man in nine does not have a chance for fulfillment or realization 00:05:32.769 --> 00:05:36.818 of his innate potentiality. That one man in nine cannot promise his 00:05:36.818 --> 00:05:41.801 children a secure future and unlimited opportunities. Imagine this Mr. President 00:05:41.801 --> 00:05:46.470 and you have, what is in my opinion, the bitter reality of the American Dream. 00:05:46.470 --> 00:05:51.092 A few weeks ago Martin Luther King had to hold a non-violent demonstration in 00:05:51.092 --> 00:05:55.720 Selma, Alabama in his drive to register negro voters. By the end of the week 00:05:55.720 --> 00:05:59.385 of his demonstrations, he was able to write quite accurately in a national 00:05:59.385 --> 00:06:03.801 fundraising letter from Selma, Alabama jail, "There are more negros in prison 00:06:03.801 --> 00:06:07.552 with me than there are on the voting rolls." When King wrote that letter, 00:06:07.552 --> 00:06:11.570 335 out of 32,700 00:06:11.570 --> 00:06:16.469 negros in Dallas had the vote. One percent of the Dallas population. 00:06:16.469 --> 00:06:21.209 After a mass march to the courthouse, 237 negros, 00:06:21.209 --> 00:06:25.089 King among them, were arrested. The following day, 470 00:06:25.089 --> 00:06:28.418 children, who had deserted their classrooms to protest against 00:06:28.418 --> 00:06:31.670 King's arrest, were charged with juvenile delinquency. 00:06:31.670 --> 00:06:33.758 [laughter] 00:06:33.758 --> 00:06:36.929 36 adults on the same day were charged with contempt of court for 00:06:36.929 --> 00:06:40.161 picketing the courthouse while state circuit court was in session. 00:06:40.161 --> 00:06:43.611 On the following day, 111 people were arrested on the 00:06:43.611 --> 00:06:46.989 same charge despite their claim that they merely wanted to see the voting 00:06:46.989 --> 00:06:52.139 registrar. 400 students were arrested and taken to the armory, 00:06:52.139 --> 00:06:56.574 where many of them spent the night on a cold cement floor. The following 00:06:56.574 --> 00:07:00.721 day, the demonstrations spread to Marion, Alabama. In Marion, negros 00:07:00.721 --> 00:07:05.089 outnumber whites by 11,500 to 6,000 people 00:07:05.089 --> 00:07:10.761 and yet, only 300 are registered to vote. Negros in Marion were anxious 00:07:10.761 --> 00:07:14.920 to test the public accommodations section of the civil rights law. They entered a 00:07:14.920 --> 00:07:19.269 drugstore and there they were served with Coca-Cola laced with salt and were 00:07:19.269 --> 00:07:24.770 told that hamburgers had risen to $5 each. After the arrest of 15 00:07:24.770 --> 00:07:28.349 negros for protesting against this treatment, 700 negros 00:07:28.349 --> 00:07:32.080 boycotted their classes the next day and marched in orderly fashion to the 00:07:32.080 --> 00:07:37.694 jail. There, they sang civil rights songs until they were warned by a state trooper 00:07:37.694 --> 00:07:41.389 that they would be arrested if they sung one more song. Of course, they sung 00:07:41.389 --> 00:07:45.429 another song, and of course, all 700 were arrested. American 00:07:45.429 --> 00:07:50.096 society has felt fit to use negro labor. It has felt fit to use the blood of the 00:07:50.096 --> 00:07:54.380 negro in two world wars. It has felt fit to listen to his music. It has felt fit to laugh 00:07:54.380 --> 00:07:57.901 at his jokes, and yet, as far as I am concerned, it has never felt fit to 00:07:57.901 --> 00:08:02.070 give the American negro a fair deal; and for this reason Mr. President, 00:08:02.070 --> 00:08:05.230 I will beg leave to propose the motion that the American Dream 00:08:05.230 --> 00:08:07.698 is at the expense of the American negro. 00:08:07.698 --> 00:08:10.058 [applause] 00:08:17.628 --> 00:08:22.768 - I now call Mr. Jeremy Burford of Emmanuel College to oppose the motion. 00:08:22.768 --> 00:08:24.806 [applause] 00:08:28.571 --> 00:08:32.747 Narrator: Now, we have Mr. Jeremy Burford of Emmanuel College who 00:08:32.747 --> 00:08:35.343 is the first undergraduate opposing the motion. 00:08:37.473 --> 00:08:41.495 Jeremy Burford: James Baldwin is well known as one of the most vivid 00:08:41.495 --> 00:08:46.322 and articulate writers about the negro problem in America. Mr. Baldwin 00:08:46.322 --> 00:08:50.329 had a difficult childhood, and he has personally himself suffered 00:08:50.329 --> 00:08:54.720 discrimination and ill treatment in the south of America, and I would 00:08:54.720 --> 00:09:00.775 like to say at this time that it is not the purpose of this side of 00:09:00.775 --> 00:09:06.921 the house to condone that in any way at all. It is not our purpose to 00:09:06.921 --> 00:09:13.512 oppose civil rights. It is our purpose to oppose this motion. 00:09:13.512 --> 00:09:17.816 [laughter] 00:09:17.816 --> 00:09:20.977 Thank you, sir. Come and collect your fee afterwards. 00:09:20.977 --> 00:09:23.858 [laughter and applause] 00:09:26.923 --> 00:09:31.812 This side of the house denies that the American Dream has in any way been 00:09:31.812 --> 00:09:36.088 helped by this undoubted inequality and suffering of the negro. 00:09:36.088 --> 00:09:41.295 We maintain that in fact it has hindered the American Dream, and if there had 00:09:41.295 --> 00:09:45.268 been equality, if there had been true freedom of opportunity, the American 00:09:45.268 --> 00:09:49.734 Dream would be very much more advanced than it is now. If the American Dream has 00:09:49.734 --> 00:09:54.755 made any progress, and I think it has, it has been made in spite of the suffering 00:09:54.755 --> 00:10:00.879 and inequality of the American negro and not because of it. Now it is also implied 00:10:00.879 --> 00:10:05.910 from this motion that the American Dream is encouraging and worsening the suffering 00:10:05.910 --> 00:10:07.769 of the American negro. 00:10:07.769 --> 00:10:12.039 This is emphatically not the case. The American Dream, 00:10:12.039 --> 00:10:17.028 the American economic prosperity and respect for civil liberties has been the 00:10:17.028 --> 00:10:19.166 main factor in bringing about 00:10:19.166 --> 00:10:22.386 the undoubted improvement in race relations in America 00:10:22.386 --> 00:10:24.893 in the last twenty years. 00:10:24.893 --> 00:10:28.403 And Professor Arnold Rose who is the author of "The Negro in America," 00:10:28.403 --> 00:10:33.271 which is perhaps the definitive work on the subject, who is also 00:10:33.271 --> 00:10:36.864 a contributor of what was called "The Freedom Pamphlet," 00:10:36.864 --> 00:10:40.753 so I should imagine that if he has any bias at all, it is in favor of the negro. 00:10:40.753 --> 00:10:44.953 He's said that this improvement in race relations 00:10:44.953 --> 00:10:49.244 will be seen in years to come as remarkably quick, and he has put it down 00:10:49.244 --> 00:10:54.718 to three main causes: increased industrialization and technical advance, 00:10:54.718 --> 00:10:59.020 the increased social mobility of the American people, and the economic 00:10:59.020 --> 00:11:04.304 prosperity. And I would put it to this house that that industrialization and 00:11:04.304 --> 00:11:09.658 economic prosperity are two of the main ingredients of the American Dream and 00:11:09.658 --> 00:11:15.232 at the same time--again, I do not want to say that the negro in America is treated 00:11:15.232 --> 00:11:20.345 fairly--but at the same time, the average per capita income of negros in America 00:11:20.345 --> 00:11:25.773 is exactly the same as the average per capita income of people in Great Britain. 