00:00:00 and a very warm welcome on this brisk October day. I am Mrs. Lewis Burns and it

00:00:09 has been my privilege this past year to have served as general chairman of the

00:00:14 Intercommunity Human Relations Conference. It is significant to note

00:00:19 that just one year ago today more than 400 of us met in this very room to

00:00:26 culminate a unique pioneering effort that from its inception was a dream

00:00:32 envisioned by the B'nai B'rith Women's Chapters of the North Suburban Illinois

00:00:37 Council. As the feasibility of a conference dedicated to the democratic

00:00:43 principle of the integrity and worth of every human being was explored, it was

00:00:49 resolved to view this symposium as a combined effort of many diversified

00:00:56 organizations. Recognizing that walls are crumbling around us and that a fresh

00:01:02 wind is blowing, 14 groups accepted the challenge to sponsor the first

00:01:09 Intercommunity Human Relations Conference. Today we meet 26 organizations

00:01:15 strong at a time of great national crisis. Our country has taken a firm

00:01:22 stand against those aggressors who seek to instill their philosophy and way of

00:01:29 life on those who reside near our shores. We pray that God in his infinite wisdom

00:01:35 will guide the hearts and minds of our great leaders so that their decisions

00:01:42 will ensure a more peaceful life for all mankind. The anxieties of nations have

00:01:50 accelerated our swift and successful exploration of space, but while we are

00:01:57 endeavoring to explore and communicate with the universe beyond the earth, we

00:02:03 have not yet discovered how to communicate with our fellow men. Often we

00:02:10 are prone to think that the method we can best employ to communicate is to

00:02:15 ascertain what we have in common. This national disease of wanting everyone to

00:02:22 be the same very frequently lacks results in a lack of respect for the

00:02:28 right of the individual to be different. Perhaps we are gazing through the wrong

00:02:33 end of the periscope. We might be wiser to analyze and evaluate our differences.

00:02:41 Once enlightened with an honest rapport among us, we could learn to value and

00:02:49 recognize one another with a sincere respect and understanding. As leaders, we

00:02:57 might conclude that conferences such as this are basically designed for and

00:03:03 catered to the wrong people. That the harmful prejudices and problems in

00:03:09 reality exist only in those poor, bigoted, misguided members of society

00:03:16 around us. And they really need to hear the words of wisdom which shall emanate

00:03:23 from today's symposium. Our concern must not be for those only around us. Instead,

00:03:31 might we not ask ourselves how really free from prejudice are we? Why is it that

00:03:38 a nation whose scientists can smash an atom cannot teach its people to break a

00:03:44 prejudice? Why is it that a nation who can so confidently build satellites

00:03:49 cannot build respect for the dignity of all its citizens? We must take time to

00:03:56 study ourselves and our attitudes. Take time to study and learn about other

00:04:02 people. Take time to know what we are and where we are going. Then, as leaders, set

00:04:12 the example so that those misguided people around us out there are bound to

00:04:19 follow us. Prejudice is merely lack of understanding, fostered by closed minds

00:04:26 and the inability to communicate. And when we once bridge the gap of personal

00:04:33 communication, we will indeed look up and build America together. Our keynote

00:04:41 speaker has been the conscience of man for many years. Through numerous

00:04:47 hardships, he lived by his father's words, quote, never compromise on your ideals.

00:04:55 You may have to adjust to them, but never compromise. He has had the good

00:05:02 fortune to have a kind of inquiring mind and tenacity that goes with being an

00:05:08 outstanding scientist. While studying in Vienna, he made many friends and his

00:05:16 fellow students accepted him because they were cognizant he was a fine human

00:05:21 being who had something to contribute. Those were the days before Hitler. The

00:05:28 people who had been his friends were the ones who were destined to be the victims

00:05:32 of the Hitler purge. Thanks to Percy L. Julian, many of his friends were saved

00:05:39 and are now leading scientists in the state of Israel. No individual to my

00:05:46 knowledge has won more laurels than has Dr. Julian, a dedicated humanitarian who

00:05:53 continues to make his contribution to a better world. He is the first Negro in

00:05:58 America to be elected a president of a Rotary Club. And as I noted the hundreds

00:06:05 of honors as well as honorary degrees bestowed upon him, it occurred to me that

00:06:11 surely his is a God-given gift to have such brilliance coupled with personal

00:06:17 charm and integrity. We welcome our keynote speaker to our second

00:06:22 intercommunity conference. Ladies and gentlemen, it is my distinct privilege to

00:06:28 introduce to you Dr. Percy L. Julian, whose remarks are entitled, One Hundred

00:06:34 Years After Dr. Julian.

00:06:45 Friends and participants in this conference, I don't know how to answer

00:06:52 such an introduction as that. There are many things that come to my

00:06:56 mind. Probably the one that falls into my mind most readily is that one

00:07:03 day I remember I was at a funeral in the south and the remains were open, you

00:07:10 know, for the friends to come up and view them, and one fellow started up just

00:07:15 before the time had come to view the remains of the deceased, and the pastor

00:07:22 dignifiedly said, no brother, it isn't time yet to view the remains.

00:07:29 Professor, I ain't exactly viewing the remains, I just can't perceive you all weren't scribing the wrong man.

