“We can eliminate unemployment and poverty in this country. … We can work for a world in which almost three billion underprivileged people will be our colleagues in progress. ... This is not said lightly. These are not easy problems. ... But I have also seen the power of commitment ... of those in the front lines of the struggle ... that of homeowners joining to break down housing ghettos, of businessmen joining to bring about desegregation.”
Our Quote of the Week reminds us that we can organize ourselves into a society that brings opportunity and justice to all.
Sargent Shriver spoke these words in a Memorial Day tribute to Eleanor Roosevelt in 1964. Given at the Roosevelt family’s home and final resting place at Hyde Park, the speech refers to Shriver’s generation as the “Inheritors of an Age.” Shriver says of Franklin Roosevelt, the President who led the US through the Great Depression and World War II:
“Roosevelt laid the foundations of today’s affluent society, and established the principle that the nation was responsible for the general welfare of all its citizens. Although poverty and injustice remain, we have today, for the first time, the legal and material resources to end them. In our dealings with the world, he thrust America, almost against its will, into the center of the world arena. He strengthened us to defeat our most brutal and powerful enemies and destroyed the isolationism and parochial outlook which had kept the United States from assuming its responsibilities as part of a greater world community.”
Shriver ends the speech with this powerful call to action:
“What can we do about it? you ask. There is much you can do. For the need is not merely for laws or presidential action, but for the self-organization of society on a large scale to solve the problems. The proof of this is in Chicago and New York and Washington—where our books are full of good laws and regulations, but where hypocrisy and racial hatred and the apathy of decent citizens have made a mockery of American justice and equal opportunity. We must now show that we have the personal commitment to use our wealth and strength in the construction of a good society at home and throughout the world.”
As we engage in conversations about We Called It a War, Sargent Shriver’s newly-published memoir about his time leading the War on Poverty, we continue to explore the commitments we must make in order to make the end of poverty a reality.
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