>> [MUSIC] The
following program
is from NET,
the National Educational
Television Network.
>> Debate, James Baldwin,
versus William Buckley.
Subject, has the
American dream
been achieved
at the expense
of the American negro?
This debate was
held recently at
the Cambridge Union,
Cambridge University,
England, and was
recorded for use by NET.
>> Well, here we are in
the debating hall of
the Cambridge Union,
hundreds of
undergraduates and
myself waiting for
what could prove one
of the most
exciting debates in
the whole 150 years
of the Union history.
It really, I don't
think I've ever
seen the Union so
well attended.
They're undergraduates
everywhere.
They're on the benches,
and on the floor, but
in the galleries,
and there are a
lot more outside
clamoring to get in.
Well, the motion
that has drawn
this huge crowd
tonight is this that
the American
dream has been
achieved at the expense
of the American negro.
The debate will open with
two undergraduate
speakers,
one from each side.
And then we shall have
the first
distinguished guest,
Mr. James Baldwin,
the well known American
novelist who has achieved
a worldwide fame with
his novel,
Another Country.
Then opposing the
motion will be Mr.
William Buckley,
also an American,
very well known as
a conservative in
the United States
under stress
a conservative in
the American sense,
author of a book called
Up From Liberalism,
and editor of the
national review,
one of the earliest
supporters
of Senator Goldwater.
Well, this is the
setting of the debate,
and at any moment now,
the president
will be leading
in his officers and his
distinguished guests.
He'll take his chair, and
the debate will begin.
[APPLAUSE]
The motion before
the House tonight is
the American dream is at
the expense of the
American negro.
I propose of Mr. David
Haycock of
Pembroke College
and opposed Mr. Jeremy
Befort of
Emmanuel College.
Mr. James Baldwin
will speak first,
Mr. William Buckley
junior will speak forth.
Mr. Haycock is the heir
of the house.
[APPLAUSE]
>> Mr. President, sir, it
is the custom of
the House for
the first speaker
in any debate to
extend a formal welcome
to any visitors
to the house.
I can honestly
say, however,
that it is a very
great honor to be
able to welcome to the
house this evening,
Mr. William Buckley
and Mr. James Baldwin.
Mr. William Buckley has
the reputation of possibly
being the most
articulate conservative
in the United
States of America.
He was a graduate of Yale,
and he first gained
a reputation
for himself by
publishing a book entitled
God and Man and Yale.
[LAUGHTER] Since
then, he has
devoted himself
to the secular.
And this has included
Norman Mailer,
Kenneth Tyler and
Mary McCarthy,
and Fidel Castro,
none of whom
have come out of
their confrontations
unscathed.
[LAUGHTER] At present,
his principal
occupation is editing
a right wing newspaper in
the United States
entitle the
National Review.
Mr. James Baldwin is
hardly in need
of introduction.
His reputation,
both as a novelist,
and as an advocate of
civil rights is
international.
His third novel,
Another Country has
been published as
a paperback in
England today.
Mr. Baldwin and Mr.
Buckley are both
very welcome to the
house this evening.
[APPLAUSE]
Imagine, Mr. President,
a society which above
all values, freedom
and equality.
A society in which
artificial barriers to
fulfillment and achievement
are unheard of.
A society in which
a man may begin
his life as a
rail splitter
and end it as president,
a society in which all men
are free in every
sense of the word.
Free to live where
they choose,
free to work where
they choose,
equal in the
eyes of the law
and every public
authority,
and equal in the eyes of
their fellows, a society,
in fact, in which
intolerance and
prejudice are
meaningless terms.
Imagine, however,
Mr. President,
that a condition of
this utopia has been
the persistent and
quite deliberate
exploitation
of one ninth of
its inhabitants.
That one man in nine has
been denied those rights,
which the rest of
that society takes
for granted.
That one man in
nine does not have
the chance for
fulfillment or realization
of his innate
potentiality.
[NOISE] That one man
in nine cannot promise
his children a
secure future
and unlimited
opportunities.
Imagine this,
Mr. President,
and you have what
is in my opinion,
the bitter reality of
the American dream.
A few weeks ago,
Martin Luther
King had to hold
a non violent
demonstration in
Selma Alabama in his drive
to register negro voters.
By the end of the week
of his demonstrations,
he was able to write
quite accurately in
a national fund
raising letter
from Selma Alabama jail.
There are more
negroes in prison
with me than there are
on the voting rolls.
When King wrote
that letter,
335 out of 32,700
negroes in Dallas
had the vote,
1% of the Dallas
population.
After a mass march
to the courthouse,
237 negroes, King among
them were arrested.
The following day, 470
children who had deserted
their classrooms
to protest against
King's arrest were
charged with juvenile
delinquency.
[LAUGHTER] Thirty
six adults
on the same day
were charged with
contempt of court
for picketing
the courthouse while
state circuit court
was in session.