00:07:40 It is heartwarming to every citizen of our greater Chicago community, I'm sure,

00:07:46 and indeed to our American children throughout the nation, to note the broad

00:07:52 and spontaneous response to this call for a vigorous and hard-hitting

00:07:56 conference on human relations. That 26 organizations have joined together to

00:08:02 plan and execute the program of this conference attests, it seems to me, to the

00:08:08 vitality and the reality of our faith in the bold dreams, the imaginative

00:08:15 concepts, the historically cherished aspirations, and the unifying and

00:08:21 regulating goals that have given stature and significance to our national

00:08:28 character. I congratulate you upon what must be today your determination to keep

00:08:36 the flame of freedom burning within the breast of the lowliest child of our

00:08:41 nation. I commend you upon what must be today your will to articulate that

00:08:49 freedom and to extricate it from the maze of human paradoxes. I salute you

00:08:57 upon what must be today your efforts to replace vagueness in human relations by

00:09:04 definiteness, to replace uncertainty by certainty, to replace confusion by order,

00:09:13 and by no means least to replace verbiage by honesty. This is a simple

00:09:25 keynote prayer of one deeply humbled and highly honored by your invitation to

00:09:30 deliver your keynote keynote address. No one knows better than I how poorly

00:09:34 equipped I am to do justice to the noble task you have today undertaken. I am none

00:09:41 but the ordinary and certainly fortunate grandson of slaves, poor perhaps in what

00:09:50 we think of as the culture of the ages, but who nevertheless taught me some

00:09:55 things. First of all they taught me that relentless hard work is the only way to

00:10:03 confound the stupid, a creed to which I've always tried to be true. Next they

00:10:10 taught me the truth and goodness are one and inseparable, a faith strengthened

00:10:17 by my science. They also taught me that there are some things that are

00:10:22 everlastingly right, some things that are everlastingly wrong, and there is no

00:10:29 compromise between the two. They taught me that integrity is the only real

00:10:37 greatness, a warning that my daily work in the laboratory keeps ringing in my

00:10:44 ears. They taught me that loyalty to noble dreams is the only way to keep

00:10:49 God's commandments, and they also taught me that the gift of songs and the hope

00:10:57 of tomorrow are the only really sustaining food for the weary traveler.

00:11:06 Let me therefore as a sustaining keynote of this conference offer this simple

00:11:11 invocation for my slave grandparents. It is beautifully expressed this thought in

00:11:16 that breathtaking poem of a great Negro poet, the late William Stanley Braithwaite.

00:11:20 I am glad day long for the gift of song, for time and change and sorrow, for the

00:11:33 sunset wings and the world in things which hang on the edge of tomorrow. I am

00:11:41 glad for my heart whose gates apart are the entrance place of wonders, where

00:11:48 dreams come in from the rush and the dim like sheep from the rains and thunders. I

00:11:57 think that you all know where I stand in this torturous struggle within our

00:12:05 nation for the full implementation of the American dream. That stand is and

00:12:11 always has been upon a high pinnacle of steady and unwavering hope and faith. It

00:12:18 is just a typical American heritage, this stubborn and undying hope, this undying

00:12:26 faith somehow that we not only shall survive but that we will prevail. It is

00:12:35 something that juts above the ordinary table land of world morality and world

00:12:41 faith like a massive peak. There it was as a beacon light to the struggling ones

00:12:50 in 1776. There it still is haunting us today, 186 years after, whenever we gaze

00:12:59 upon old glory. There it always is to tug at our hearts when we sing the

00:13:06 Star-Spangled Banner and America the Beautiful. There it is pulling us,

00:13:11 troubling us, driving us, never letting us go. What is it? It is our national

00:13:19 conscience. Indeed it is our national essence. To turn our backs upon it is

00:13:30 only to toss in our beds at night. To lose the force of its impelling demands

00:13:35 is to lose our integrity. To forsake it is to cheat ourselves of the only

00:13:43 devotion which has given meaning to our lives as Americans. As a scientist, I

00:13:51 often wondered why I never could really become cynical and bitter about this

00:13:55 thing we call the American dream. Perhaps it is because

00:14:01 when I was a boy, America's S&H green stamps were the books of Horatio Alger.

00:14:08 For the purchase of a $15 suit of clothes, we got two of Horatio Alger's

00:14:13 books. Those of you who are not as old as I am don't know what I'm talking about

00:14:17 probably, but ask your parents if you have them. And every Negro boy in the

00:14:25 community of Montgomery, Alabama where I was born and lived as a youngster

00:14:29 exchanged these Horatio Alger books with one another. We were all part of

00:14:34 America growing up. We were all hitching our wagon to a star as Emerson had

00:14:40 commanded us so to do. Nothing could stop us. I remember as a boy we used to say to

00:14:48 ourselves, perhaps not in these words, but we said them just to say we shall not

00:14:52 only survive but we shall prevail. Yea, from rags unto riches. One of the titles

00:14:59 of one of the famous Horatio Alger books. If you dream upon a star, we

00:15:05 thought, your dreams have just got to come true. It was a glorious age for our

00:15:11 youth. There never was anything like it. It was the age all American hope redone.

