LBJ Argues That “Freedom Is Not Enough” for African Americans (1965)

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of this land. [applause] 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 trial 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. [applause] 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. [applause] 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, to 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 liberating, bringing 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. And 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. [applause] For the task is to give 20 million Negroes the same chance as every other America to learn and grow, to work and share in society,

to develop their abilities -- physical, mental and spiritual -- and to pursue their individual happiness. To this end equal opportunity is essential but not enough, not enough. Men and women of all races are born with the same range of abilities, but ability is not just the product of birth. Ability is stretched or stunted by the family that you live with and the neighborhood you live in. By the school you go to, and the poverty or the richness of your surroundings. It is the product of a hundred unseen forces playing upon the little

infant, the child, and finally the man. This graduating class at Howard University is

LBJ Argues That “Freedom Is Not Enough” for African Americans (1965)

The War on Poverty generally sought to help lift up low-income Americans, but one group was both disproportionately poor and struggling with a distinct set of challenges: Black Americans. In this broadcast of the Howard University Commencement on WHUT in Washington, DC, Lyndon Johnson makes the case that Black Americans deserved more than just equal rights—that “freedom is not enough.” He explains that Black people have been “hobbled by chains” for generations, and merely granting theoretical “equality…as a theory” would not lead to “equality of result.” This logic provided the rationale for the War on Poverty as a means of pursuing racial justice; anti-poverty programs could help ensure that the “gates of opportunity” were not only open, but that Black Americans had the “ability to walk through those gates.”

LBJ Argues That “Freedom Is Not Enough” for African Americans (1965) | WHUT | 1965 This clip and associated transcript appear from 11:05 - 15:34 in the full record.

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