On the following
day, 111 people
were arrested on
the same charge,
despite their
claim that they
merely wanted to see
the voting registrar.
Four hundred students were
arrested and taken
to the armory,
where many of them
spent the night
on a cold cement floor.
The following day,
the demonstration
spread to Marion, Alabama.
In Marion, negroes
outnumber whites,
by 11 and a half thousands
to 6,000 people,
and yet only 300 are
registered to vote.
Negroes and Marion
were anxious to test
the public
accommodation section
of the civil rights law.
They entered a drug store,
and there they
were served with
coca cola laced with salt
and were told
that hamburgers
had risen to $5 each.
After the arrest
of 15 negroes
for protesting against
this treatment,
700 negroes boycotted
their classes
next day and marched
in orderly fashion
to the jail.
There, they sang
civil rights songs,
until they were warned by
a state trooper
that they would
be arrested if they
sang one more song.
Of course, they
sang another song,
and of course, all
700 were arrested.
American Society has felt
fit to use negro labor.
It has felt fit to use
the blood of the negro
in two world wars.
It felt fit to
listen to his music.
It has felt fit to
laugh at his jokes.
And yet, as far
as I'm concerned,
it has never felt fit to
give the American
negro a fair deal.
And for this reason,
Mr. President,
I would beg leave to
propose the motion that
the American dream is at
the expense of the
American negro. [APPLAUSE]
>> I now call Mr.
Jeremy Burford of
Emmanuel College to
oppose the motion.
[APPLAUSE]
>> Now I have Mr. Jeremy
Burford of Emmanuel College,
who is
the first undergraduate
opposing the motion.
>> James Baldwin is
well known as one of
the most vivid and
articulate writers
about the negro
problem in America.
Mr. Baldwin had a
difficult childhood,
and he has personally
himself suffered
discrimination
and ill treatment
in the South of America.
And I would like to
say at this time,
that it is not the
purpose of this side of
the House to condone
that in any way at all.
It is not our purpose
to oppose civil rights.
It is our purpose to
oppose this motion.
[LAUGHTER] Thank you, sir.
Come and collect
your fee afterwards.
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE] This side
of the House denies that
the American dream
has in any way been
helped by this
undoubted inequality
and suffering
of the negro.
We maintain that, in fact,
it has hindered the
American dream.
And if there had
been equity,
if there had been
true freedom of
opportunity,
the American dream
would be very
much more advanced
than it is now.
If the American dream has
made any progress,
and I think it has,
it has been made in
spite of the suffering
and inequality
of the American
negro and not
because of it.
Now, it is also implied
from this motion that
the American dream
is encouraging
and worsening
the suffering
of the American negro.
This is emphatically
not the case.
The American dream,
the American
economic prosperity
and respect for
civil liberties
has been the main factor
in bringing about
the undoubted
improvement in
race relations in America
in the last 20 years.
And Professor Arnold Rose,
who is the author of
the Negro in America,
which is perhaps
the definitive work
on the subject,
who is also a
contributor to
what was called a
freedom pamphlet.
So I should imagine that
if he has any bias at all,
it is in favor
of the negro.
He said that this
improvement in
race relations
will be seen
in years to come as
remarkably quick,
and he has put it down
to three main causes,
increased
industrialization
and technical advance,
the increased
social mobility
of the American people,
and the economic
prosperity.
And I would put
it to this house
that that
industrialization and
economic prosperity
are two of
the main ingredients
of the American dream.
And at the same
time, again,
I do not want to say that
the negro in America
is treated fairly,
but at the same time,
the average per capita
income of negroes
in America is
exactly the same
as the average
per capita income of
people in Great Britain.
Now,
[LAUGHTER] I found that
absolutely amazing,
and [LAUGHTER]
I understand
that some of
you do as well,
so I have got the
reference here from
the United States News and
World Report of
July the 22nd,
1963, in which
it points out,
this will have to be
the last interruption
I take as time is running.
>> Mr. President, on a
point of information,
is the speaker talking of
real income or money
income? [APPLAUSE]
>> I'm talking
of money income.
I would not wish
to disguise that.
I would also say that
in terms of this,
there are only
five countries
in the world where
the income is higher than
that of the
American negro,
and they do not
include countries like
West Germany and
France and Japan.
Now, there are in America
35 negro millionaires.
There are negro $6,000
[inaudible]
[LAUGHTER] Now,
I do not by saying this,
wish to emphasize but
the negros fairly treated,
I merely wish to
try and convey
a more realistic and
objective account
of the situation
of the negro.
I agree that there are
negroes who are very poor,
indeed [LAUGHTER] such as
the old gentleman
in the south,
who was talking about
some of his
wealthier brethren,
and he was saying, yes,
some of these
rich negroes,
they put on airs day like
the bottom figure
of a fraction.
The bigger they try to be,
the smaller they
really are.
I would repeat,
Mr. President,
sir, in the last
minute I have,
that this debate
is not whether
civil rights
should be extended
to American
negroes or not.