00:15:17 It was 1776 revisited. Then came our graduation in that little town, the

00:15:28 capital of the state of Alabama, from the eighth grade. And there was no public

00:15:35 high school in our town for us to go to. And I found my parents wondering how

00:15:39 they could prepare me for college. Which somehow they did and I took examinations

00:15:44 for a northern college, DePaul University, and by a miracle was admitted. But I had

00:15:52 to take two courses, two high school courses, in the remnants of the old

00:15:56 Asbury Academy, still on the campus, along with my freshman courses. At the same

00:16:03 time, earning my board as a waiter and my room by tending the boiler in the house

00:16:10 where I lived. Look in the DePaul catalog of those days and you'll find me

00:16:14 classified as a sub-freshman, my freshman and sophomore years. Thus my real

00:16:19 classification after the eighth grade was a junior in college. Ah, that's a good

00:16:24 deal of power of Horatio Alger. They take a kid from the eighth grade to a junior

00:16:28 in college. The only way to confound the stupid is by turning out relentless good

00:16:36 heart and good work. And dear old Horatio kept telling me this. He kept telling me

00:16:41 I couldn't let him down or my grandparents down. And two years later I was graduating

00:16:45 as Phi Beta Kappa orator, which went to what they then called the valedictorian.

00:16:51 What was it all? Just the stubborn drive of the age-old American dream and hope.

00:17:01 Just that tenacious old faith, typically American, that wouldn't let me go.

00:17:10 In your workshop today, I read that you are studying molding youth by chance or by choice.

00:17:17 Give them back this freedom and incentive to dream.

00:17:22 The sit-ins have demanded it. The freedom riders have gone to jail for it.

00:17:28 Meredith is asking for it with dignified eloquence.

00:17:34 Miracles can be achieved if you see that to every American child

00:17:39 is given back that ancient hope and incentive to dream.

00:17:43 The first Negro ever to be admitted to the University of Virginia Medical School

00:17:47 graduated last year in 1961 as valedictorian of his class in that proud old bastion

00:17:55 of southern segregation. Tune in Negro youngsters, freedom is a hard-won thing.

00:18:05 The only honor I value and have ever valued in my life, I believe, is one which is tied close

00:18:11 to this age-old American hope. My dear old friend, now aging, sadly, Paul de Kruif once

00:18:19 wrote an exaggerated portrait about me in Reader's Digest back in 1946, I believe,

00:18:25 and he called me the man who wouldn't give up.

00:18:30 It's the only praise that I always remember, though undeserved.

00:18:38 Though undeserved. But Horatio Alger days went by,

00:18:44 as other good or bad epochs in juvenile life declined with the shifting ideals of their elders.

00:18:53 And World War I came with a stark realism that though they died in the trenches,

00:18:58 Negro soldiers came back home to Alabama to realize that they belonged to America's

00:19:04 untouchables and were brutally lynched when they forgot so to remember.

00:19:12 And riots came to Chicago over places for Negroes to live,

00:19:16 Negroes who then had been recruited in the south for needed labor in the northern war work.

00:19:23 And the great exodus to Chicago's ghettos and other northern ghettos had begun,

00:19:27 for there was little bread in Alabama and Mississippi for Negroes in those days.

00:19:32 There was still no public high schools in those states for Negroes,

00:19:35 and lynching had at that time reached an all-time high.

00:19:40 And there was no Eisenhower or Kennedy with attorney generals who dared to stand by their

00:19:46 oath to defend the Constitution of the United States against traitors to the age-old spirit

00:19:51 of hope and promise which had made America what she is. And so a few days later, a few years later,

00:20:00 we found Horatio Alger's Negro boys steeped in their first cynicism.

00:20:07 Countee Cullen, the great Negro poet of those days, was writing these lines,

00:20:13 and yet do I marvel at that curious thing to make a poet black and bid him sing.

00:20:22 But saying he did, saying he did to countless children of the earth in that pathetic little

00:20:30 Negro child's song, which went something like this, once riding in old Baltimore, head filled,

00:20:37 heart filled with glee, I saw a Baltimorean keep looking straight at me. Now I was eight and very

00:20:44 small, and he was no whit bigger, and so I smiled, but he poked out his tongue and called me nigger.

00:20:54 I saw the whole of Baltimore from May until December,

00:20:59 but of all the things that happened there, that's all that I remember.

00:21:06 As a student, traveled several places throughout the country,

00:21:11 as a student, traveled several places throughout the world, I've seen this little poem translated

00:21:17 into a dozen languages, and I've seen children read it and wipe a tear away from their eyes.

00:21:23 Even in Hitler's day, I heard it one evening recited in the Kulturbund in Vienna.

00:21:31 In language even so beautiful, more beautiful probably than those of Countee Cullen,

00:21:37 I think he would be glad to say.

00:22:08 Yes, his songs of youthful pathos were translated into nearly every language of the globe,

00:22:20 and the effect was paradoxically twofold. Some world citizens began to doubt America's sincerity

00:22:28 as a land of the free and the home of the brave, and spoke out strongly against the American

00:22:32 injustices, but others among the coming immigrants to America, the poor Irish, the poor Poles,

00:22:40 and the poor Bohemians, good people who had formerly been sympathetic with Negro suffering,

00:22:46 came to America to seek bread and or freedom from persecution, but once here they soon learned

00:22:52 who were America's untouchables, and the age of status seekers had begun with them.