00:11:25.773 --> 00:11:30.974 Now, I found that absolutely amazing. [laughter] 00:11:30.974 --> 00:11:36.414 [laughter] I understand that some of you do as well. 00:11:36.414 --> 00:11:40.434 So I've got the reference here from the United States News and World Report 00:11:40.434 --> 00:11:44.333 of July the 22nd 1963, in which it points out-- 00:11:44.333 --> 00:11:47.593 This will have to be the last interruption I take because time is running short. 00:11:47.593 --> 00:11:50.717 - Mr. President, on a point of information, is this speaker 00:11:50.717 --> 00:11:53.139 talking of real income or money income? 00:11:53.139 --> 00:11:55.743 - I'm talking of money income. [applause] 00:11:57.989 --> 00:12:01.491 I am talking of money income. I would not wish to disguise that. 00:12:01.491 --> 00:12:06.633 I would also say that in terms of this, there are only five countries in the world 00:12:06.633 --> 00:12:08.577 where the income is higher 00:12:08.577 --> 00:12:11.696 than that of the American negro, and they do not include countries like 00:12:11.696 --> 00:12:18.076 West Germany and France and Japan. Now, there are in America 35 00:12:18.076 --> 00:12:24.537 negro millionaires. There are negro 6,000 doctors and so on. Now I do not by saying 00:12:24.537 --> 00:12:29.055 this wish to emphasize that the negro is fairly treated. I merely wish to try and 00:12:29.055 --> 00:12:34.616 convey a more realistic and objective account of the situation of the negro. 00:12:34.616 --> 00:12:41.654 I agree that there are negros who are very poor indeed, such as the... 00:12:43.584 --> 00:12:45.549 Such as the old gentlemen in the south 00:12:45.549 --> 00:12:50.559 who was talking about some of his wealthier brethren 00:12:50.559 --> 00:12:53.606 and he was saying "Yes, sir, some of these rich negros, 00:12:53.606 --> 00:12:56.586 they put on airs, they're like the bottom figure of a fraction, 00:12:56.586 --> 00:12:59.244 the bigger they try to be, the smaller they really are." 00:12:59.244 --> 00:13:04.657 I would repeat Mr. President, sir, in the last minute I have, that this debate 00:13:04.657 --> 00:13:08.294 is not whether civil rights should be extended to American negros or not; 00:13:08.294 --> 00:13:12.136 if it were, it would be a very easy motion to argue for and a very easy 00:13:12.136 --> 00:13:17.959 motion to vote for. The debate tonight concerns whether the American Dream 00:13:17.959 --> 00:13:22.694 is at the expense of the American negro. That is whether the American negro has 00:13:22.694 --> 00:13:27.004 paid for the American Dream with his suffering or whether the American Dream 00:13:27.004 --> 00:13:31.290 has furthered negro inequality, and I would deny both those two precepts. 00:13:31.290 --> 00:13:35.918 I would say that negro inequality has hindered the American Dream, 00:13:35.918 --> 00:13:39.298 and I would say that the American Dream has been very important indeed 00:13:39.298 --> 00:13:40.908 in furthering civil rights 00:13:40.908 --> 00:13:43.418 and in furthering freedom for the American negro. 00:13:43.418 --> 00:13:46.023 Mr. President, sir, I beg to oppose the motion. 00:13:46.023 --> 00:13:48.675 [applause] 00:13:57.602 --> 00:14:00.579 - It is now with very great pleasure and a very great sense of 00:14:00.579 --> 00:14:04.072 honor that I call Mr. James Baldwin to speak third to this motion. 00:14:04.072 --> 00:14:06.817 [applause] 00:14:12.658 --> 00:14:18.302 Narrator: Now we have Mr. James Baldwin, the star of the evening, who has been 00:14:18.302 --> 00:14:23.766 sitting, listening attentively and getting a wonderful reception here in the 00:14:23.766 --> 00:14:25.531 Cambridge Union. 00:14:25.531 --> 00:14:29.791 From members, enthusiasm from all sides of the house for 00:14:29.791 --> 00:14:33.173 Mr. Baldwin, who has been listening to the arguments. 00:14:33.173 --> 00:14:35.711 Now will bring the voice of actual experience to the debate. 00:14:35.711 --> 00:14:37.097 James Baldwin: Good evening. 00:14:37.097 --> 00:14:40.667 [laughter] 00:14:40.667 --> 00:14:50.782 I find myself, not for the first time, in the position of a kind of Jeremiah. 00:14:53.894 --> 00:15:00.201 For example, I don’t disagree with Mr. Burford that the inequality 00:15:00.201 --> 00:15:04.067 suffered by the American Negro population of the United States has hindered 00:15:04.067 --> 00:15:07.730 the American Dream. Indeed, it has. 00:15:07.730 --> 00:15:14.425 I quarrel with some other things he has to say. The other, deeper, element of 00:15:14.425 --> 00:15:25.652 a certain awkwardness I feel has to do with one’s point of view. 00:15:25.652 --> 00:15:29.194 I have to put it that way-- one’s sense, one’s system of reality. 00:15:29.194 --> 00:15:33.238 It would seem to me the proposition before the house, and I would put it 00:15:33.238 --> 00:15:37.304 that way, is the American Dream at the expense of the American negro, 00:15:37.304 --> 00:15:40.382 or the American Dream is at the expense of the American negro, 00:15:40.382 --> 00:15:46.506 is a question hideously loaded, and that one’s response to that question, 00:15:46.506 --> 00:15:52.515 one’s reaction to that question, has to depend on effect and, in effect, 00:15:52.515 --> 00:15:56.751 where you find yourself in the world, what your sense of reality is, 00:15:56.751 --> 00:16:04.072 what your system of reality is. That is, it depends on assumptions which 00:16:04.072 --> 00:16:08.069 we hold so deeply as to be scarcely aware of them. 00:16:08.069 --> 00:16:12.812 A white South African or a Mississippi sharecropper or 00:16:12.812 --> 00:16:18.572 Mississippi sheriff, or a Frenchman driven out of Algeria, all have, at bottom, 00:16:18.572 --> 00:16:24.616 a system of reality which compels them to, for example, in the case of the 00:16:24.616 --> 00:16:30.096 French exile from Algeria, to defend French reasons for having ruled Algeria. 00:16:30.096 --> 00:16:34.401 The Mississippi or the Alabama sheriff, who really does believe, when he’s facing 00:16:34.401 --> 00:16:40.380 a negro boy or girl, that this woman, this man, this child must be insane to 00:16:40.380 --> 00:16:45.027 attack the system to which he owes his entire identity. Of course, to 00:16:45.027 --> 00:16:48.840 such a person, the proposition of which we are trying to discuss here tonight 00:16:48.840 --> 00:17:01.589 does not exist. And on the other hand, I have to speak as one of the people 00:17:01.589 --> 00:17:07.285 who’ve been most attacked by what we must now here call the Western or 00:17:07.285 --> 00:17:14.634 European system of reality. What white people in the world-- 00:17:14.634 --> 00:17:18.282 white supremacy, I hate to say it here, comes from Europe. 00:17:18.282 --> 00:17:25.006 That's how it got to America. Beneath then, whatever one’s reaction to this 00:17:25.006 --> 00:17:30.282 proposition is, has to be the question of whether or not civilizations can 00:17:30.282 --> 00:17:36.281 be considered, as such, equal, or whether one civilization has the right 00:17:36.281 --> 00:17:41.024 to overtake and subjugate, and, in fact, to destroy another. 