“If we continue to allow hundreds of thousands of our young people—black, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, white—to grow up without a feeling that they have a stake in this society, if we let them come into young adulthood without ever holding a meaningful job, without any sense of hope, I think we are asking for trouble. We can’t retreat from them. We can’t turn our backs on them. We can’t circle the wagons in suburban developments with armed guards at the gates and believe that we are safe. The people, the masses, will eventually arrive at those gates, angry and upset, and then it will be too late. We must reach out to one another now. We must realize that we are all in this together. Not as black or white. Not as rich or poor. Not even as Americans or ‘non’-Americans. But as human beings.”
From “Walking with the Wind, A Memoir of the Movement” by Civil Rights leader and Congressman John Lewis, 1998.