00:23:01 These people very often became the Negro's greatest enemies, and they fought vigorously

00:23:07 against his right to have a house to live in. The seeds of the Cicero tragedy and Trumbull Park

00:23:16 were being sown in these very immigrants. There's a beautiful story of a monk who one day wandered

00:23:23 out from his monastery into the lovely garden back of it and a lark began to sing.

00:23:28 He'd never before heard the song of a lark, and so he stood there until song and lark

00:23:36 had become a part of the heavens as he was bewitched by the beauty of that song,

00:23:44 and then he took himself back to the monastery, but a doorkeeper didn't know him. He asked him to,

00:23:50 he told him that he was Father Anselm, but that was no help, and finally they looked in on the

00:23:55 books of the monastery and did find that a Father Anselm had been there 1,000 years before.

00:24:02 Time had been blotted out, writes Barry, as he listened to the song of the lark.

00:24:10 For the world's forsaken and the world's forlorn, for the world's weary and the world's persecuted,

00:24:17 America's beacon has always offered a promise in full measure. For these countless children of the

00:24:23 earth, America has always been a garden where they could hear the lark sing. The lark of promise,

00:24:30 the lark of hope, the lark of justice, and the lark of dignity. Not so, however, in full measure

00:24:38 for America's black untouchables. They have been offered only a half loaf,

00:24:46 and very often no loaf at all.

00:24:50 They have been, in the truest sense, your untouchables.

00:24:57 No one has wanted them as neighbors. Few have known them as real friends.

00:25:06 Few indeed have lived their lives with them that they might understand the multitude of their

00:25:12 frustrations. They have been lonely in their ghettos and in their many sufferings in the very

00:25:19 land that has beckoned the lonely children of the earth. Indeed, if your conference today does

00:25:28 nothing more than give unto each of you a little clearer insight into their real tribulations

00:25:34 over 100 years since their so-called emancipation, your conference will still have been a definite

00:25:41 success. By the middle of the 1920s, when America had become fabulously rich, most Americans had

00:25:49 lost their zeal for aiding the less fortunate. Comfort and well-being had made most Americans

00:25:55 callous to the entreaties and cries of the persecuted within their own borders.

00:26:00 For Horatio Alger's Negro Boys, the song of the lark had begun to fade into the dark distance,

00:26:15 and these lads were becoming cynical and doubtful of the promise of America's democratic preachments.

00:26:21 The spell of Horatio Alger had begun to wear off. For others, the story had had happy endings

00:26:26 indeed, but for the Negro lad, 55 years after emancipation, few in America knew or cared very

00:26:33 much about him. Du Bois, the great Negro writer, had written the history of the American slave trade

00:26:40 among Harvard's historical classics. His souls of black folk had stirred the youth of that day

00:26:47 to a troublesome realization of where they stood, these Negro youth, among their fellow white

00:26:54 Judeo-Christians. In an agonizing cry, Du Bois wrote, and herein lies the greatest tragedy of

00:27:02 the age. Not that men are poor, all men know something of poverty. Not that men are evil,

00:27:11 what is good? Who is good? Not that men are ignorant, what is truth?

00:27:20 Nay, that men know so little of men.

00:27:27 A new era had arisen in a search by the Negro for an explanation and a clearer understanding

00:27:32 of his history, his position, and his promise in American life. The less intelligent rallied to

00:27:39 the banners of Marcus Garvey and began the Back to Africa movement. The scholars sought to equate

00:27:46 their people with the historical origins of their dilemma, that they might better evolve

00:27:54 suitable remedies for their conditions, and this might well be an approach of your conference.

00:28:01 Charles Wesley wrote a most illuminating treatise on the concept of Negro inferiority in American

00:28:08 thought. It would indeed be very well if every scholar of human relations in America

00:28:15 could read this historical documentation of just how down the years this poison of racial

00:28:22 discrimination and this great paradox in American behavior and ideals had its origin here in America

00:28:30 and its real development. Listen, for example, to Wesley's extract from Thomas Jefferson's

00:28:36 Notes on Virginia, third volume, page 59, I believe. Few Americans would recognize these

00:28:43 words as the words of the great Democrat. Let me quote him. Ask about the Negro, he answered as

00:28:50 follows, as to the Negro I hesitate to give an opinion since my opinion would degrade a whole

00:28:58 race from the rank of the scale of beings. I can only say that in my opinion the Negro is

00:29:08 inferior to the whites both in the endowments of body and mind, end quote.

00:29:19 This is not the Jefferson of whom you have read and whom you've been taught,

00:29:23 but this Jefferson nevertheless. I can well remember incidentally when I was once asked

00:29:28 to speak at an occasion honoring Jesse Owens as the athlete of the century. I turned to Jesse

00:29:34 and I read them these words of Thomas Jefferson. Now Jesse, I said, I don't know much about

00:29:40 your mind, but I'm sure that the great Democrat was as confused as was Hitler in the endowments

00:29:47 of your body. One of the prominent presidents of Princeton in his day in the latter part of

00:29:55 the 19th century, William Stanhope Smith, happened to be a chemist and he wrote a learned treatise in

00:30:03 those days on the relationship between the degrees of racial inferiority and the chemical

00:30:10 composition of the body. His main thesis was that the inferiority of the Negro could be traced

00:30:17 decisively to the predominating amount of phosphorus and sulfur within the Negro's body.