00:17:42.724 --> 00:17:48.894 Now, what happens when that happens? Leaving aside all the physical facts which 00:17:48.894 --> 00:17:54.329 one can quote. Leaving aside rape or murder. Leaving aside the bloody 00:17:54.329 --> 00:17:59.651 catalog of oppression, which we are in one way too familiar with already, 00:17:59.651 --> 00:18:04.816 what this does to the subjugated, the most private, the most serious 00:18:04.816 --> 00:18:09.994 thing this does to the subjugated, is to destroy his sense of reality. 00:18:09.994 --> 00:18:16.045 It destroys, for example, his father’s authority over him. His father can no 00:18:16.045 --> 00:18:19.792 longer tell him anything, because the past has disappeared, and his 00:18:19.792 --> 00:18:24.236 father has no power in the world. This means, in the case of an 00:18:24.236 --> 00:18:29.603 American negro, born in that glittering republic, and the moment you 00:18:29.603 --> 00:18:32.076 are born, since you don’t know any better, 00:18:32.076 --> 00:18:36.013 every stick and stone and every face is white. 00:18:36.013 --> 00:18:39.614 And since you have not yet seen a mirror, you suppose that you 00:18:39.614 --> 00:18:47.535 are, too. It comes as a great shock around the age of 5, or 6, or 7, to 00:18:47.535 --> 00:18:51.158 discover the flag to which you have pledged allegiance, along with 00:18:51.158 --> 00:18:56.006 everybody else, has not pledged allegiance to you. It comes as a 00:18:56.006 --> 00:18:59.229 great shock to discover that Gary Cooper killing off the Indians, when you 00:18:59.229 --> 00:19:06.499 were rooting for Gary Cooper, that the Indians were you. It comes as a 00:19:06.499 --> 00:19:11.172 great shock to discover that the country which is your birthplace and to 00:19:11.172 --> 00:19:17.078 which you owe your life and your identity, has not, in its whole system of reality, 00:19:17.078 --> 00:19:24.594 evovled any place for you. The disaffection, the demoralization, and the 00:19:24.594 --> 00:19:29.794 gap between one person and another only on the basis of the color of their 00:19:29.794 --> 00:19:35.977 skin, begins there and accelerates-- accelerates throughout a whole lifetime 00:19:35.977 --> 00:19:40.338 to the present when you realize you’re thirty and are having a terrible 00:19:40.338 --> 00:19:48.176 time managing to trust your countrymen. By the time you are thirty, 00:19:48.176 --> 00:19:55.654 you have been through a certain kind of mill. And the most serious effect 00:19:55.654 --> 00:19:59.839 of the mill you’ve been through is, again, not the catalog of disaster, 00:19:59.839 --> 00:20:07.137 the policemen, the taxi drivers, the waiters, the landlady, the landlord, 00:20:07.137 --> 00:20:12.494 the banks, the insurance companies, the millions of details, twenty four 00:20:12.494 --> 00:20:17.492 hours of every day, which spell out to you that you are a worthless 00:20:17.492 --> 00:20:23.185 human being. It is not that. It’s by that time, you’ve begun to see 00:20:23.185 --> 00:20:28.373 it happening in your daughter or your son, or your niece or your nephew. 00:20:28.373 --> 00:20:33.370 You are thirty by now and nothing you have done has helped you to 00:20:33.370 --> 00:20:38.134 escape the trap. But what is worse than that, is that nothing you 00:20:38.134 --> 00:20:44.076 have done, and as far as you can tell, nothing you can do, will save your 00:20:44.076 --> 00:20:49.721 son or your daughter from meeting the same disaster and not 00:20:49.721 --> 00:20:58.956 impossibly coming to the same end. Now, we’re speaking about 00:20:58.956 --> 00:21:06.189 expense. I suppose there are several ways to address oneself, 00:21:06.189 --> 00:21:15.707 to... some attempt to define what that word means here. Let me put it 00:21:15.707 --> 00:21:23.042 this way, that from a very literal point of view, the harbors and the 00:21:23.042 --> 00:21:30.992 ports, and the railroads of the country, the economy, 00:21:30.992 --> 00:21:39.966 especially of the Southern states, could not conceivably be 00:21:39.966 --> 00:21:45.639 what it has become, if they had not had, and do not still have, 00:21:45.639 --> 00:21:55.215 indeed, for so long, so many generations, cheap labor. I am stating very 00:21:55.215 --> 00:22:04.234 seriously, and this is not an overstatement: I picked the cotton, 00:22:04.234 --> 00:22:13.254 and I carried it to market, and I built the railroads under 00:22:13.254 --> 00:22:19.557 someone else’s whip for nothing. For nothing. 00:22:21.187 --> 00:22:26.815 The Southern oligarchy, which has until today so much power in 00:22:26.815 --> 00:22:31.384 Washington, and therefore some power in the world, was created 00:22:31.384 --> 00:22:37.217 by my labor and my sweat, and the violation of my women and the murder of 00:22:37.217 --> 00:22:45.359 my children. This, in the land of the free, and the home of the brave. 00:22:45.359 --> 00:22:50.604 And no one can challenge that statement. It is a matter of historical record. 00:22:52.254 --> 00:23:00.925 In another way, this dream, and we’ll get to the dream in a moment, 00:23:00.925 --> 00:23:06.581 is at the expense of the American negro. You watched this in the Deep South 00:23:06.581 --> 00:23:14.756 in great relief. But not only in the Deep South. In the Deep South, you 00:23:14.756 --> 00:23:17.997 are dealing with a sheriff or a landlord, or a landlady or the 00:23:17.997 --> 00:23:28.204 girl of the Western Union desk, and she doesn’t know quite who she’s 00:23:28.204 --> 00:23:31.666 dealing with, by which I mean, that if you’re not a part of the town, 00:23:31.666 --> 00:23:38.514 and if you are a northern nigger, it shows in millions of ways. 00:23:38.514 --> 00:23:43.550 So she simply knows that it’s an unknown quantity, and she wants to 00:23:43.550 --> 00:23:46.730 have nothing to do with it because she won’t talk to you, you have 00:23:46.730 --> 00:23:49.790 to wait for a while to get your telegram. OK, we all know this. 00:23:49.790 --> 00:23:54.005 We've been through it and, by the time you get to be a man, it’s very easy 00:23:54.005 --> 00:23:58.873 to deal with. But what is happening in the poor woman, the poor man’s mind 00:23:58.873 --> 00:24:06.474 is this: they’ve been raised to believe, and by now they helplessly believe, 00:24:06.474 --> 00:24:11.743 that no matter how terrible their lives may be, and their lives have been 00:24:11.743 --> 00:24:17.154 quite terrible, and no matter how far they fall, no matter what disaster 00:24:17.154 --> 00:24:19.986 overtakes them, they have one enormous knowledge in 00:24:19.986 --> 00:24:24.856 consolation, which is like a heavenly revelation: at least, they are not black. 00:24:26.546 --> 00:24:33.504 Now I suggest that of all the terrible things that can happen to a 00:24:33.504 --> 00:24:37.840 human being, that is one of the worst. I suggest that what has happened 00:24:37.840 --> 00:24:42.045 to white southerners is in some ways, after all, much worse than 00:24:42.045 --> 00:24:51.624 what has happened to negroes there, because Sheriff Clark in 00:24:51.624 --> 00:24:58.412 Selma, Alabama, cannot be considered, you know, no one can be 00:24:58.412 --> 00:25:00.728 dismissed as a total monster. 