If it were, it would
be a very easy motion
to argue for
and a very easy
motion to vote for.
The debate tonight
concerns whether
the American dream is at
the expense of the
American negro.
That is whether
the American negro
has paid for the
American dream with
his suffering or whether
the American dream has
furthered negro
inequality.
And I would deny both
those two precepts.
I would say that
negro inequality
has hindered the
American dream.
And I would say that the
American dream has
been very important
indeed in furthering
civil rights
and in furthering freedom
for the American negro.
Mr. President, sir, I
beg to oppose the
motion. [APPLAUSE]
>> It is now with
very great pleasure
and a very great
sense of honor
that I called Mr.
James Baldwin
to speak third to this
motion. [APPLAUSE]
>> Now we have Mr.
James Baldwin,
the star of the evening,
who has been sitting
listening attentively,
getting a wonderful
reception
here in the
Cambridge Union.
Tremendous enthusiasm
from all sides
of the house to
Mr. Baldwin,
who has been listening
to the arguments.
Now we'll bring the
voice of actual
experience to the debate.
>> Good evening.
[LAUGHTER]
I find myself, not
for the first time
and the position
of a Jeremiah.
For example, I
don't disagree
with Mr. Burford that
the inequality suffered by
the American Negro
population of
the United States has
hindered the
American dream.
Indeed, it has. I quarrel
with some other
things he has to say.
The other deeper
element of
a certain awkwardness
I feel has to do with,
it has to do
with one's point
of view, I had to
put it that way.
One sense, one
system of reality,
it would seem to me
the proposition
before the house,
if I put it that way, is
the American dream at
the expense of the
American Negro,
or the American dream is
at the expense of
the American Negro?
Is a question
hideously loaded,
and that one's response
to that question,
or one's reaction
to that question,
has it depend on
effect on where you
find yourself
in the world,
what your sense
of reality is,
what your system
of reality is.
That is, it depends on
assumptions which we
hold so deeply as
to be scarcely
aware of them.
White South African or
Mississippi Share crop
or Mississippi Sheriff,
or a Frenchman
driven out of
Algeria all
have at bottom,
a system of reality
which compels them
to, for example,
in the case of the French
exile from Algeria,
to defend French reasons
for having ruled Algeria.
The Mississippi or
Alabama Sheriff,
who really does believe
when he's facing
a Negro boy or girl,
that this woman,
this man, this child,
must be insane to
attack the system to which
he owes his
entire identity.
Of course, for
such a person,
the proposition of which
which we're trying to
discuss here tonight
does not exist.
And on the other hand,
I have to speak as
one other people who've
been most attacked
by what they must
now here call the
Western or the European
system of reality.
What white people
in the world,
the of white supremacy,
I hate to say it here
comes from Europe.
That's how it
got to America.
Beneath then, whatever
one's reaction
to this proposition
is has to
be the question
or whether or
not civilizations can
be considered as such,
equal or whether one
civilization has
the right to overtake and
subjugate and in fact
to destroy another.
Now, what happens
when that happens,
leaving aside all
the physical facts
which one can quote,
leaving aside
rape or murder,
leaving aside the bloody
catalog of oppression,
which we are in one way
too familiar with already.
What this does to the
subjugated, the
most private,
the most serious thing
this does to
the subjugated,
is to destroy his
sense of reality.
It destroys, for example,
his father's
authority over him.
His father can
no longer tell
him anything because
the past has
disappeared and his father
has no power in the world.
This means in the case
of an American Negro,
born in that
glittering republic,
at the moment
you are born,
since you don't
know any better.
Every stick in stone and
every face is white,
and since you have not
yet seen a mirror,
you suppose that
you are too.
It comes as a great shock
around the age
of five or six
or seven to discover
the flag to which you have
pledged allegiance,
along with everybody else,
as not pledge
allegiance to you.
It comes as a
great shock to
discover that Gary
Cooper killing
off the Indians
when you were
rooting for Gary Cooper,
that the Indians
were you. [LAUGHTER]
It comes as a great shock
to discover that
the country,
which is your birthplace
and to which you
owe your life and
your identity has not
in its whole
system of reality,
evolved any place for you.
The disaffection,
the demoralization,
and the gap between
one person and
another only on the basis
of the color of
their skins,
begins there
and accelerates
throughout a
whole lifetime.
So the presently you
realize you're 30,
and are having a terrible
time managing to
trust your countrymen
By the time you are 30,
you have been through
a certain mill,
and the most
serious effect
of the mill you've
been through is again,
not the catalogue
of disaster.
The policemen,
the taxi drivers,
the waiters, the landlady,
the landlord, the banks,
the insurance companies,
the millions of details,
24 hours of every day,
which spell out to
you that you are a
worthless human being.
It is not that. Is by
that time you've
begun to see it
happening in
your daughter or
your son or your
niece or your nephew.
You are 30 by now,
and nothing you have done
has helped to
escape the trap.
