Speech #890201454

I am sure. grew warm inside to learn that a Negro policeman was the hero in the capture of the three young men. But let us look closer than the volumes of newspaper copy that painted the three young men as farleft radicals. Let us remember. of course. that to many Americans. this light held high In New York harbor signaled freedom. dignity. and a real opportunity to follow the American dream. for European migrants since 1886. And let us not forget. let us never forget. that by 1886 the ancestors of our Negro citizens had already given their tears. their sweat. and their lives for this Nation. And we still must fight and plead and pass laws to grant the Negro the basics of human needs. The sons and daughters of the European migrants have long left the slums. the initial poverty. and the secondclass citizenship behind them while the Negrowith his physical difference and because of our national hypocrisyhas not. The point that cannot be overlooked is that these three young men should * have had this dedication for the building of American symbols and not their destruction. We should have seen to it.