00:25:00.728 --> 00:25:02.908 I’m sure he loves his wife, his children. 00:25:02.908 --> 00:25:05.988 I’m sure that, you know, he likes to get drunk. 00:25:07.778 --> 00:25:11.577 You know, after all, one’s got to assume--and he is visibly a man like me. 00:25:14.007 --> 00:25:21.348 But he doesn’t know what drives him to use the club, to menace with the 00:25:21.348 --> 00:25:25.224 gun, and to use the cattle prod. Something awful must have happened to 00:25:25.224 --> 00:25:28.793 a human being to be able to put a cattle prod against a 00:25:28.793 --> 00:25:32.464 woman’s breasts, for example. What happens to the woman is ghastly. 00:25:32.464 --> 00:25:37.933 What happens to the man who does it is in some ways much, much worse. 00:25:39.313 --> 00:25:46.043 This is being done, after all, not a hundred years ago, but in 1965, 00:25:46.043 --> 00:25:51.884 in a country which is blessed with what we call prosperity, a word we won’t examine 00:25:51.884 --> 00:25:59.194 too closely, with a certain kind of social coherence, which calls itself a 00:25:59.194 --> 00:26:04.658 civilized nation, and which espouses the notion of the freedom of the 00:26:04.658 --> 00:26:10.466 world. And it is perfectly true from the point of view now 00:26:10.466 --> 00:26:16.005 simply of an American negro, any American negro watching this, no matter 00:26:16.005 --> 00:26:19.504 where he is, from the vantage point of Harlem, which is another terrible 00:26:19.504 --> 00:26:24.494 place, has to say to himself, in spite of what the government says, 00:26:24.494 --> 00:26:29.488 the government says we can’t do anything about it, but if those were 00:26:29.488 --> 00:26:33.962 white people being murdered in Mississippi work farms, being carried 00:26:33.962 --> 00:26:37.784 off to jail, if those were white children running up and down the streets, 00:26:37.784 --> 00:26:41.303 the government would find some way of doing something about it. 00:26:41.303 --> 00:26:45.464 We have a civil rights bill now where an amendment, we have 00:26:45.464 --> 00:26:49.444 the 15th amendment, nearly a hundred years ago--I hate to sound again 00:26:49.444 --> 00:26:52.438 like an Old Testament prophet, but if the amendment was not 00:26:52.438 --> 00:26:55.646 honored then, I don't have any reason to believe the civil rights 00:26:55.646 --> 00:26:58.296 bill will be honored now. 00:26:58.296 --> 00:27:02.004 And after all one’s been there, since before, you know, a lot of other 00:27:02.004 --> 00:27:09.562 people got there. If one has got to prove one’s title to the land, 00:27:09.562 --> 00:27:15.020 isn't 400 years enough? 400 years? At least three wars? 00:27:16.370 --> 00:27:20.273 The American soil is full of the corpses of my ancestors. 00:27:20.273 --> 00:27:25.772 Why is my freedom or my citizenship, or my right to live there, how 00:27:25.772 --> 00:27:31.741 is it conceivably a question now? And I suggest further, and in the 00:27:31.741 --> 00:27:37.328 same way, the moral life of Alabama sheriffs and poor Alabama ladies, 00:27:37.328 --> 00:27:41.729 white ladies, their moral lives have been destroyed by the 00:27:41.729 --> 00:27:47.312 plague called color, that the American sense of reality has been corrupted by it. 00:27:48.782 --> 00:27:53.366 At the risk of sounding excessive, what I always felt, when I finally 00:27:53.366 --> 00:27:58.369 left the country, found myself abroad, in other places, and watched 00:27:58.369 --> 00:28:03.409 the Americans abroad, and these are my countrymen, and I do 00:28:03.409 --> 00:28:09.015 care about them, and even if I didn’t, there is something between us. 00:28:09.015 --> 00:28:14.133 We have the same shorthand, I know, if I look at a boy or a girl from 00:28:14.133 --> 00:28:18.162 Tennessee, where they came from in Tennessee, and what that means. 00:28:18.162 --> 00:28:21.962 No Englishman knows that. No Frenchman. No one in the world knows that except 00:28:21.962 --> 00:28:24.342 another black man who comes from the same place. 00:28:25.262 --> 00:28:32.852 One watches these lonely people. Denying the only kin they have. 00:28:32.852 --> 00:28:36.432 We talk about integration in America as though it were some great new 00:28:36.432 --> 00:28:40.622 conundrum. The problem in America is that we have been integrated for 00:28:40.622 --> 00:28:46.717 a very long time. Put me next to any African and you will see what I mean. 00:28:46.717 --> 00:28:52.607 My grandmother was not a racist. What we are not facing... 00:28:54.647 --> 00:28:58.732 is the results of what we've done. 00:28:58.732 --> 00:29:04.222 What one begs the American people to do for all our sakes is simply to 00:29:04.222 --> 00:29:07.542 accept our history. 00:29:07.542 --> 00:29:11.982 I was there not only as a slave but also as a concubine. 00:29:11.982 --> 00:29:16.792 One knows the power afterall which can be used against another person 00:29:16.792 --> 00:29:18.922 who has absolute power over that person. NOTE Paragraph 00:29:21.472 --> 00:29:24.598 It seemed to me when I watched Americans in Europe that what they 00:29:24.598 --> 00:29:30.863 didn’t know about Europeans was what they didn’t know about me. 00:29:30.863 --> 00:29:34.545 They weren’t trying, for example, to be nasty to the French girl, or 00:29:34.545 --> 00:29:39.312 rude to the French waiter. They didn’t know they hurt their feelings. 00:29:39.312 --> 00:29:43.715 They didn’t have any sense this particular woman, this particular man, 00:29:43.715 --> 00:29:46.246 though they spoke another language and had different manners 00:29:46.246 --> 00:29:51.284 and ways, was a human being. And they walked over them with the same kind 00:29:51.284 --> 00:29:59.068 of bland ignorance, condescension, charming and cheerful with which 00:29:59.068 --> 00:30:03.833 they’d always patted me on the head and called me Shine and were upset 00:30:03.833 --> 00:30:14.739 when I was upset. What is relevant about this is that whereas forty years ago 00:30:14.739 --> 00:30:22.549 when I was born, the question of having to deal with what is unspoken 00:30:22.549 --> 00:30:28.049 by the subjugated, what is never said to the master, of ever 00:30:28.049 --> 00:30:31.006 having to deal with this reality was a very remote possibility. 00:30:31.006 --> 00:30:35.403 It was in no one’s mind. When I was growing up, I was taught in 00:30:35.403 --> 00:30:39.665 American history books, that Africa had no history, and neither did I. 00:30:41.555 --> 00:30:47.902 That I was a savage about whom the less said, the better, who had been 00:30:47.902 --> 00:30:55.587 saved by Europe and brought to America. And, of course, I believed it. 00:30:57.347 --> 00:31:02.273 I didn’t have much choice. Those are the only books there were. 00:31:02.273 --> 00:31:05.322 Everyone else seemed to agree. 