00:30:24 Indeed he went on, I quote him, the strong body odor of Negroes is accounted for by the presence

00:30:32 in their bodies of an overwhelming amount of sulfur combined with an extraordinary amount

00:30:37 of phosphorus, end quote. It is no wonder that for many years Princeton among the Ivy League

00:30:44 colleges was most hostile to Negroes and that the state of Virginia behaved under the mandate

00:30:51 of the great Democrat Thomas Jefferson. Your conference must understand the origins of our

00:30:57 fetishes in this realm of American life if you are to seek intelligently the way to eradicate them.

00:31:07 And so toward the end of the 1920s a strange new era had arisen in the life and thought of

00:31:13 American Negro youth in America. The faith in and the hope for a better life through the evolutionary

00:31:18 processes of American democracy had begun to dwindle. I was a student at Harvard during those

00:31:23 days and the imminent young Harvard law student Charles Houston, architect of the later monumental

00:31:28 effort by Thomas, by Thurgood Marshall and others, was girding his intellectual loins for the only way

00:31:35 ahead. Vigorous resort to action in the courts on the basis of constitutional law.

00:31:42 The callous acquiescence of the American white population in nationwide public defamation of

00:31:49 the Negro through a cruel discrimination that made no exception for character or for culture

00:31:56 had brought about a deep-seated bitterness among those young Negro scholars gathered at Harvard

00:32:03 in that day. The era of hope was gone. The future was to be war. War against our pitiable situation

00:32:13 in the nation's capital, no restaurant except the Fred Harvey one at the Union Station would

00:32:19 serve you a meal in those days. Not a single hotel room was available in the nation's capital to

00:32:26 visiting Negroes. Philadelphia and New York were very little better. The reverter clauses

00:32:32 and restrictive covenants were taking our property away from us without recompense.

00:32:37 There were still no public high schools in most of Alabama, Mississippi and other southern states.

00:32:43 Two events followed right upon one another that made the situation even worse.

00:32:47 The first was the revival of the Ku Klux Klan

00:32:52 by Midwestern and Northern Republicans to defeat Al Smith because he was a Catholic.

00:32:58 For the first time in my life, first time in his life, my father voted the Republican Party

00:33:03 and campaigned for Al Smith.

00:33:10 I have myself never been able to sing Herbert Hoover's praises

00:33:15 because as a young scientist, I waited eagerly in vain to hear this prominent

00:33:21 engineer repudiate votes that came to him from such hate mongers.

00:33:27 In our little town of Greencastle, Indiana, those days a large parade of white robed

00:33:31 Klansmen took place one day. I shall never forget it. My father was highly regarded in that little

00:33:36 community and ironically, man after man in the parade called out to him and said,

00:33:41 Jim, come on in here and join us. You belong here with us.

00:33:46 The poor neighbors of his didn't know that while we hated the practices of the then Democratic

00:33:52 South, we hated blind prejudice much more deeply. The death blow to Negro Republican solidarity

00:34:01 had been dealt. Then came the Great Depression, the complete disruption of Southern rural life

00:34:07 and the starvation Negro exodus north to public works. I was in Vienna as a student at that time

00:34:14 trying to warn my Jewish friends of coming peril as day after day I looked at the

00:34:20 coming peril as day after day I looked out of my windows and I saw children

00:34:24 marching down the street with swastikas on their armbands

00:34:31 and singing. But my Jewish friends thought, ah,

00:34:37 Doggie and Newer did bludgeon Hakenkreuzler.

00:34:42 There just go the dumb Hakenkreuzlers, the dumb swastika bearers, nothing will happen like that here.

00:34:50 And then came Hitler's mass murder while Roosevelt waited for public opinion to back

00:34:56 him in taking a stand. And once again Negro youth marched off as untouchables in Jim Crow outfits

00:35:04 to fight for what we thought at that time we Negro youngsters thought just to be continued

00:35:14 segregation. And it was. I found myself writing as follows. I quote myself from those days.

00:35:23 If a historian were to write from the planet of Mars some 500 years hence, his thesis on America

00:35:28 might sound something like this. And it came to pass that for 160 odd years after the Declaration

00:35:34 of Independence, they had issued from America the greatest mass of idealistic verbiage ever

00:35:40 turned loose upon civilization. It was as if a special race of people had been created to put

00:35:46 into words all of the hopes and aspirations of the human race. They carved these words into stone.

00:35:54 They wrote them onto permanent parchments for their archives. They put them to symphonic music.

00:36:00 They dreamed them into poems. They made them into national anthems. They repeated them from the

00:36:06 pews of their churches and synagogues week after week for these 160 odd years. The ether wafted

00:36:13 them from their radios to countless corners of the earth. Little children learned them by rote at the

00:36:19 cradle. All this they did, but it seems that one thing they forgot to do or at least failed to do.

