Eugene Callender statements and panel discussion on work in Harlem, 6 August 1967, side 2.

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OK just let me give you the first names of the fellows. And then if you have questions you want to address to them. This
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is Jim and Jelly Roll. Ty. And they all
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call me the Rev. You can do that too, if you want. What about the girls?
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We have girls. Yes we do have girls. You're talking about the
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girls, Jelly Roll? We have girls. You know, the problem with girls
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is not as severe as it is with fellows. Although
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we have a disintegrated family structure in the ghetto.
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Whatever family structure there is the mother is a little more protective about the girls than
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they are with fellows. The concrete illustration of this is someone that Jelly Roll talked about the
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first when Jim and the guys went after him out to camp. We took three hundred guys away to camp.
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And not one mother ever called to find out where those guys were. And, they were gone for three weeks.
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Nobody called on the weekend. And, this is because the fellows usually, you know, they don't go home. They can't.
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They hang out with a buddy or something. But, the girls! Mothers are always concerned where the girls are.
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but we do have girls who work in our program. We have a couple of girl street workers and a girl
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resident apartment one time. And, there are a number of girls in the program, but I would say the fellows outrank
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the girls about seven to eight to one in the academies et cetera..
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And we do stress the fellows because what we need in the ghetto now is a positive male image.
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We have a matriarchal society in the ghetto now. It's the moms. The guys love their moms and
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whatnot, but we have to strengthen the male images of the
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ghetto communities. And, we do zero in on the fellows. We do
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Somebody? Lady?
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Jelly Roll? "I am a teacher, and I am very much concerned that we school
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[Jelly Roll] Well. My answer is. [Callender] The question is. Is there.
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Is there any suggestions that Jelly Roll might have for teachers
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that are concerned but find their youngsters not motivated sufficiently
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to respond to even the new kind of techniques and methodology that have been developed by educators.
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Is that correct? [Jelly Roll] My answer is that question. Well
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I can say well. In my case it happened you know through elementary
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school then through junior high school where I would not where I was not taught grammar and the
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basic fundamentals of education. And then you know. When, you know, other sources
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were throwing at me, I didn't, you know, want to accept them because, you know, I didn't.
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Well from my stand as a as being a black man when I figured that I figured that I wasn't taught about
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my Black people, my heritage, you know, like Columbus. He came over on a ship.
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he was, you know, white. He came over. Who was the navigator. And, didn't find out he was black until later on
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you know
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you know. I can you know I can answer, you know, for black men and being a
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black man in this environment you know. And this is you know of the reason you know that thing I wakened.
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Because then we were taught. It awakened me because I was taught about
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my older black brothers. About my heritage, which I knew nothing about.
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You know like. [Callender] I think Jelly Roll has hit the point.
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You see. First of all the the key is motivation. And in
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poor communities be they white or black, there's lack of motivation. And the whole process
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of the street worker is motivation. But you see what's wrong with American education from the point of view of the black community
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is is that the black man is that the education is also a victim of racism
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arrogance and a black person is into that situation
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in a way he's considered an inferior being where the text books and all the
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educational process is dominated by the white majority culture.
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And where self-esteem and racial pride has been completely excluded
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from text books. You know. And this has a psychological
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factor on that black kid. The teachers that stand up in front of them don't like them.
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They assume that these kids are poor and black and can't learn. This is New York, at least. I don't know how it is in
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South. And this is, this is one of. Tis is one of the key concerns that we have
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in our educational system. Now, you go in our classrooms and you'll see nothing but pictures
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of, you know, everybody from from Malcolm X to Booker T. Washington
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because we try and project the wholesomeness of blackness. We tell those kids
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you have got to be proud of being black. We use the term black deliberately. We don't like the term Negro.
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We like the term black. And we feel that what we have to do is try to
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come somehow correct this impossible image, iImpossible derogatory
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and inferior image that black people have in the educational system in America. This will be good for America, you see.
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It's got. We are not. We are out to try to help America, you see, somewhat.