00:31:05.322 --> 00:31:09.842 If you walk out of Harlem, ride out of Harlem, downtown, the world 00:31:09.842 --> 00:31:16.582 agrees what you see is much bigger, cleaner, whiter, richer, safer 00:31:16.582 --> 00:31:21.331 than where you are. They collect the garbage. People obviously can 00:31:21.331 --> 00:31:25.312 pay their life insurance. Their children look happy, safe. You’re not. 00:31:25.312 --> 00:31:31.289 And you go back home, and it would seem that, of course, that it’s an act 00:31:31.289 --> 00:31:38.527 of God that this is true! That you belong where white people have put you. 00:31:40.657 --> 00:31:45.403 It is only since the Second World War, that there’s been a 00:31:45.403 --> 00:31:48.872 counter-image in the world. And that image did not come about through 00:31:48.872 --> 00:31:53.807 any legislation or part of any American government, but through 00:31:53.807 --> 00:32:01.216 the fact that Africa was suddenly on the stage of the world, and Africans 00:32:01.216 --> 00:32:05.196 had to be dealt with in a way they’d never been dealt with before. 00:32:05.196 --> 00:32:09.688 This gave an American negro for the first time a sense of himself 00:32:09.688 --> 00:32:19.728 beyond a savage or a clown. It has created and will create a great 00:32:19.728 --> 00:32:23.970 many conundrums. One of the great things that the white world 00:32:23.970 --> 00:32:29.615 does not know, but I think I do know, is that black people are just like 00:32:29.615 --> 00:32:34.386 everybody else. One has used the myth of negro and the myth of color 00:32:34.386 --> 00:32:39.288 to pretend and to assume that you were dealing, essentially, 00:32:39.288 --> 00:32:43.755 with something exotic, bizarre, and practically, according to human laws, 00:32:43.755 --> 00:32:49.074 unknown. Alas, it is not true. We’re also mercenaries, 00:32:49.074 --> 00:32:54.662 dictators, murderers, liars. We are human too. 00:32:56.512 --> 00:33:01.279 What is crucial here is that unless we can manage to accept, establish 00:33:01.279 --> 00:33:08.420 some kind of dialog between those people whom I pretend have paid 00:33:08.420 --> 00:33:16.380 for the American Dream and those other people who have not achieved it, 00:33:16.380 --> 00:33:23.362 we will be in terrible trouble. I want to say, at the end, the last, is that 00:33:23.362 --> 00:33:28.335 is what concerns me most. We are sitting in this room, and we are all, 00:33:28.335 --> 00:33:32.347 at least we’d like to think we are, relatively civilized, and we can talk to 00:33:32.347 --> 00:33:38.717 each other at least on certain levels, so that we could walk out of here 00:33:38.717 --> 00:33:43.213 assuming that the measure of our enlightenment, or at least, our 00:33:43.213 --> 00:33:46.655 politeness, has some effect on the world. It may not. 00:33:48.285 --> 00:33:54.558 I remember, for example, when the ex-attorney-general Mr. Robert Kennedy 00:33:54.558 --> 00:34:01.239 said that it was conceivable that in forty years, in America, we might have 00:34:01.239 --> 00:34:08.079 a negro president. That sounded like a very emancipated statement, 00:34:08.079 --> 00:34:14.008 I suppose, to white people. They were not in Harlem when this statement 00:34:14.008 --> 00:34:19.648 was first heard. And did not hear, and possibly will never hear the laughter 00:34:19.648 --> 00:34:22.129 and the bitterness, and the scorn with which this statement was greeted. 00:34:22.129 --> 00:34:25.860 From the point of view of the man in the Harlem barbershop, Bobby Kennedy 00:34:25.860 --> 00:34:32.506 only got here yesterday, and he’s already on his way to the presidency. 00:34:32.506 --> 00:34:36.837 We’ve been here for 400 years and now he tells us that maybe 00:34:36.837 --> 00:34:42.541 in forty years, if you’re good, we may let you become president. 00:34:44.371 --> 00:34:52.922 What is dangerous here is the turning away from--the turning away from 00:34:52.922 --> 00:34:59.499 anything any white American says. The reason for the political hesitation, 00:34:59.499 --> 00:35:03.694 in spite of the Johnson landslide is that one has been betrayed by American 00:35:03.694 --> 00:35:08.707 politicians for so long. And I am a grown man and perhaps I can be 00:35:08.707 --> 00:35:16.767 reasoned with. I certainly hope I can be. But I don’t know, and neither does 00:35:16.767 --> 00:35:21.254 Martin Luther King, none of us know how to deal with those other people 00:35:21.254 --> 00:35:24.191 whom the white world has so long ignored, who don’t believe anything 00:35:24.191 --> 00:35:30.688 the white world says and don’t entirely believe anything I or Martin is saying. 00:35:32.388 --> 00:35:34.891 And one can’t blame them. You watch what has happened to them in less than 00:35:34.891 --> 00:35:42.247 twenty years. It seems to me that the city of New York, for example, this is 00:35:42.247 --> 00:35:49.744 my last point, has had negroes in it for a very long time. 00:35:49.744 --> 00:35:55.886 If the city of New York were able, as it has indeed been able, in the last fifteen 00:35:55.886 --> 00:36:01.029 years to reconstruct itself, tear down buildings and raise great new ones, 00:36:01.029 --> 00:36:07.829 downtown and for money, and has done nothing whatever except build 00:36:07.829 --> 00:36:15.299 housing projects in the ghetto for the negroes. And of course, negroes hate it. 00:36:15.299 --> 00:36:18.843 Presently the property does indeed deteriorate because the children 00:36:18.843 --> 00:36:26.391 cannot bear it. They want to get out of the ghetto. If the American pretensions 00:36:26.391 --> 00:36:33.077 were based on more solid, a more honest assessment of life and of 00:36:33.077 --> 00:36:39.094 themselves, it would not mean for negroes when someone says “urban renewal,” 00:36:39.094 --> 00:36:41.859 that negroes simply are gonna be thrown out into the streets. 00:36:41.859 --> 00:36:45.345 Which is what it does mean now. This is not an act of God. We’re 00:36:45.345 --> 00:36:52.490 dealing with a society made and ruled by men. If the American negro had not 00:36:52.490 --> 00:36:56.239 been present in America, I am convinced that the history of the American labor 00:36:56.246 --> 00:36:59.181 movement would be much more edifying than it is. 00:36:59.181 --> 00:37:05.783 It is a terrible thing for an entire people to surrender to the notion 00:37:05.783 --> 00:37:12.061 that one-ninth of its population is beneath them. And until that moment, 00:37:12.061 --> 00:37:18.277 until the moment comes when we, the Americans, we, the American people, 00:37:18.277 --> 00:37:23.305 are able to accept the fact, that I have to accept, for example, that my ancestors 00:37:23.305 --> 00:37:28.617 are both white and black, that on that continent we are trying to forge a new 00:37:28.617 --> 00:37:34.814 identity for which we need each other and that I am not a ward of America, 00:37:34.814 --> 00:37:40.512 I am not an object of missionary charity. I am one of the people who built 00:37:40.512 --> 00:37:46.772 the country, until this moment, there is scarcely any hope for the American Dream, 00:37:46.772 --> 00:37:53.418 because the people who are denied participation in it, by their very 00:37:53.418 --> 00:37:59.046 presence, will wreck it. And if that happens, it is a very grave moment for 00:37:59.046 --> 00:38:00.898 the West. Thank you. 00:38:00.898 --> 00:38:04.449 [loud applause] 00:38:22.247 --> 00:38:28.430 Narrator: Tremendously moving moment now. The whole of the union standing and 00:38:28.430 --> 00:38:34.945 applauding this magnificent speech of James Baldwin. Never seen this happen 00:38:34.945 --> 00:38:41.017 before in the union in all the years that I have known it. Baldwin smiling, 00:38:41.017 --> 00:38:46.493 obviously delighted by his reception, tremendously moved by it. 00:38:46.493 --> 00:38:48.707 [applause] 00:39:04.623 --> 00:39:07.385 President: I am now very grateful and very pleased to be 00:39:07.385 --> 00:39:11.239 able to call Mr. William F Buckley Jr. to speak fourth to this motion. 