林顿．B．约翰逊
(LYNDON B. JOHNSON)

在霍华德大学的演说
Howard University Address

   你不能找一个多年铁链锁脚的人，将他释放，把他带到比赛起跑在线然后说：“你可以自由地与别人竞争了。”

    当约翰．F．甘乃迪遇刺后，林顿．约翰逊 (1908－1973)任总统。当时最紧迫的国内问题是公民权，而约翰逊成了一位卓有成效的社会立法──他称其爲自己的“大社会”方案──的鼓吹者。国会对他的倡导作出反应，通过了一项重要的民权法令、联邦援助教育计划、反贫困方案以及联邦保护选举权的规定。

    1965年6月4日约翰逊在霍华德大学作就职演说，解释爲什麽法律平等仍不足以满足美国黑人完全参与美国社会事务的愿望。约翰逊希望以他对美国人民的健康、教育、福利作出的贡献流芳百世。但是他的政府陷入越南战争的泥潭，那场战争耗费了他的精力和全国预算中的很大一笔开支。任总统一届期满后，他不再竞选下一任总统。

    从许许多多方面看，美国黑人已成爲另－个民族，他们被剥夺了自由，被仇恨所折磨，没有希望跨入机会之门。 

    在我们的时代，这个国家业已发生变化。美国黑人以感人的克制态度举行和平抗议和进军，进入了审判室和政府席位，要求享有长期得不到的公正。黑人的声音呼唤着行动。但我们应赞颂美国，因爲一旦被唤醒，它的法庭和国会，总统和大多数人民都是进步的同盟者。……

   选举权法案将是一系列衆多胜利中最近、最重要的一个胜利。然而这一胜利──正如温斯顿．丘吉尔谈及另一自由的胜利时所说──“不是结束。它甚至不是结束的开端。但它或许是开端的结束。” 

    这开端便是自由；封锁这自由的屏障正在倒坍。自由即是完全平等地共同享有美国社会的权利──有权投票、就业、进入公共场所、上学读书。它是这样一种权利：在我们国家生活的每一方面被当作在尊严和前途上与他人平等的一个人。

   但仅仅自由还不够。你不能讲这麽一句话便把几个世纪的伤疤抹去：现在你可以自由地去自己想去的地方，做自己想做的事情，选自己拥护的领袖了。你不能找一个多年铁链锁脚的人，将它释放，把他带到比赛起跑在线然后说：“你可以自由地与别人竞争了，”而且仍自信你做得完全公平。

   因此开啓机会的大门还不够。我们所有的公民必须有能力走进这些大门。 

    这是争取民权的战斗下一个，而且是意义更深刻的阶段。我们不仅追求自由，而且追求机会。我们不仅追求法律公平，而且追求人的能力，不仅追求作爲权利和理论的平等，而且追求作爲事实和结果的平等。……

   当然，美国黑人与美国白人一样已分享我国不断增长的财富。但严酷的事实是，在争取真正平等的战斗中，每天有很多人──太多人──正丢失阵地。

   我们并不完全确信已弄明个中原因。我们明白原因是复杂微妙的。但我们确实知道两大基本理由，而且我们知道我们必须行动。

   第一，黑人──同许多白人一样──陷于从上一代传下来的，毫无出路的贫困之中。他们缺乏训练，缺少技能。他们被封闭在贫民窟中，得不到正规医疗。个人穷困和公衆穷困结合，更削弱了他们的能力。

   我们正通过反贫困方案、教育计划、医疗和其它卫生计划，以及另外12项针对这种贫穷根源的大社会方案，尽力铲除这些不幸。

   我们将在未来的岁月中加重、加快、加大对贫困根源的进攻，直到这最顽固的敌人最后向我们顽强不屈的意志投降。

   但是还有第二个原因──更难解释，更加根深蒂固，更加咄咄逼人。它是长期奴隶制度劫掠性的传统以及一个世纪的压迫、仇恨和不公。

   因爲黑人的贫困不是白人的贫困。贫困的许多原因和对策相同。但是存在着差别──深刻的、顽固的差别──把痛苦的根系深深扎入社区，扎入性格。 

    这些差别不是种族差异。它们仅只是古老的暴行、往昔的不公和当今偏见的后果。观察它们是令人痛苦的事。对黑人来说，它们不断提醒他们记住压迫。对白人而言，它们不断提醒他们有罪。但是必须面对它们，必须对付它们，必须克服它们，如果我们要争取这一天的到来，那时黑人与白人之间唯一的差别在他们的肤色。

   我们也不能在其它美国少数民族的经验中找到圆满的回答。他们作出了勇敢的、相当成功的努力以冲出贫穷和偏见的樊篱。

   黑人同这些少数民族一样，将不能不主要依靠自己的努力。但是黑人不能单独行动。因为其它少数民族没有需要克服的若干世纪的遗产，没有被经年累月的仇恨与绝望所扭曲和摧残的文化传统，也没有因种族或肤色遭排斥──这种被排斥的感觉是我们社会任何偏见造成的痛苦所无法相比的。

   这些差别也不能理解为互相孤立的弱点。它们是一张紧密的网。它们互为因果，相辅相成。

   黑人社会多半被埋在历史和环境的毯子下。只抓起这毯子的一角不是个永久解决办法。如果我们要解放我们的黑人同胞，我们就必须站在四周掀开整个覆盖物。……

   或许最重要的－－其影响遍及生活的各方面──是黑人家庭结构的解体。对于这一点，美国白人社会应负主要责任。它源于若干世纪对美国黑人的压迫和迫害。它源于经年累月的贬础与歧视，这损伤了他的尊严，削弱了他为自己家庭从事生产的能力。……