But what is
worse than that
is that nothing
you have done,
and as far as you can
tell nothing you can
do will save your son or
your daughter from
meeting the same disaster
and not impossibly
coming to the same end.
Now, we're speaking about
expense and I suppose
there are several ways
to address oneself, too.
Some attempt to define
what that word means here.
Let me put it this way,
that from a very
literal point of view,
the harbors and
the ports and
the railroads
of the country.
The economy,
especially of the
southern states
could not conceivably
be what it has
become if they had
not had and do
not still have,
indeed, and for so long,
so many generations
cheap labor.
I am stating
very seriously,
and this is not
an overstatement.
That I picked the coffee,
and I carried it to
market and I built
the railroad under
someone else's
whip for nothing.
The southern Alagachi
which has until today,
so much power in
Washington, and therefore,
some power in the world
was created by
my labor and
my sweat and the violation
of my women and the
murder of my children.
This in the land of
the free and the home
of the brave and
no one can challenge
that statement,
it is a matter of
historical record.
In another way this dream,
and we'll get
to the dream in
a moment is at
the expense of the
American Negro.
You watch this in
the Deep South
in great relief,
but not only in
the Deep South.
In the Deep South,
you are dealing with a
sheriff or landlord or
landlady or the girl of
the Western Union desk.
And she doesn't know
quite who she's
dealing with,
by which I mean that
if you're not
part of the town,
and if you are a
northern nigger,
it shows in
millions of ways.
So she simply knows
that it's an
unknown quantity,
and she wants to have
nothing to do with it.
So she won't talk to you,
you have to wait for
a while to get
your telegram.
We all know this,
we've been through it,
and by the time you
get to be a man,
it's very easy
to deal with.
But what is happening
in the poor woman,
the poor man's
mind is this.
They have been
raised to believe,
and by now they
helplessly believe,
no matter how terrible
their lives may be,
and their lives have
been quite terrible.
No matter how
far they fall,
no matter what disaster
overtakes them,
they have one enormous
knowledge and consolation,
which is like a
heavenly revelation,
at least they
are not black.
Now, I suggest that of
all the terrible
things that
can happen to
a human being
that is one of the worst.
I suggest that what
has happened to
white southerners
is in some ways,
after all, much worse
than what has happened
to Negroes there.
Because Sheriff
Clark in Selma,
Alabama, cannot
be considered,
no one can be dismissed
as a total monster.
I'm sure he loves his
wife, his children.
I'm sure that
[LAUGHTER] he
likes to get drunk.
After all, one's
got to assume and
he is visibly
a man like me.
He doesn't know
what drives
him to use the club,
to menace with the gun,
and to use the
cattle prod.
Something awful must have
happened to a human being,
to be able to put
a cattle prod
against a woman's
breast, for example.
What happens to the
woman is ghastly.
What happens to the
man who does it
is in some ways
much much worse.
This is being
done after all.
Not 100 years
ago, but in 1965,
in a country which
is blessed with
what we call prosperity,
where do you want to
examine too closely?
With a certain
social coherence,
which calls itself a
civilized nation and which
espouses the notion
of the freedom
of the world and
it is perfectly true
from the point of view
now simply of an
American Negro.
Any American Negro
watching this,
no matter where he is,
from the vantage
point of Holland,
which is another
terrible place,
has to say to himself,
in spite of what the
government says,
the government
says, we can't
do anything about it.
But those are white
people being murdered
in Mississippi work farms,
being carried off to jail,
those are white children,
running up and
down the streets,
the government
would find some way
of doing something
about it.
We have a Civil
Rights Bill now.
We had an amendment,
the 15th Amendment
nearly 100 years ago.
I hate to sound again like
an old Testament prophet
but if the amendment
was not honored then,
I don't have any
reason for believing
the Civil Rights Bill
will be honored now.
And after all,
one's been there,
since before,
a lot of other
people got there.
If one has got
to prove one's
title to the land,
isn't 400 years enough?
400 years, at
least three wars.
The American
soil is full of
the corpses of
my ancestors.
Why is my freedom
or my citizenship,
or my right to live there,
how is it conceivably
a question now?
And I suggest further
that in the same way,
the moral life of
Alabama Sheriffs and
poor Alabama white ladies,
their moral
lives have been
destroyed by the
plague called color.
That the American sense
of reality has been
corrupted by it.
At the risk of
sounding excesses.
What I always felt when
I finally left
the country.
Found myself abroad
in other places,
and watched Americans
abroad and these
are my countrymen and
I do care about them.
And even if I didn't,
there is something
between us,
we have the
same shorthand.
I know, when
I look at a girl or a
boy from Tennessee,
where they came
from in Tennessee,
and what that means.
No Englishman knows
that, no Frenchman,
no one in the world
knows that except
another black man who
comes from the same place.
The one watches
these lonely people
denying the only
kin they have.
We talk about integration
in America as though it
was some great
new conundrum.