00:39:11.239 --> 00:39:14.441 [applause] 00:39:19.409 --> 00:39:23.436 Narrator: Now we have Mr. William Buckley, who will need all his skill to 00:39:23.436 --> 00:39:27.286 establish ascendancy over his audience, which has clearly been so deeply 00:39:27.286 --> 00:39:31.564 moved by the eloquence and personal experience of the preceding speaker. 00:39:31.564 --> 00:39:34.381 William Buckley: Thank you Mr. President, Baldwin, Heycock, Burford, gentlemen. 00:39:39.391 --> 00:39:49.242 It seems to me that of all the indictments Mr. Baldwin has made of America 00:39:49.242 --> 00:39:58.894 here tonight and in his copious literature of protest, that the one that is most 00:39:58.894 --> 00:40:11.508 striking, involves, in effect, the refusal of the American community to treat 00:40:11.508 --> 00:40:19.647 him other than as a negro. The American community has refused 00:40:19.647 --> 00:40:26.424 to do this. The American community almost everywhere he goes 00:40:26.424 --> 00:40:36.061 treats him with a kind of unction, of a kind of satisfaction at posturing 00:40:36.061 --> 00:40:44.278 carefully for his flagellations of our civilization. That indeed, 00:40:44.278 --> 00:40:50.680 quite properly, commands the contempt which he so eloquently showers upon us. 00:40:52.100 --> 00:40:57.333 It is impossible in my judgment to deal with the indictment of Mr. Baldwin 00:40:57.333 --> 00:41:03.489 unless one is prepared to deal with him as a white man. Unless one is prepared to 00:41:03.489 --> 00:41:08.425 say to him, the fact that your skin is black is utterly irrelevant to the 00:41:08.425 --> 00:41:14.304 arguments that you raise, or the fact that you sit here as is your 00:41:14.304 --> 00:41:20.367 rhetorical device and lay the entire weight of the negro ordeal on your 00:41:20.367 --> 00:41:26.410 own shoulders is irrelevant to the argument that we are here to discuss. 00:41:29.070 --> 00:41:36.098 The gravamen of Mr. Baldwin's charges against America are not so much that our 00:41:36.098 --> 00:41:41.737 civilization has failed him and his people. That our ideals are 00:41:41.737 --> 00:41:48.772 insufficient or that we have no ideals. That our ideals, rather, 00:41:48.772 --> 00:41:54.372 are some sort of a superficial coating which we come up with at any 00:41:54.372 --> 00:41:58.756 given moment in order to justify whatever commercial and 00:41:58.756 --> 00:42:04.442 noxious experiment we are engaged in. Thus, Mr. Baldwin can write his 00:42:04.442 --> 00:42:10.019 book "The Fire Next Time," in which he threatens America. He didn't 00:42:10.019 --> 00:42:13.923 in writing that book speak with a British accent that he used 00:42:13.923 --> 00:42:17.700 exclusively tonight, in which he threatened America with a 00:42:17.700 --> 00:42:27.434 necessity for us to jettison... for us to jettison our entire 00:42:27.434 --> 00:42:32.791 civilization, the only thing that the white man has that the negro should 00:42:32.791 --> 00:42:37.435 want, he said, is power, and he is treated 00:42:37.435 --> 00:42:42.060 from coast to coast of the United States with a kind of unctuous... 00:42:42.060 --> 00:42:46.664 [Narrator speaking over him: inaudible] 00:42:46.664 --> 00:42:49.850 ... that goes beyond anything that was ever expected from the most 00:42:49.850 --> 00:42:54.100 servile negro creature by a southern family. I propose to pay him the honor 00:42:54.100 --> 00:43:00.711 this night of saying to him, Mr. Baldwin, I am going to speak to you without any 00:43:00.711 --> 00:43:08.035 reference whatever to those surrounding protections which you are used to 00:43:08.035 --> 00:43:12.673 in virtue of the fact that you are a negro. Here we need to ask the question, 00:43:12.673 --> 00:43:17.132 what in fact shall we do about it, Mr. President? What shall we in America 00:43:17.132 --> 00:43:25.320 try to do? For instance, to eliminate those psychic humiliations which I join 00:43:25.320 --> 00:43:30.052 Mr. Baldwin in believing are the very worst aspects of this discrimination. 00:43:30.052 --> 00:43:35.344 You found it a source of considerable mirth to laugh away the statistics 00:43:35.344 --> 00:43:39.820 of my colleague, Mr. Burford. I don't think they are insignificant. They 00:43:39.820 --> 00:43:45.010 certainly are not insignificant in a world which attaches a considerable importance 00:43:45.010 --> 00:43:53.252 to material progress. It is in fact the case that seven-tenths of the white income 00:43:53.252 --> 00:43:57.359 of the United States is equal to the income that is made by the average 00:43:57.359 --> 00:44:02.865 negro. I don't think this is an irrelevant statistic, ladies and gentleman. It takes 00:44:02.865 --> 00:44:06.796 the capitalization of fifteen, sixteen, seventeen thousand dollars per job in the 00:44:06.796 --> 00:44:12.287 United States. This is capitalization that was not created exclusively as a result 00:44:12.287 --> 00:44:17.615 of negro travail. My great grandparents worked too, presumably yours worked 00:44:17.615 --> 00:44:21.113 also. I don't know of anything that has ever been created without the expense 00:44:21.113 --> 00:44:25.529 of something. All of you who hope for a diploma here are going to do that at the 00:44:25.529 --> 00:44:30.108 expense of a considerable amount of effort. And I would thank you to please 00:44:30.108 --> 00:44:35.130 not to belie the fact that a considerable amount of effort went into the production 00:44:35.130 --> 00:44:39.606 of a system which grants a greater degree of material well-being to the American 00:44:39.606 --> 00:44:44.129 negro, than that that is enjoyed by 95% of the other peoples of the human 00:44:44.129 --> 00:44:50.593 race. But even so, to the extent that your withering laughter suggested here 00:44:50.593 --> 00:44:56.249 that you found this a contemptible observation, I agree. I don't think it 00:44:56.249 --> 00:45:00.802 matters that there are 35 millionaires among the negro community 00:45:00.802 --> 00:45:04.277 if there were 35, if there were 20 million millionaires among 00:45:04.277 --> 00:45:08.257 the negro community of the United States, I would still agree with you that we 00:45:08.257 --> 00:45:14.571 have a dastardly situation. But I am asking you not to make politics as 00:45:14.571 --> 00:45:20.094 the crow flies, to use the fleeted phrase of Professor Oakshock, but rather to consider 00:45:20.094 --> 00:45:24.957 what in fact is it that we Americans ought to do? What are your instructions that 00:45:24.957 --> 00:45:29.538 I am to take back to the United States my friend? I want to know what it is 00:45:29.538 --> 00:45:34.613 that we should do and especially, I want to know whether it is time in fact 00:45:34.613 --> 00:45:38.957 to abandon the American Dream as it has been defined by Mr. Heycock and 00:45:38.957 --> 00:45:44.009 Mr. Burford. What in fact is it we ought to do, for