My uncle, Father Jerry, baptized me a Catholic when I was eight days old. At six, I joined the Cub Scouts. The next organizations I joined were the Legion of Mary and the NAACP when I was in high school. In collaboration with the NAACP, I did some voter registration work in a Black neighborhood in Cleveland. The people received me kindly, although many commented with some amusement that a white kid had never knocked on their door before. Some asked me if I had ever voted. "As soon as I am old enough, I will vote," I replied.
I have always had the highest regard for your organization as a force for good in the United States, and I truly am honored to have been invited to be part of this annual Freedom Fund Breakfast.
The Twentieth Century will be remembered by many as a century of great progress in science, technology, and medicine. Indeed, outstanding achievements unimagined in earlier times were attained; but the Twentieth Century was the most violent hundred years in the history of humanity. The death toll of two World Wars was staggering, and an additional 50 million people have died in armed conflicts after the Second World War.
In our planning for the Millennium Celebration, I have asked the Catholic Community to focus on the three great assaults on humanity that have characterized the Twentieth Century "“ Anti-Semitism, Abortion, Racism.
The Pastoral Letter on Racism entitled, "Solidarity: An Arduous Journey to the Promised Land," was my way of inviting the Catholic community and people of good will to reflect on the sin of racism and the havoc which it has unleashed in our country. I was pleased to see that Mr. Lee Charlton mentioned in a recent interview that he hoped today's breakfast attendees would leave with the notion that racism is not only harmful to the victim, but also to the perpetrator. Indeed, every sin, every injustice, every evil act, or even an act of indifference in the face of a crisis, diminishes the humanity of the perpetrator and damages the spiritual environment of the planet.
Racism has been a terrible cancer in the history of our country. It first manifested its ugly head in the deplorable treatment of the Indians, the native Americans. It is the story of genocide. The aboriginal Americans were despoiled of their lands, subjugated, and humiliated. They barely survived – a defeated people, ravaged by alcoholism, poverty and dependence, victims of terrible injustices and countless broken promises. Bingo halls and casino licenses are a poor substitute for the ancient noble traditions, proud culture, and sense of oneness with nature and responsibility for each other that characterized this once independent and proud people.
The sin of racism continued when African slaves were brought to the United States to do the work which often falls to the newest wave of immigrants in our own day, work typified as "3D jobs," i.e. dirty, dangerous and demeaning. Moreover, in the case of the slaves, these jobs were also uncompensated.
The people of the United States were divided on the morality of slavery and a Civil War ensued. The slave states were defeated and the period of reconstruction did nothing to prepare the South for a new economy, or for the integration of freed slaves into the larger society. The legacy of slavery was the continued exploitation of the Afro-American population, discrimination, and segregation. This was true throughout the United States for a century following the Civil War. The participation of Blacks in the Second World War and the Civil Rights Movement have helped Americans to jettison a portion of the evil legacy of slavery. [Part 1 of 4]