The Parliament in America,
though we've been
integrated for
very long time.
Put me next to any
African and you
will see what I
mean and my grandmother
was not a rapist.
What we are not facing
is the results of
what we've done.
What one brags the
American people to do for
all our sakes is
simply to accept
our history.
I was there not
only as a slave,
but also as a concubine.
One knows the
power after all,
which can be used
against another person
who've got absolute
power over that person.
It seemed to me when I
watched Americans in
Europe but they didn't
know about Europeans.
Was what they didn't
know about me.
They weren't trying,
for example,
to be nasty to
the French girl
or rude to the
French waiter.
They didn't know, they
hurt their feelings.
They didn't have any sense
this particular woman,
this particular man,
though they spoke
another language
and had different
manners and
ways was a human being.
And they walked over them
the same bland ignorance,
condescension,
charming and cheerful,
with which they
had always patted
me on the head
and called me
shine and were upset
when I was upset.
What is relevant
about this is that,
whereas 40 years ago
when I was born,
the question of
having to deal
with what is unspoken
by the subjugated,
what is never said
to the master.
Having to deal with
this reality was
a very remote possibility,
I was in no one's mind.
When I was growing up, I
was taught in American
history books,
that Africa had
no history,
and neither did I,
that I was a savage
about who the less
said the better,
who had been
saved by Europe
and brought to America.
And of course,
I believed it,
I didn't have much choice
those are the only
books there were.
Everyone else
seem to agree
if you walk out of Harlem,
ride out of
Harlem, downtown,
the world agrees, what you
see is much
bigger, cleaner,
wider, richer, safer,
than where you are.
They collect the garbage,
people obviously can
pay their life insurance.
The children look
happy, safe,
you're not, and
you go back home.
And it would seem
then, of course,
that it's an act of
God that this is true,
that you belong,
where white people
have put you.
It is only since the
Second World War,
that there has
been a counter
image in the world.
And that image not come
about through any
legislation on
the part of any
American government,
but through the
fact that Africa
was suddenly on the
stage of the world,
and Africans
had to be dealt
with in a way
that never been
dealt with before.
This gave an American
Negro for the first time
a sense of himself beyond
a savage or a clown.
It is created and will
create a great
many conundrums.
One of the great things
that the white world does
not know but I
think I do know,
is that black
people are just
like everybody else.
One has used the
myths of Negro and
the myth of color to
pretend and to
assume that you are
dealing essentially
with something exotic,
bizarre, and
practically according
to human laws unknown.
Alas, that is not true.
We are also
mercenaries, dictators,
murderers, fliers.
We are human too.
What is crucial here,
is unless we can
manage to establish
some dialogue
between those people
whom I pretend has paid
for the American dream
and those other
people who have
not achieved it,
we will be in
terrible trouble.
I want to say at the end,
the last, is that
that is what
concerns me most.
We are sitting in
this room and we are
all we like to
think we are,
relatively civilized,
and we can
talk to each other at
least on certain levels.
So that we could walk
out of here assuming
that the measure of
our enlightenment or
at least our politeness
has some effect
on the world.
It may not. I remember,
for example, when the
ex Attorney General,
Mr. Robert Kennedy, said
that it was conceivable
that in 40 years
in America,
we might have a
Negro president.
And that sounded like
a very emancipated
statement,
I suppose, to
white people.
They were not in Harlem
when this statement
was first heard,
and did not hear and
possibly will never
hear the laughter and
the bitterness
and the scorn,
which the statement
was greeted.
From the point of
view of the man in
the N Harlem barbershop,
Bobby Kennedy
only got here
yesterday and now he's
already on his way
to the presidency.
We've been here
for 400 years,
and now he tells us
that maybe in 40 years,
if you're good, we
may let you
become president.
What is dangerous here
is the turning away
from anything any
white American says.
The reason for
the political
hesitation in spite of
the Johnson landslide
is the one who's been
betrayed by American
politicians for so long.
I'm a grown man,
and perhaps
I can be reasoned with,
I certainly hope I can be.
But I don't know and
neither does Martin
Luther King,
none of us know how to
deal with those
other people whom
the white world has
so long ignored,
who don't believe
anything the white world
says and don't entirely
believe anything
I or Martin say.
And one can't blame them,
you watch what
has happened to
them in less
than 20 years.
It seems to me that
the City of New York,
for example, this
is my last point.
We said Negroes
lived in it for
a very long time.
If the City of New York
were able as it has
indeed been able,
in the last 15 years
to reconstruct itself,
teared down buildings and
raise great new ones,
downtown and for money.
And it has done
nothing whatever
except build
housing projects in
the ghetto for the Negroes
and of course,
Negroes hate it.
Presently, the property
doesn't deteriorate
because
the children
cannot bear it.
They want to get
out of the ghetto.
If the American
pretensions
were based on more solid,
a more honest assessment
of life and of themselves,
it would not
mean for Negroes
when someone says
urban renewal that Negroes
simply going to be
thrown out into
the streets.