instance, to avoid 00:45:44.009 --> 00:45:52.316 due humiliations mentioned by Mr. Baldwin as being a part of his own experience 00:45:52.316 --> 00:45:57.680 during his lifetime. At the age of twelve, you will find on reading his book, 00:45:57.680 --> 00:46:04.293 he trespassed outside the ghetto of Harlem and was taken by the scruff of the 00:46:04.293 --> 00:46:08.787 neck by a policeman on 42nd Street, Madison Avenue and said, "Here, 00:46:08.787 --> 00:46:14.563 you nigger, go back to where you belong." Fifteen, twenty years later he goes in 00:46:14.563 --> 00:46:20.580 and asks for a scotch whiskey at the airport at Chicago and is told by the 00:46:20.580 --> 00:46:25.860 white woman that he is obviously underage and under the circumstances, can't be 00:46:25.860 --> 00:46:32.633 served. I know. I know from your faces that you share with me the feeling of 00:46:32.633 --> 00:46:38.245 compassion and the feeling of outrage that this kind of thing should have 00:46:38.245 --> 00:46:43.781 happened. What in fact are we going to do to this policeman and what in fact are 00:46:43.781 --> 00:46:52.128 we going to do to this barman? How are we going to avoid the kind of humiliations 00:46:52.128 --> 00:46:58.413 that are perpetually visited on members of the minority race? Obviously, the first 00:46:58.413 --> 00:47:03.952 element is concern. We've got to care that it happens. We've got to 00:47:03.952 --> 00:47:09.387 do what we can to change the warp and woof of moral thought in society 00:47:09.387 --> 00:47:15.260 in such fashion as to try to make it happen less and less. Let me urge this 00:47:15.260 --> 00:47:18.861 point to you, which I can do with authority, my friends. The only thing that 00:47:18.861 --> 00:47:24.660 I can tonight, and that is to tell you that in the United States there is a 00:47:24.660 --> 00:47:27.843 concern for the negro problem. Now if you get up to me and 00:47:27.843 --> 00:47:32.847 say--[laughter] 00:47:32.847 --> 00:47:36.558 If you get up to me and say, "Well, now is there the kind of 00:47:36.558 --> 00:47:40.920 concern that we, students of Cambridge, would show if the problem were our 00:47:40.920 --> 00:47:46.205 own?" All I can say is, I don't know. It may very well be that there has 00:47:46.205 --> 00:47:51.592 been some sort of a sunburst of moral enlightenment that has hit this 00:47:51.592 --> 00:47:55.821 community so as to make it predictable that if you were the 00:47:55.821 --> 00:47:59.896 governors of the United States, the situation would change overnight. 00:47:59.896 --> 00:48:04.827 I am prepared to grant this as a form of courtesy, Mr. President, but 00:48:04.827 --> 00:48:10.651 meanwhile, I am saying to you that the engines of concern in the United States 00:48:10.651 --> 00:48:17.237 are working. The presence of Mr. Baldwin here tonight is in part a reflection of 00:48:17.237 --> 00:48:21.216 that concern. [audience member yells out] You cannot go to a 00:48:21.216 --> 00:48:25.411 university in the United States, a university in the United States presumably 00:48:25.411 --> 00:48:30.723 also governed by the lord spiritual as you are, in which Mr. Baldwin is not the 00:48:30.723 --> 00:48:36.023 toast of the town. You cannot go to a university of the United States in which 00:48:36.023 --> 00:48:43.336 practically all other problems of public policy are preempted by the primary policy of concern 00:48:43.336 --> 00:48:48.786 for the negro. I challenge you to name another civilization any time 00:48:48.786 --> 00:48:53.338 anywhere in the history of the world in which the problems of the minority, 00:48:53.338 --> 00:48:58.067 which have been showing considerable material and political advancement is as 00:48:58.067 --> 00:49:03.195 much a subject of dramatic concern as it is in the United States, but let me just 00:49:03.195 --> 00:49:12.010 say finally, ladies and gentlemen, this. There is no instant cure for the race 00:49:12.010 --> 00:49:16.593 problem in America and anybody who tells you that there is 00:49:16.593 --> 00:49:21.193 is a charlatan and ultimately a boring man. 00:49:21.193 --> 00:49:27.743 Boring precisely because he is then speaking in the kind of abstractions that 00:49:27.743 --> 00:49:33.430 do not relate to the human experience. The trouble in America where the negro 00:49:33.430 --> 00:49:38.706 community is concerned is a very complicated one. I urge those of you 00:49:38.706 --> 00:49:44.431 who have an actual rather than a purely ideologized interest in the 00:49:44.431 --> 00:49:50.514 problem to read the book "Beyond the Melting Pot" by Professor Glazer, 00:49:50.514 --> 00:49:56.830 also co-author of the "The Lonely Proud" a prominent Jewish intellectual who 00:49:56.830 --> 00:50:02.164 points at the fact that the situation in America where the negros are concerned 00:50:02.164 --> 00:50:08.619 is extremely complex as the result of an unfortunate conjunction of two factors. 00:50:08.619 --> 00:50:15.928 One is the dreadful efforts to perpetuate discrimination by many individual American 00:50:15.928 --> 00:50:21.910 citizens as a result of their lack of that final and ultimate concern which some 00:50:21.910 --> 00:50:27.317 people are truly trying to agitate, the other is as a result of the failure of the negro 00:50:27.317 --> 00:50:35.034 community itself to make certain exertions which were made by other minority groups 00:50:35.034 --> 00:50:40.434 during the American experience. If you can stand a statistic not of my own making, 00:50:40.434 --> 00:50:45.514 let me give you one which Professor Glazer considers as relevant. He says 00:50:45.514 --> 00:50:51.367 for instance, in 1900 there were 3,500 negro doctors in America. 00:50:51.367 --> 00:50:57.200 In 1960, there were 3,900. An increase in 400. Is this because 00:50:57.200 --> 00:51:01.254 there were no opportunities, as has been suggested by Mr. Heycock and also by 00:51:01.254 --> 00:51:06.284 Mr. Baldwin implicitly. "No," says Professor Glazer. There are a great many 00:51:06.284 --> 00:51:11.876 medical schools who by no means practice discrimination, who are anxious to recieve 00:51:11.876 --> 00:51:15.734 the trained negro doctors. There are scholarships available to put them 00:51:15.734 --> 00:51:21.158 through, but in fact that particular energy which he remarks was so noticeable 00:51:21.158 --> 00:51:24.275 in the Jewish community and to a certain and lesser extent in the Italian and 00:51:24.275 --> 00:51:29.066 Irish community, for some reason is not there. We should focus on the 00:51:29.066 --> 00:51:34.154 necessity to animate this particular energy, but he comes to the conclusion 00:51:34.154 --> 00:51:38.606 which strikes me as plausible. The people who can best do it most effectively 00:51:38.606 --> 00:51:44.812 are negros themselves. Let me conclude by reminding you, ladies and gentlemen 00:51:44.812 --> 00:51:50.307 that where the negro is concerned, the dangers, far as I can see at this 00:51:50.307 --> 00:51:56.144 moment is that they will seek to reach out for some sort of radical 00:51:56.144 --> 00:52:01.797 solutions on the basis of which the true problem is obscured. They have done a 00:52:01.797 --> 00:52:08.589 great deal to focus on the fact of white discrimination against negros. They have 00:52:08.589 --> 00:52:14.214 done a great deal to agitate a moral concern, but where in fact do they go 00:52:14.214 --> 00:52:18.747 now? They seem to be slipping, if you read carefully for instance the words of 00:52:18.747 --> 00:52:25.274 Mr. Bayard Rustin, toward some sort of a procrustean formulation which ends up 00:52:25.274 --> 00:52:30.458 less urging the advancement of the negro than the regression of the white people. 