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But it's true I was a victim of this. And the
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tremendous contributions that not only blackpeople have made to to this country but the whole process of trying
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to make us white. But we don't want to be white. And all we want is the equality of opportunity just
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don't stand in the way of our developing our native God given abilities. You know. That is all we
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want really. People keep asking me in all these speeches I make "What do you Negroes want?" All
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we want to be is Americans. That's all. But we want to be black Americans in the sense that we want to be
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proud of our heritage. Proud of the cult culture that we are, part of the proud of
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the part we played in this American scene. And when you consider the fact is if
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we've been in this country since sixteen hundred nineteen, you know. And we are the only group that
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ever brought to this country against our wills. Every other group that came here, came here on some
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conscious decision on the part of their foreparents, whether it was the potato blight or religious persecution. Whatever it was,
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It was some conscious persecution that brought them, conscious decision that brought him here. Not so with a black American.
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He was dragged here in chains. He was considered an animal for three hundred years. And when you consider the
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kinds of progress that we've made, given the opportunity, you can see the rich potential that we have
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to demonstrate to the world. And this is the key, that, that it is possible for
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people of different colors and different cultures to live together. And if we don't do it,
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forget it, America! Because, you know, eventually my grandchildren are going to live
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in a world that's going to be predominately non-white. And in and if the white man in America
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doesn't learn how to get along with us now, he is going to have to deal with this on some mighty difficult terms fifty
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years from now. [Question from audience] The long range program is problem solved by the resolving of the ghetto
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or is it? Your place to lead institutions? Does the ghetoo seem to perpetuate the ghetto?
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[Callender speaking] It's both. the the essence
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that we are trying to work for and, I think, all of us should be trying to work for, is freedom of choice.
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I live in Harlem by choice. When I was at the Church of the Master [Church of the Master Presbyterian Church], it happened to be a very middle
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class Presbyterian Church. Very middle class, upper middle class Negroes, sort of
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integrated. We had about sixty. Church white, white church members, professional Christians I call them. They all worked
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for the Board of National Missions, out of COEMAR [Commission on Ecumenical Missions and Relations] or something, you know.
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And they. They lived, they they lived up on Riverside Drive and they felt that
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we were in their parish, so they came to our church. But, those who want to stay in the
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ghetto, you know, ought to be free to stay there. Those that want to move out to the suburbs and
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integrate housing, this kind of thing, ought to be free to do that. But the, but
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the trend today is that we want to build solid
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decent respectable communities right where we are. You know I live in Harlem by choice. Because you know,
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for me, Harlem swings. You know I like to be where the action. It's got
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soul, man, and and don't let Jim fool you. He lives in Harlem too. He's
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got a lot of soul. He wants to be where the soul is, you know. And. but
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what we want we want to feel that we have to the right
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to determine our own destiny. And the problem with the ghetto now is that forces outside
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the ghetto control the destiny of the ghetto. Political decisions that are made, affect our lives that we
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don't even enter into. Housing programs that are forced upon us that we have
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no say in, this kind of thing. And what we build trying to do in the Urban League is to build within the ghetto
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a significant competitive institutions that can compete anywhere with any any other institution in the
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city, including economic institutions. We will start. We will use businesses. We want we want to
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start our own development corporation. So we can begin to to to rebuild a ghetto and
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make it a place where people can be proud to live rather than ashamed to live. So it's a matter of freedom of choice.
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But the majority of black people today would want to see where they are, but the want to have decent housing there. And all the decent
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services that others have in their communities. [Question from audience] From where, I'm trying to say is as these folk are educated and they come back? Some
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may move out; some may come back. We just want ten percent back. Give us ten percent back and we'd change the ghetto , and we'd change other places
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places too. [Question from audience] [Jim Schull answers.] Do
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you think the average white man knows the Negro? Absolutely not.
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I think. To the average white man, a Negro is a
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at the bottom, a great enigma, but a lot of other, a lot of other
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things in between and.
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I didn't think that I had or was had that problem.
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Hang on I think I was an average. You know what white man. Whitey.
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But I found out really quickly how wrong I was.
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Now, just personally, I never forget the time when I was living in an apartment.
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An apartment with a bunch of guys. And, the tension was beginning to be unbearable
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for me. And, I was trying to do what I could. If I come into a room, I would kind of sneak in along
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the wall you know. And it was it was really really tough
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and. No words you know the words doesn't make any difference you know at all.
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It's you know it's what goes on in between. And
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one day while I was. I was in my I'd go so I can go on in a side room and kind of be there by myself and
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the guys would be outside. And this one guy, one guy, said who has you know is a. We're pretty
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good friends but he said. Jim's problem is that he doesn't get along with with black people
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and that just knocked me off my feet. Absolutely knocked me off my feet.