00:36:30 They failed to carve the substance of these words into their hearts or sear the essence of these

00:36:37 words into their souls. And people all over the world gradually became aware of this and faith

00:36:46 in the last best hope of earth was dashed." End quote. And others began to join Negro scholars

00:36:55 in their historical expose of this American paradox. Gernot Middall called it the American

00:37:00 Dilemma and Lillian Smith dramatized it in Killers of the Dream. There you have the background and

00:37:06 the bitter build-up for the battles taken to the courts by Houston, Marshall, Nabrit, and others.

00:37:11 An enlightened nation was dumbfounded by the Supreme Court decision

00:37:15 outlawing restrictive covenants and segregation in education.

00:37:20 And Eisenhower, who thought it would take another 50 years to integrate the Negro in the army, I

00:37:24 quote him, found it done overnight. He and our present president are still saying to Southerners,

00:37:32 quote, whether you like it or not, this is the law. End quote. And learned treatises have begun to be

00:37:40 born to show that law cannot solve human ills. This can only be done through education,

00:37:47 as if due processes of law are not the soundest way to educate the citizenry.

00:37:56 Your conference today will no doubt be confronted with apparently well-meaning people

00:38:00 who would spare our nation the unpleasant by saying, this will have to be solved through

00:38:06 education. We'll just have to wait on education. Let me remind you that 1,940 years after the most

00:38:15 elaborate Christian education throughout the Western world, one so-called Christian nation

00:38:21 murdered six million Jews. Thus the answer of Negro youth today is, we shall do our own education

00:38:32 by direct, if non-violent action. Your conference must distinguish between a genuine belief in the

00:38:38 educative process and that type of social inertia and avoidance of social upheaval

00:38:45 defined as gradualism. You don't gradually stop beating your wife is a phrase I coined years ago

00:38:53 when every device was being offered to weaken the court's decisions. You don't tell your wife,

00:38:58 as a token of my respect for you and my belief in my fundamental ideals,

00:39:04 I shall start beating you only twice tomorrow instead of three times. Whether you like it or

00:39:12 not, this is the law attitude assumes per se doubt as to the wisdom of our present national course in

00:39:21 human relations. It throws what I have called our national essence into the trash can. It succumbs

00:39:29 to barbaric hedonism. It paves the way for our pseudo-conservatives, our pseudo-state writers,

00:39:37 and our pseudo-saviors of the best of the past, our John Birchers. Finally, in a nuclear world

00:39:47 where time is of the essence and reaching a solution to the problems of conflicts between

00:39:52 these groups, between groups, peoples, and nations, we either rededicate ourselves to the principles,

00:40:02 to the principles that, though oft unheeded, have urged us on to the everlastingly right,

00:40:09 or we shall hasten the destruction of civilization.

00:40:12 I listened hard to hear the president say that to Mississippi. He didn't. He did, however,

00:40:19 say it to us and to Khrushchev and Castro in the present Cuban crisis. Let me, therefore,

00:40:27 in his failure to have said it, say to you that your conference must remember that no

00:40:34 national morality is anything more. No national morality is anything more than the morality of

00:40:45 your homes, the morality of your communities, and the morality of your states. You can't beat

00:40:53 your wife when the neighbors aren't looking on, and then proclaim your high moral standards as

00:40:59 a guide to your neighbors. This is a great challenge to your conference, and I wish you Godspeed.

00:41:30 Thank you, Dr. Julian. You so ably set the tone for the day by your stirring and eloquent remarks.

00:41:38 We know Dr. Julian postponed his trip abroad in order to be with us today, and we are sincerely

00:41:45 grateful to you. Ladies and gentlemen, I am reluctant to lessen the impact of Dr. Julian's

00:41:54 address, but there are certain mechanics which must be explained. In your manila envelope,

00:42:01 you will find the program of the day, your workshop assignment, your paid luncheon ticket,

00:42:10 as well as your table number. Those who are involved as personnel in our workshop

00:42:17 will also find that all the data that is necessary for your discussion is enclosed in your

00:42:22 respective envelope. In the true spirit of getting acquainted with our neighbors, we have assigned

00:42:30 luncheon seats. Please be cooperative and adhere to your designated table. There is a large core

00:42:40 of women serving as hostesses for the day, and they will be happy to answer any of your questions

00:42:46 and to direct you to your workshop. We realize we have incorporated a great deal of activity in

00:42:54 one day for you, and therefore must work against a very tight time schedule. We would sincerely

00:43:01 appreciate your cooperation to ensure a smooth flow of the day's agenda. Will you kindly proceed

00:43:09 to your respective workshops with great haste, and at their conclusion, reconvene here in the

00:43:16 Skokie room for luncheon with as little delay as possible. Here's to meaningful discussions. Thank you.

00:43:23 On my right, the person who has truly been my right hand this past year. In all these months of planning,

00:43:41 though she's very small, she has lent me a very strong shoulder and a receptive ear.

00:43:47 She was chairman of last year's inter-community human relations conference, spearheading the

00:43:53 planning and bringing it to fruition, and this year she has served as advisor to our steering

00:44:00 committee. Presently, she is the president of the 12 B'nai B'rith women's chapters of the North

00:44:06 Suburban Illinois Council, and it is a personal privilege to introduce Mrs. Carl Reines.