00:52:30.458 --> 00:52:36.224 Fourteen times as many people in New York City born of negros are illegitimate 00:52:36.224 --> 00:52:40.854 as of whites. This is a problem. How should we address it? By seeking out laws 00:52:40.854 --> 00:52:45.514 that encourage illegitimacy in white people? This unfortunately tends to be 00:52:45.514 --> 00:52:48.910 the rhetorical momentum that some of the arguments are taking. 00:52:48.910 --> 00:52:54.220 - One thing you might do Mr. Buckley is let them vote in Mississippi. [applause] 00:52:54.220 --> 00:52:55.644 Buckley: I agree. 00:52:59.664 --> 00:53:06.874 I couldn't agree with you more and for... except, lest I appear too 00:53:06.874 --> 00:53:12.452 ingratiating which is hardly my objective here tonight. I think actually what is 00:53:12.452 --> 00:53:16.110 wrong in Mississippi, sir, is not that not enough negros are voting but that 00:53:16.110 --> 00:53:18.659 too many white people are voting. 00:53:18.659 --> 00:53:21.443 [laughter] 00:53:25.661 --> 00:53:32.726 Booker T. Washington said, "That the important thing where negros are 00:53:32.726 --> 00:53:37.989 concerned is not that they hold public office, but they be prepared 00:53:37.989 --> 00:53:42.017 to hold public office. Not that they vote, but that they be prepared to vote." 00:53:42.017 --> 00:53:45.348 What are we going to do with the negros having taught the negros 00:53:45.348 --> 00:53:49.929 in Mississippi to despise Barnett, Ross Barnett, shall we then teach 00:53:49.929 --> 00:53:53.720 them to emulate their cousins in Harlem and adore Adam 00:53:53.720 --> 00:53:58.538 Clayton Powell Jr.? It is much more complicated, sir, than simply the 00:53:58.538 --> 00:54:02.829 question of giving them the vote. If I were myself a constituent of the 00:54:02.829 --> 00:54:06.810 community of Mississippi at this moment, what I would do is vote to lift the 00:54:06.810 --> 00:54:12.124 standards of the vote so as to disqualify 65% of the white people who 00:54:12.124 --> 00:54:14.444 are presently voting, not simply... 00:54:14.444 --> 00:54:16.995 [applause] 00:54:19.784 --> 00:54:21.933 I say, then, that what we need 00:54:21.933 --> 00:54:26.373 is a considerable amount of frankness that acknowledges 00:54:26.373 --> 00:54:31.624 that there are two sets of difficulties, the difficulties of the white person who 00:54:31.624 --> 00:54:38.122 acts as white people and brown people and black people do all over the world to 00:54:38.122 --> 00:54:42.709 protect their own vested interests, who have as all the races in the entire world 00:54:42.709 --> 00:54:50.349 have and suffer from a kind of racial narcissism which tends always to 00:54:50.349 --> 00:54:54.529 convert every contingency in such a way as to maximize their own power. 00:54:54.529 --> 00:54:57.400 That, yes, we must do, but we must also 00:54:57.400 --> 00:55:00.620 reach through to the negro people and tell them 00:55:00.620 --> 00:55:05.982 that their best chances are in a mobile society and the most mobile society 00:55:05.982 --> 00:55:11.048 in the world today, my friends, is the United States of America. The most 00:55:11.048 --> 00:55:14.717 mobile society in the world is the United States of America, and it is 00:55:14.717 --> 00:55:19.817 precisely that mobility which will give opportunities to the negros which 00:55:19.817 --> 00:55:24.778 they must be encouraged to take, but they must not in the course of their 00:55:24.778 --> 00:55:32.235 ordeal be encouraged to adopt the kind of cynicism, the kind of despair, the kind 00:55:32.235 --> 00:55:38.266 of iconoclasm that is urged upon them by Mr. Baldwin in his recent works because 00:55:38.266 --> 00:55:44.516 one thing I can tell you, I believe with absolute authority, that where the 00:55:44.516 --> 00:55:50.654 United States is concerned, if it ever becomes a confrontation between a 00:55:50.654 --> 00:55:58.814 continuation of our own sort of idealism, the private stock of which, granted like 00:55:58.814 --> 00:56:02.285 most people in the world, we tend to lavish only every now and then on 00:56:02.285 --> 00:56:06.694 public enterprises, reserving it so often for our own irritations and pleasures, 00:56:06.694 --> 00:56:13.761 but the fundamental friend of the negro people in the United States is the good 00:56:13.761 --> 00:56:20.342 nature and is the generosity and is the good wishes, is the decency, the 00:56:20.342 --> 00:56:25.768 fundamental decency that do lie at the reserves of the spirit of the American 00:56:25.768 --> 00:56:31.246 people. These must not be laughed at and under no circumstances must they 00:56:31.246 --> 00:56:36.723 be laughed at and under no circumstances must America be addressed and told that 00:56:36.723 --> 00:56:42.090 the only alternative to the status quo is to overthrow that civilization 00:56:42.090 --> 00:56:47.074 which we consider to be the faith of our fathers, the faith indeed of 00:56:47.074 --> 00:56:52.435 your fathers. This is what must animate whatever meliorism must 00:56:52.435 --> 00:56:58.316 come because if it does finally come to a confrontation, a radical confrontation, 00:56:58.316 --> 00:57:02.991 between giving up what we understand to be the best features of the American 00:57:02.991 --> 00:57:06.975 way of life, which at that level is indistinguishable so far as I can see 00:57:06.975 --> 00:57:11.324 from the European way of life, then we will fight the issue and we will 00:57:11.324 --> 00:57:15.561 fight the issue not only in the Cambridge Union, but we will fight it as you were 00:57:15.561 --> 00:57:19.882 once recently called to do on beaches and on hills and on mountains and 00:57:19.882 --> 00:57:24.665 on landing grounds and we will be convinced that just as you won the 00:57:24.665 --> 00:57:31.132 war against a particular threat to civilization, you were nevertheless 00:57:31.132 --> 00:57:36.186 waging a war in favor of and for the benefit of Germans, your own 00:57:36.186 --> 00:57:40.549 enemies, just as we are convinced that if it should ever come to that kind of a 00:57:40.549 --> 00:57:44.886 confrontation, our own determination to win the struggle will be a 00:57:44.886 --> 00:57:49.314 determination to wage a war not only for whites but also for negros. 00:57:49.314 --> 00:57:53.532 [long applause] 00:58:20.893 --> 00:58:25.511 President: Will the tellers take their places please? They voted 00:58:25.511 --> 00:58:29.065 in favor of the motion, the motion being that the American Dream is at the expense 00:58:29.065 --> 00:58:33.009 of the negro, they voted in favor of that motion 544 persons 00:58:33.009 --> 00:58:36.452 and against, 164 persons. The motion is 00:58:36.452 --> 00:58:39.554 therefore carried by 380 votes, I declare the house 00:58:39.554 --> 00:58:43.944 to stand adjourned. [applause]