This is what it
does mean now.
This is not an act of God,
we're dealing with
a society made
and ruled by men.
If the American Negro
had not been
present in America,
I'm convinced that
the history of
the American labor
movement would
be much more
edifying than it is.
It is a terrible thing
for an entire people to
surrender to
the notion that
one ninth of its population
is beneath them.
And until that moment,
until the moment
comes, when we,
the American people are
able to accept the fact
that I have to accept,
for example, that
my ancestors are
both white and black.
That on that continent,
we are trying to forge
a new identity for which
we need each other,
and that I am not
a ward of America.
I'm not an object of
missionary charity.
I am one of the people
who built the country.
Until this
moment, there are
scarcely any hope for
the American dream
because the people who are
denied participation in
it by their very
presence will wreck it,
and if that happens,
it's a very grave
moment for the West.
Thank you. [APPLAUSE].
>> Tremendously
moving moment now.
The whole of the
Union standing and
applauding this
magnificent speech
of James Baldwin.
Never seen this
happen before in
the Union in all the years
that I have known it.
Baldwin smiling,
obviously,
delighted by
his reception,
tremendously moved by it.
>> I am now very
grateful and
very pleased to
be able to call
Mr. William F Buckley
junior to speak
forth to this
motion.[APPLAUSE]
>> Now, we have Mr.
William Buckley,
who will need
all his skill to
establish ascendency
over his audience,
which has clearly been
so deeply moved by the
eloquent and
personal experience,
the preceding speaker.
>> Take, Mr.
President, gentlemen.
It seems to me that of
all the indictments
Mr. Baldwin,
has made of America are
here tonight and in
his copious literature
of protest.
The one that is most
striking involves in
effect the refusal of
the American community to
treat him other
than as a Negro.
The American community has
refused to do this.
The American
community almost
everywhere he goes,
treats him with the
kind of unction.
The kind of satisfaction
at posturing carefully for
his flagellations of
our civilization,
that indeed, are
quite properly of
commands the
contempt which
he so eloquently
showers upon it.
It is impossible in
my judgment to deal
with the indictment
of Mr. Baldwin,
unless one is prepared to
deal with him
as a white man.
Unless one is prepared
to say to him,
the fact that your
skin is black
is utterly irrelevant to
the arguments
that you raise.
The fact that you
sit here as is
your rhetorical
device and lay
the entire weight of
the Negro ordeal on
your own shoulders
is irrelevant
to the argument that we
are here to discuss.
The gravamen of
Mr. Baldwin's
charges against
America are
not so much that our
civilization has failed
him and his people
that our ideals
are insufficient,
but that we
have no ideals.
That our ideals,
rather or some sort of
a superficial coating,
which we come up with at
any given moment in order
to justify whatever
commercial and
anoxious experiment
we are engaged in.
Thus, Mr. Baldwin
can write his book,
the fire next time,
in which he
threatens America.
He didn't in writing
that book speak with
the British accents that
he used exclusively
tonight.
In which he threatened
America with
necessity for us to
jettison our entire
civilization.
The only thing that
the white man has that
the Negro should want,
he said is power.
And he is treated from
coast to coast
United states
with anguish
[BACKGROUND] goes
beyond anything that
was ever expected from
the most servile
Negro creature
by a southern family.
I propose to pay
him the honor
this night saying to
him, Mr. Baldwin,
I am going to speak
to you without
any reference whatever to
those surrounding
protections which you
are used to in virtue of
the fact that
you are a Negro.
And here we need to
ask the question.
What, in fact, shall
we do about it, Mr.
Present? What shall we in
America try to
do, for instance,
to eliminate those
psychic humiliation,
which I join Mr.
Baldwin in believing,
are the very worst aspects
of this discrimination?
Are you found
that a source of
considerable birth
to laugh away
the statistics of my
colleague, Mr. Burford.
I don't think they
are insignificant.
They are certainly
not insignificant,
or in a world
which attaches
a considerable importance
to material progress.
It is, in fact, the case,
that seven tenths
of the white income
of the United States
is equal to the
income that is
made by the average Negro.
I don't think this
is an irrelevant
statistic ladies
and gentlemen.
It takes a
capitalization of 15,16,
$17,000 per job in
the United States. This
is a capitalization.
That it was not created
exclusively as a result
of negro travail.
My great grandparents
worked too,
presumably yours
worked also.
I don't know if anything
that has ever been
created without the
expense of something,
all of you who hope for
a diploma here
are going to do
that at the expense
of a considerable
amount of effort.
And I would thank you.
Please [LAUGHTER] not
to belie the fact that
a considerable amount
of effort went into
the production of
a system which
grants a greater degree
of material well
being to the
American negro
other than that that is
enjoyed by 95% of
the other peoples
of the human race.
But even so, to
the extent that your
withering laughter
suggested here
that you found
this a contemptible
observation, I agree.
