It is a simple matter of justice that America, in dealing creatively with the task of raising the Negro from backwardness, should also be rescuing a large stratum of the forgotten white poor.

The well-off and the secure have too often become indifferent and oblivious to the poverty and deprivation in their midst.

Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war.

Right now, America is in a state of upheaval. Poverty is demoralizing. You can't expect people to have the virtue of purity when they are poor. But we've got this guy there now who is redefining what a politician is, so we'll have to see how things play out. Am I hopeful? Yes, I'm hopeful that things might change. Some things are going to have to.

Our American heritage is threatened as much by our own indifference as it is by the most unscrupulous office or by the most powerful foreign threat.

Most whites in America in 1967, including many persons of goodwill, proceed from a premise that equality is a loose expression for improvement. White America is not even psychologically organized to close the gap-essentially it seeks only to make it less painful and less obvious but in most respects to retain it.