Dr. James Kennedy’s Freedom March Speech

THE VOICE, Thursday, September 26, 1963

(As part of the policy of THE VOICE to keep Negroes highly informed on every phase of local racial issues, we are printing, in a series, the entire text of Dr. James Scott Kennedy’s militant speech delivered to the assembled Freedom Marchers and city officials on Wednesday, August 28th, at Civic Center.)

(Fourth and last, in a series)

LET’S consider some glaring examples where communication has been lacking in our national life. No doubt most of you read about the meeting between Robert Kennedy, James Baldwin, and several other Negroes and Whites. When the meeting terminated, they all realized that they hadn’t been speaking the same language. You also probably read of the lack of communication between James Meredith and other younger members of the NAACP at the convention in Chicago.

Then there is the tremendous naivete on the part of the white man regarding the Negro, which affects race relations. Consider the meaningful responses and the communication between a deaf mute and a tone deaf friend. The response is nil.

The Negro in America is the voiceless American-the deaf mute, while the white man is his one-deaf friend. For in the area of Race Relations, the white man is fundamentally tone deaf, while the Negro has rarely ever had a voice. He has been the deaf mute.

Let’s consider this naivete and tone deafness of which I speak.

Even President Kennedy, who, with the excellent help of his brother, Robert, has done more than any other President to try to get America to recognize the rights of the Negro appears to be very naive when he says, “We are too mixed, this society of ours, to begin to divide ourselves on the basis of race or color”.

WHAT IS HE talking about?

Doesn’t he realize that this country has long been divided on race and color.

Moreover, when he continues, “I don’t think quotas are a good idea… “I think it is a mistake to begin to assign quotas on the basis of religion, race, color or nationality”, isn’t he surely aware of the fact that the zero quota has long existed for the Negro in many walks of life-that the Negro has long been assigned the zero quota, while the white man has been given preferential treatment.

When Kennedy continues saying, “What I think they would like to see is their children well educated so that they could hold jobs and have their children accepted and have themselves accepted as equal members of the community,” he is saying something and nothing.

However, he does conclude that the fight is everybody’s problem when he says, “What we’re really talking about is a problem which involves 180 million people.”

ALSO CONSIDER Police Chief William Parker of Los Angeles, who upon reading the 40-page report of the California Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, expressed particular opposition to a plan for Federal financing of police training in minority relations. The Chief declared “the comparative freedom from racial strife enjoyed by the City of Los Angeles in the maelstrom of racial conflict sweeping the nation, tends to belie the unsupported and unsworn statements upon which the conclusions contained in the report are based.”

Must the Chief hear only what he wants to hear?

But don’t think that this apparent naivete is merely prevalent on the West Coast, for I think Governor Rockefeller, Mayor Wagner, the Police Chief of NYC, and the NYC Board of Education are all very naive when it comes to the needs of the Negroes, particularly in education, job-training, and employment.

TAKE A LOOK at the mass media of television and its apparent indifference to the Negro in the society. How many black faces do you see dispensing news or other items?

Or take the commercials! However, we should congratulate the Colgate – Palmolive Company. This company is going to begin to use Negro models on TV within the next couple of weeks. And also, the Lever Brothers Company, another major advertiser, has recently asked all its agencies to suggest way of using Negroes in TV ads. But isn’t this a bit naive?

Now that they’re beginning to recognize the potential of the Negro market, they still can’t begin to recognize Negroes as just plain human beings and use them as such.

Certainly a communications problem exists in the area of Race Relations. Too long America has tried to hide or ignore the Race Relations problem, and the cure or prevention has always been too little too late. Now the Negro himself with his protest-demonstrations has brought this problem out into the open and many sincere white people are trying to help him to keep it out in the open. It is time for this problem to be seriously inspected, analyzed and acted upon by experts and laymen alike.

COMMUNICATION CORPS could help alleviate many of these glaring problems in Race Relations. A Communication Corps could be the answer to those who wonder whether all of the Civil Rights organizations will merge.

A Communication Corps could be the focal point for the Civil Rights fight and for many other Communication problems in America. It could be a Federally created and supported medium through which all of the Civil Rights organizations as well as experts and laymen in Communications and Human Relations could be heard and could work to rid the country of its color sickness – could work to make it possible for every American to realize his potential and make his maximum contribution to the Health and Welfare, and National Defense of our country.

IF A PEACE CORPS can be organized to help the underdeveloped countries of the world, why not a Communications Corps to aid America, one of the most underdeveloped countries in the world, on Race Relations.

Let SAN DIEGO act now and organize its own preliminary Communications Corps! Let you and all of the people of San Diego strongly urge President Kennedy to create a Communications Corps!

Re-printed for research purposes. Copyright remains with the original holder.