I don't think it
matters that there are
35 millionaires among
the negro community.
If there were 20
million millionaires
among the negro community
of the United States,
I would still
agree with you.
That we have a
dastardly situation.
But I'm asking you not
to make politics as
the pro flies to use
the fleeted phrase of
Professor Oakeshott,
but rather to
consider, what in
fact is it that we
Americans ought to do?
What are your
instructions that
I'm to take back to
the United States,
my friend [LAUGHTER] I
want to know what it
is that we should do,
and especially
I want to know
whether it is
time, in fact,
to abandon the
American dream,
as it has been defined
by Mr. Haycock,
Mr. Burford.
What in fact is it that
we ought to do
for instance?
To avoid do humiliations
mentioned by Mr.
Baldwin as being a part of
his own experience
during his lifetime.
At the age of 12, you
will find on
reading his book,
he trespassed
outside the ghetto
of Harlem and was
taken by the scruff
of the neck by
a policeman on 42nd Street
in Madison
Avenue and said,
here you nigger, go back
to where you belong.
Fifteen, 20 years later,
he goes in and asks
for a scotch whiskey
at the airport
at Chicago and
is told by the white
barman that he is
obviously underage
and under
the circumstances
cannot be served.
I know from your
faces that you
share with me
the feeling of
compassion and
the feeling of
outrage that this kind
of thing should
have happened.
What, in fact, are we
going to do to
this policeman?
And what in fact
are we going to
do to this barman?
How are we going to avoid?
The kind of
humiliations that are
perpetually
visited on members
of the minority race.
Obviously, the first
element is concern.
We've got the care
that it happens.
We have got to do what we
can to change the
warp and woof of
moral thought
in society in
such fashion as to try
to make it happen
less and less.
Let me urge this
point to you,
which I can do with
authority, my friends.
The only thing that I can
tonight and that is to
tell you that in
the United States,
there is a concern for
the negro problem.
Now [LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE] if you get
up to me and say,
well, now, is there
the kind of concern
that we students of
Cambridge would show,
if the problem
were our own?
All I can say is
I don't know.
It may very well be
that there has
been some sort of
a sunburst of moral
enlightenment
that has hit
this community.
[LAUGHTER] So
as to make it
predictable that
if you were
the governors of
the United States,
the situation would
change overnight.
I'm prepared to
grant this as
a form of courtesy,
Mr. President.
[LAUGHTER] But meanwhile,
I'm saying to you
that the engines
of concern
in the United
States are working.
The presence of Mr.
Baldwin here tonight is
in part a reflection
of that concern.
[LAUGHTER] You cannot go
to a university in
the United States.
A university in
the United States
presumably also
governed by the Lord
spiritual as you are,
in which Mr.
Baldwin is not
the toast of the town.
You cannot go to
a university of
the United States,
in which practically
all other problems
of public policy are
preempted by the
primary policy
of concern for the negro.
I challenge you to name
me another
civilization anytime,
anywhere in the
history of the world,
in which the problems of
a minority which
have been showing
considerable material
and political
advancement is
as much a subject of
dramatic concern as it
is in the United States.
Let me just say,
finally, ladies
and gentlemen,
this, there is
no instant cure for
the race problem
in America.
And anybody who tells
you that there is is
a charlatan and
ultimately a boring man,
a boring precisely because
he is then speaking in
the kind of
abstractions that do
not relate to the
human experience.
The trouble in America,
where the negro community
is concerned is
a very complicated one.
I urge those of you who
have an actual rather than
a purely ideologized
interest
in the problem to read
the book beyond
the melting part
by Professor Glazer,
also co author of
the Lonely Crowd,
a prominent Jewish
intellectual,
who points to
the fact that
the situation in America
where the negroes
are concerned is
extremely complex as
a result of
an unfortunate conjunction
of two factors.
One is the
dreadful efforts
to perpetuate
discrimination by
many individual
American citizens as
a result of their lack of
that final and
ultimate concern which
some people are truly
trying to agitate
the other is as
a result of the failure of
the negro community
itself to make
certain exertions
which were
made by other
minority groups
during the American
experience.
If you can stand
a statistic
not of my own making,
let me give you one which
Professor Glazer
considers as relevant.
He says, for
instance, in 1900,
there were 3,500 negro
doctors in America.
In 1960, there were 3,900,
an increase in 400.
Is this because there
were no opportunities,
as has been
suggested by Mr.
Haycock and also by Mr.
Baldwin implicitly?
No, says Professor Glazer.
There are a great
many medical schools
who are by no means
practice discrimination,
who are anxious
to receive,
to train negro doctors.
There are scholarships
available
to put them through.
But in fact, that
particular energy,
which he remarks was so
noticeable in the
Jewish community and to
a certain and
lesser extent in
the Italian
Irish community
for some reason
is not there.
We should focus on
the necessity to
animate this
particular energy,
but he comes to
the conclusion
which strikes me
as plausible.