   家庭是我们社会的基石。家庭比其它力量更多地决定一个孩子的态度、希望、志向和价值观念的形成。当家庭解体时，往往总是孩子遭殃。当家庭崩溃大规模发生时，社会本身遭到损害。 

    因此，除非我们努力巩固家庭，创造使大多数父母白头偕老的条件，任何其它因素──学校、运动场、公共援助或私人关怀──都不足以完全切断绝望和丧失的循环。

   对所有这些问题没有一个简单的答案。就业是部分答案。一份工作的收入使一个人能够供养家庭。 

    在良好的环境中的良好住房和求学机会──平等的求学机会──是部分答案。

   有利于家庭团聚的福利和制订得更妥善的社会服务计划也是部分答案。

   照料病人是部分答案。

   所有美国人的同情心是答案的另一重要组成部分。

   我将把约翰逊政府不断扩展的努力用于这些战线及其它许多方面。

In far too many ways American Negroes have been another nation; deprived of freedom, crippled by hatred, the doors of opportunity closed to hope.

      In our time change has come to this nation. The American Negro, acting -with impressive restraint, has peacefully protested and marched, entered the courtrooms and the seats of government, demanding a justice that has long been denied. The voice of the Negro was the call to action. But it is a tribute to America that, once aroused, the courts and the Congress, the President and most of the people, have been the allies of progress. . . .

      The voting rights bill will be the latest, and among the most important, in a long series of victories. But this victory― as Winston Churchill said of another triumph for freedom― "is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning." That beginning is freedom; and the barriers to that freedom are tumbling down. Freedom is the right to share, share fully and equally, in American society― to vote, to hold a job, to enter a public place, to go to school. It is the right to be treated in every part of our national life as a person equal in dignity and promise to all others.

      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, and 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 the more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity. We seek not just legal equity but human ability, not just equality as a right and a theory but equality as a fact and equality as a result. . . .

Of course Negro Americans as well as white Americans have shared in our rising national abundance. But the harsh fact of the matter is that in the battle for true equality too many―  far too many― are losing ground every day. We are not completely sure why this is. We know the causes are complex and subtle. But we do know the two broad basic reasons. And we do know that we have to act.

      First, Negroes are trapped― as many whites are trapped― in inherited, gateless poverty. They lack training and skills. They are shut in, in slums, without decent medical care. Private and public poverty combine to cripple their capacities.

      We are trying to attack these evils through our poverty program, through our education program, through our medical care and our other health programs, and a dozen more of the Great Society programs that are aimed at the root causes of this poverty.

      We will increase, and we will accelerate, and we will broaden this attack in years to come until this most enduring of foes finally yields to our unyielding -will.

      But there is a second cause― much more difficult to explain, more deeply grounded, more desperate in its force. It is the devastating heritage of long years of slavery; and a century of oppression, hatred, and injustice.

      For Negro poverty is not white poverty. Many of its causes and many of its cures are the same. But there are differences― deep, corrosive, obstinate differences― radiating painful roots into the community, and into the family, and the nature of the individual.

"These differences are not racial differences. They are solely and simply the consequence of ancient brutality, past injustice, and present prejudice. They are anguishing to observe. For the Negro they are a constant reminder of oppression. For the white they are a constant reminder of guilt. But they must be faced and they must be dealt with and they must be overcome, if we are ever to reach the time when the only difference between Negroes and whites is the color of their skin.

Nor can we find a complete answer in the experience of other American minorities. They made a valiant and a largely successful effort to emerge from poverty and prejudice.

The Negro, like these others, will have to rely mostly upon his own efforts. But he just cannot do it alone. For they did not have the heritage of centuries to overcome, and they did not have a cultural tradition which had been twisted and battered by endless years of hatred and hopelessness, nor were they excluded― these others―because of race or color― a feeling whose dark intensity is matched by no other prejudice in our society.

Nor can these differences be understood as isolated infirmities. They are a seamless web. They cause each other. They result from each other. They reinforce each other.

Much of the Negro community is buried under a blanket of history and circumstance. It is not a lasting solution to lift just one corner of that blanket. We must stand on all sides and we must raise the entire cover if we are to liberate our fellow citizens. . . .

Perhaps most important― its influence radiating to every part of life― is the breakdown of the Negro family structure. For this, most of all, white America must accept responsibility. It flows from centuries of oppression and persecution of the Negro man. It flows from the long years of degradation and discrimination, which have attacked his dignity and assaulted his ability to produce for his family. . . .

The family is the cornerstone of our society. More than any other force it shapes the attitude, the hopes, the ambitions, and the values of the child. And when the family collapses it is the children that are usually damaged. When it happens on a massive scale the community itself is crippled.

So, unless we work to strengthen the family, to create conditions under which most parents will stay together, all the rest― schools, and playgrounds, and public assistance, and private concern― will never be enough to cut completely the circle of despair and deprivation. There it is no single easy answer to all of these problems.

Jobs art part of the answer. They bring the income which permits a man to provide for his family.

Decent homes in decent surroundings and a chance to learn― an equal chance to learn― are part of the answer.

Welfare and social programs better designed to hold families together are part of the answer. Care for the sick is part of the answer.

An understanding heart by all Americans is another big part of the answer.

And to all of these fronts― and a dozen more ― I will dedicate the expanding efforts of the Johnson Administration.