9 / 27
FREEDOM IS NOT ENOUGH
But freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the
scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to go where
you want, do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please.
You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled
by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line
of a race and then say, "you are free to compete with all the
others," and still justly believe that you have been completely
fair.
Thus it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity.
All our citizens must have the ability to walk through those
gates.
This is the next and more profound stage of the battle for
civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity-not
just legal equity but human ability-not just equality as a
right and a theory, but equality as a fact and as a result.
For the task is to give 20 million Negroes the same chance
as every other American to learn and grow, to work and share
in society, to develop their abilities- physical, mental and
spiritual, and to pursue their individual happiness.
To this end equal opportunity is essential, but not enough.
Men and women of all races are born with the same range of
abilities. But ability is not just the product of birth. Ability
is stretched or stunted by the family you live with, and the
neighborhood you live in, by the school you go to and the pov–
erty or the richness of your surroundings. It is the product
of a hundred unseen forces playing upon the infant, the child,
and the man.
PROGRESS FOR SOME
This graduating class at Howard University is witness to
the indomitable determination of the Negro American to win
his way in American life.
[ 5 ]