That the people who
can best do it,
who can do it
most effectively
are negroes themselves.
Let me conclude
by reminding you,
ladies and gentlemen, that
where the negro
is concerned,
the dangers as far
as I can see at
this moment is
that they will
seek to reach out
for some sort of
radical solutions
on the basis of
which the true
problem is obscured.
They have done a great
deal to focus on
the fact of
white discrimination
against the negroes.
They have done
a great deal to
agitate a moral concern,
but where in fact,
do they go now?
They seem to be slipping.
If you will read
carefully, for instance,
the words of Mr.
Bayard Rustin towards
some sort of a
procrustan formulation
which ends up less urging
the advancement
of the negro
than the regression
of the white people.
Fourteen times as
many people in
New York City born of
negroes are illegitimate
as of whites.
This is a problem. How
shall we address it?
By seeking out laws that
encourage illegitimacy
in white people?
This unfortunately
tends to be
the rhetorical
momentum that
some of their
arguments are taken.
>> One thing you might do,
Mr. Buckley is let them
vote in Mississippi
[APPLAUSE]
>> I couldn't agree
with you more
[LAUGHTER]
except unless I appear
too ingratiating,
which is hardly my
objective here tonight.
I think actually what
is wrong in
Mississippi, sir,
is not that not enough
negroes are voting,
but that too many
white people
are voting [LAUGHTER]
Booker T. Washington said
that the important
thing where negroes are
concerned is not that
they hold public office,
but that they be
prepared to hold
public office.
Not that they vote,
but that they be
prepared to vote.
What are we
going to do with
the negroes having taught
the negroes in Mississippi
to despise Rose Barnett?
Shall we then teach
them to emulate
their cousins in Harlem
and adore Adam Clayton
Powell Junior?
Well, it is much
more complicated,
sir, than simply
the question
of giving them the vote.
If I were myself
a constituent
of the community of
Mississippi at
this moment,
what I would do
is vote to lift
the standards of
the vote so as to
disqualify 65%
of the white people who
are presently voting
[LAUGHTER]
[APPLAUSE] I say
then that what we need
is a considerable
amount of
frankness that
acknowledges that
there are two sets
of difficulties.
The difficulties of
the white person
who acts as white
people and brown people
and black people
do all over
the world to protect
their own vested
interests,
who have, as all of
the races in the
entire world have,
and suffer from a kind of
a racial narcissism,
which tends
always to convert
every contingency
into such a way
as to maximize
their own power.
That, yes, we must do.
But we must also reach
through to the negro
people and tell them
that their best
chances are in
a mobile society and
the most mobile society
in the world today,
my friends, is the United
States of America.
The most mobile society of
the United States
in the world
is the United
States of America,
and it is precisely
that mobility,
which will give
opportunities
to the negroes,
which they must
be encouraged to
take, but they must not.
In the course of
their ordeal,
be encouraged to adopt
the kind of cynicism,
the kind of despair,
the kind of iconoclasm
that is urged upon them
by Mr. Baldwin in
his recent works,
because of one thing,
I can tell you,
I believe with
absolute authority,
that where the United
States is concerned,
if it ever becomes
a confrontation,
between a continuation of
our own sort of idealism.
The private stock
of which granted,
like most people
in the world,
we tend to lavish only
every now and then on
public enterprises
reserving it so
often for our own
irritations and pleasures.
But the fundamental
trend of
the negro people in
the United States is
the good nature and is
the generosity and is
the good wishes is
the fundamental
decency that do
lie at the reserves of
the spirit of the
American people.
These must not
be laughed at.
And under no circumstances
must they be laughed at,
and under no circumstances
must America be
addressed and hold that
the only alternative
to the status quo,
is to overthrow
that civilization,
which we consider to
be the faith of
our fathers,
the faith indeed
of your fathers.
This is what must animate
whatever meliorism
must come
because if it does
finally come to
a radical confrontation
between giving up what
we understand to be
the best features of
the American way of life,
which at that level is
indistinguishable
so far as
I can see from the
European way of life.
Then we will
fight the issue.
And we will fight
the issue, not
only in the
Cambridge Union,
but we will fight it as
you were once recently
called to do on beaches
and on hills and
on mountains,
and on landing grounds,
and we will be convinced
that just as you won
the war against
a particular threat
to civilization,
you were
nevertheless waging
a war in favor of than
for the benefit of
Germans, your own enemies,
just as we are convinced
that if it should
ever come to that kind
of a confrontation,
our own determination to
win the struggle will be
a determination to wage
a war not only for whites,
but also for
negroes [APPLAUSE]
>> Will the tellers
take their places, please?
They voted in favor
of the motion,
the motion being at
the American dreams
at the expense
of the negro.
They voted in favor
of that motion,
544 persons and
against 164 persons.
The motion is therefore
carried by 380 votes.
I declare the
House to stand
adjourned. [APPLAUSE]