Still much to overcome NAACP chief says at WSU
http://www.deseretnews.com/article/700007184/Americans-should-fight-racism-NAACP-chairman-says-at-WSU.html
Bond stresses the importance of blacks casting their ballots
By Joseph M. Dougherty
Feb. 4, 2010
OGDEN Despite the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965, racism
is alive and well in the United States, according to Julian Bond,
chairman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.
"That is a central fact for all nonwhite Americans," Bond said
Thursday in a speech at Weber State University.
Bond said he still believes in an integrated America, though it
appears to be an elusive goal.
But to fight racism, people have to be willing to register to vote
and then cast their ballots.
"For only 45 years have black Americans been granted the rights of
all citizens," he said.
After more than 200 years of living as property of whites and then
100 years of oppression, racism can't be remediated by a half-century
of protections and one presidential election, Bond said.
And racism is still evident in social indicators.
"Black Americans are more likely to be poor than rich," Bond said,
adding that almost every social indicator reflects a disparity
between black and white Americans.
Blacks are more likely to be imprisoned, have higher rates of death
by homicide, are less likely to have health insurance and college
degrees and don't live as long as whites, he said.
Bond said that though Martin Luther King Jr. was the most public face
of the civil-rights movement of the 1950s and '60s, it was a people's
movement. It took the noted, the nameless, the famous and the
faceless to organize sit-ins, freedom rides and marches.
"They walked in dignity rather than rioting in shame," he said.
It's a journey that started with slaves.
Bond's grandfather, James, was born into slavery in Kentucky in 1863.
He was later freed and graduated from college in 1892.
Decades later, as a student at Morehouse College in Atlanta, Julian
Bond helped organize student sit-ins and anti-segregation
organization and was the founder of the Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee.
Bond said he believes that King, who was assassinated in 1968, would
have considered parts of his dream fulfilled with the election of
President Barack Obama in 2008. But he also thinks King would be
disappointed by some of the downward trends in employment and
education of African-Americans.
Bond urged the theater full of attendees to make sure their children
have the best education, whether they live in rural, suburban or
inner-city communities.
"When we act together, we can overcome," he said. "Somebody will have
to say there lived a race of people, a black people, who had the
moral courage to stand up for their rights."
--
e-mail: [email protected]
.
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Sixties-L" group.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected].
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to
[email protected].
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/sixties-l?hl=en.