00:44:20 We are living in an age where the three R's have been pre-empted by the three T's

00:44:27 as a method of information, television, tell star, and tell a woman, and I fall victim to the third

00:44:36 category. I'm sure that it's evident to all of you that the scope and quality of this conference

00:44:44 has created a great deal of excitement and interest. Several weeks ago, we received a call

00:44:50 from a gentleman who identified himself as John Calloway of WBBM, the Columbia Broadcasting System.

00:44:58 He explained that the network was preparing a documentary on the urban Negro and sought

00:45:05 permission to attend, note, and tape our conference so that this material could be

00:45:12 incorporated into this new feature. We are extremely proud that we can contribute to

00:45:18 such an important documentary and look forward to its release sometime after the first of the

00:45:24 year. Let us say welcome to Mr. John Calloway. I would like to announce that the Reverend Dr.

00:45:39 Martin Luther King will visit in our area this week. He will speak this Wednesday evening, October 31st

00:45:50 at 6 p.m. at a dinner at the Orrington Hotel in Evanston. His visit is being sponsored

00:45:58 by the United Citizens Committee for Freedom of Residence in Illinois along with several other

00:46:04 groups, and anyone wishing to purchase tickets for the dinner may see Mrs. Mame Spencer at our

00:46:11 registration desk in the foyer after we adjourn this afternoon. On November 6th,

00:46:22 we will have the opportunity to vote for an amendment to the Illinois Constitution.

00:46:27 The blue ballot covers changes in our judicial system of our state. The administration of justice

00:46:36 is a vital and personal concern to all of us, and I urge you to exercise your franchise as

00:46:44 free citizens. The judicial amendment is receiving bipartisan support, but please remember that

00:46:52 whether you vote yes or no, that is not enough. You must make an X in the box or square to the

00:47:00 side of the amendment. Please remember to vote on November 6th. This pin was found at the reservation

00:47:10 desk. Anyone with a little silver pin instead of a decanter on it? Anyone missing? Oh fine,

00:47:20 thank you. I'll put it right here. The entire day's proceedings are being taped. You didn't know

00:47:27 you were all stars, and any organization or individual wishing to order copies of this tape

00:47:34 will please see me at this table after we adjourn this afternoon. I would also like to announce

00:47:41 that our Anti-Defamation League Office of B'nai B'rith has been very kind

00:47:45 in offering to mimeograph copies of Dr. Julian's keynote address this morning.

00:47:55 This beautiful address will be available to organizations. I'm sure you realize that we

00:48:02 cannot make enough copies for individuals, but your organization or school or group may apply

00:48:12 for one of these and probably be out two weeks before they will be completed and ready to mail.

00:48:16 However, later this afternoon I will have a piece of paper up here, and you will please sign your

00:48:21 names, and then we will see that you get them. And I'm delighted because I know that all of you

00:48:26 were as impressed as I was with that very beautiful, beautiful address this morning.

00:48:42 Oh, I've got work to do.

00:49:12 My friends, as I stand before you, this is a very thrilling sight. Such a large assemblage

00:49:27 in these attractive dining areas, and seated in our midst are many outstanding people.

00:49:35 Educators, leaders of our communities, members of the Fourth Estate, clergy,

00:49:43 and dedicated and interested workers who strengthen the backbones of their respective

00:49:49 organizations. The response to the community at large to our program has been overwhelming,

00:49:57 and my only regret is that again many had to be turned away. Almost a year of intense

00:50:05 and continuous planning has made possible this important event, and as I look back in retrospect,

00:50:13 it seems inconceivable that this too shall come to pass. I deem it a privilege to have been chosen

00:50:21 to be the architect for such an important structure, and sincerely hope that the

00:50:28 blueprint we are submitting to you today will receive the approval of those who aspire to

00:50:35 live in this edifice constructed for a better living. Working with our educators and leaders

00:50:42 of communal organizations has been for me a most rewarding and enlightening experience.

00:50:50 I am indebted to many. It has been my good fortune to have been surrounded by a corps of

00:50:57 exceptionally competent men and women who serve diligently on the steering committee and as

00:51:04 overall chairman. To those women who have worked this past week from dawn to dawn with great

00:51:14 personal sacrifice, my cup runneth over with sincere appreciation. To the many persons from

00:51:21 all the organizations, each outstanding leaders in their own right who donated their services

00:51:27 to bring this event to fruition, my grateful appreciation. In the essence of time, I cannot

00:51:35 mention all by name, but everyone who served on this on the committees and for this event

00:51:43 are listed in your manila envelope on a sheet of credits, and I do sincerely thank all of you.

00:51:51 I would like a point of personal privilege at this time to personally thank one person,

00:51:58 a charming, capable, and gracious lady who gave invaluable assistance as consultant to the

00:52:05 workshop committee. She was instrumental in securing most of the outstanding personalities

00:52:12 who participated here today and who give this conference such stature. It is my personal

00:52:19 privilege to present to you Mrs. Stella Konselbaum of the Community Relations Department of the

00:52:26 Anti-Defamation League of New Jersey.

00:52:36 The evaluation of the accomplishments of a community endeavor such as our conference

00:52:41 last October is sometimes not apparent until much time has elapsed. However, this was not the

00:52:48 experience of our co-sponsoring organizations. Many felt the conference had given them invaluable

00:52:56 assistance in implementing the policies of their groups. Others saw themselves bringing

00:53:02 back reports which were of deep significance and would lead to policy and program. One woman

00:53:10 accepted the responsibility for opening new channels of communication within her community.

00:53:17 Many individuals, as a result of self-examination, experienced increasing understanding

00:53:24 of what makes a human being tick. This, they felt, had already given them greater skill

00:53:32 in working with people different from themselves. So great was the impact of this conference on the

00:53:38 North Shore that the initial plans for today's meeting were executed with the support and

00:53:46 cooperation of all 26 co-sponsoring groups as far back as 10 months ago. It has been a thrill

00:53:55 to work with and get to know the representatives of this distinguished list of organizations,

00:54:00 which I now read. The Adult Education Council, the American Jewish Committee,

00:54:08 the American Technion Society, North Suburban Chapter Women's Division, the Anti-Defamation

00:54:14 League of B'nai B'rith Midwest Region, the Baha'is of Glenview, the B'nai B'rith Women

00:54:20 of North Suburban Illinois Council, the Board of Deacons and United Presbyterian Women,

00:54:25 Glenview Presbyterian Church, the Catholic Interracial Council, the Congregation Beth

00:54:32 Hillel Sisterhood, the Congregation Beth Orr Sisterhood, the Ebenezer AME Church,

00:54:39 the Evanston Human Relations Council, the Glencoe Human Relations Committee,

00:54:45 the Glenview Human Relations Committee, Lake Forest Lake Bluff Human Relations Council,

00:54:51 the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the National Council of Jewish

00:54:56 Women, Evanston Nile Section, the National Council of Jewish Women, the North Shore Section,

00:55:02 National Women's Committee, Brandeis University North Shore Chapter, Niles Township Human

00:55:08 Relations Council, Northbrook Human Relations Committee, North Shore Congregation Israel

00:55:15 Sisterhood, North Shore Hadassah, North Shore Human Relations Council, North Shore Service League,

00:55:23 North Shore Unitarian Church. Due to the overwhelming response to our conference,

00:55:30 it was necessary to plan two additional workshops this week, as this is fresh news to many of you,

00:55:38 and the participants' names are not listed in our printed program. I would like to read the

00:55:43 names of the workshop personnel who so graciously and unhesitatingly accepted the assignment

00:55:49 of this expansion at a very late date. Workshop 2C, Molding Youth by Chance or by Choice.

00:55:57 The Resource Consultant, Reverend Ray Day, Executive Director, Beacon House Chicago.

00:56:04 The Moderator, Claude C. Ruck, Field Enterprises Educational Corporation. Recorder, Mrs. Maine

00:56:11 Spencer, United Citizens Committee for Freedom of Residence in Illinois. Workshop 9B is 100

00:56:19 Years Too Long. Resource Consultant, Dr. Donovan E. Smucker, Chaplain and Associate Professor of

00:56:25 Religion, Lake Forest College. Moderator, Mrs. Stella Konselbaum. Recorder, Mrs. Irving Kushner,

00:56:32 B'nai B'rith Women. May I extend a sincere gratitude to all the illustrious people who have so ably

00:56:39 helped us out today. The Resource Consultants, the Moderators, Recorders, and Recommendations

00:56:46 Recorders and Summationists for their very, very important role. Now, will these people who took

00:56:52 part in our workshops please rise so that we may bestow our appreciation on you.

00:57:11 I have always considered the dessert portion of a meal the choicest morsel and that I anticipate

00:57:19 this with great eagerness and satisfaction. Though I have joined the ranks of those perennial

00:57:24 Weight Watchers who daily experience the merry-go-round of reducing diets, nonetheless,

00:57:31 I still enjoy my desserts. Today we have a special treat for you. After much thought,

00:57:38 the Committee decided to serve not one but two desserts. Don't be dismayed, however, for we

00:57:46 promise our second dessert will not expand your waistline, just your mind. And it will be served

00:57:55 by a gentleman who has for years been creating choice morsels such as our afternoon program.

00:58:02 Mr. A. Abbott Rosen has served our government in a variety of capacities.

00:58:08 In the Justice Department, as an attorney in the Sabotage and Espionage Units,

00:58:14 as Special Assistant to the Attorney General in the Prosecution of War Fraud Cases in the Eastern

00:58:20 States, as a member of the United States Delegation to the United Nations Special Committee

00:58:26 for the Drafting of the Genocide Treaty. He has also been the recipient of the Thomas H. Wright

00:58:33 Award of the Chicago Commission on Human Relations for, quote, distinguished professional leadership

00:58:40 in the field of human relations, unquote. Since 1948, he has served as Director of the Chicago

00:58:48 Executive Offices of the Anti-Defamation League of B'nai B'rith. We are privileged to have him

00:58:53 serve as Chairman of this afternoon's program. Ladies and gentlemen, may I introduce Mr. A.

00:59:00 Abbott Rosen.