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And it's their Autobiography of Malcolm X. It just it just come out. And I ran out and bought it.
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It was before is in paperback. We didn't have much money then at all. And, it was seven
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fifty, but I figured I had you know I had I had to do something. You know. I had to do something.
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That book helped me more than any one book I'd say in my life
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in the sense that I started to see. I mean you know each each
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each white person, no matter who he is in this country, has the problems of of white America written a
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across his chest. And I
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forget who it's it who said it, but it is not. It's not the Negro problem; it's,
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it's a white problem. And, that is so true
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so true. And when we say it's the white problem.
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We stop stop taking out our problems on
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worry about Adam Clayton Powell, down, down a little further South.
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Cassius Clay, who for me in many ways is a hero,
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a few riots here and there. We start looking at bang! Where
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is it? You know, what is the real problem?
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And I say I've still I don't want to go around this but to come right back. And
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what I feel is the solution is that white. White America has
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dealt with their problem on the wrong level. They've tried to say,
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"Well, darn, I can, I can go out and you know be
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friends, ask him out to dinner. Say, come on
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we're friends, you know, aren't we? I think we are, you know."
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That isn't where it is at. This is a human problem that has history to it.
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A lot of history where I see I see grandmothers and grandfathers
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sitting in the streets of Harlem. You know their lives did not been able to have not been able to live
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fully their whole life. Can we say that about our lives? No.
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many. I mean we just can't say that about our lives. And we get all shook up about a few
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days of of uncomfortable relationships with our black brother, et cetera.
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It is on the wrong level. This is a human problem, a human situation
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that has history that goes back to the time of the Egyptians. Back to the time
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of the Arabs and Israelis and so it goes.
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OK. Excuse me. [Question from audience] In my travels, among the people too often
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It's. You know. He was telling me more about the Negroes than I know living among the Negroes all my life. [Jim Schull] Okay.
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[Question from the audience] go North? And, to all unhappiness, I think that they abandoned home?
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[Jim Schull] The question what. Why does the southern Negro move north to the
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situation that seems to be to be much worse than what they experienced? I'd
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like I said I can't answer that. I'd like to throw this on Ty.[Tyrone Wong] cause I think he could run it.
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[Comment from audience] Child of the Promised Land. Working on the farm, fresh air, sunshine. Three square meals a day.
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[Jim Schull] Sure. Man Child in the Promised Land. You should dig it. One of the
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characters in that book is now. Now working in our narcotics program. Excuse me.
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That was a good point. That's right. Sir?
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[Tyrone Wong] First of all. Since you base your question on why does the
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southern Negro move north? First of all, anybody
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who feels discontent, uncomfortable,
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dissatisfied in any way, has nothing to lose. That's number one.
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Second of all. It's a different type of persecution up north.
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It is up therem but it's different. Down here it is more in the open.
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Up there, it is under cover. Now, you don't have to say, "Yes, ma'am," and "No, sir."
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But you better act that way in quite a lot of situations. They don't have signs, you know, the
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Jim Crow. No, but watch out for the service you might get if you get in there.
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You know, things like that. OK. Quite a few people come up north
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and don't find out right away what they are fighting because it is undercover.
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You see. And yet, as time goes on, they feel frustration, and they don't know why.
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Oh, they might write home or go home to visit. The economical
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system up north for labor was better. So there's a big attraction. So
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let's go you know like the streets are paved with gold. You know. You get up there, they are tarnished for you
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got the things like that. You know. So the reasons for
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moving maybe not so concrete, but they don't have nothing to
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lose for improvement. And once they get up there. It's like being caught in a trick.
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You see because you turn away you came from wasn't too cool and where
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are isn't that much better. And you can't move all your life. Not
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off the pay you make, the family that you have, you know. So you just caught
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and. You just realize that this is the whole situation in the whole United States.
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You know. This is why a lot of black people are saying separate state, you
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see. That's the question. [Callender] Can you answer
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the question here for this lady? [Comment] from audience] identify yourself as a person
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here will come to some . . . around the world.
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and I think that that is what you are doing . . .
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you. . . do that
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[Callender] We. When we complete our five year plan in Harlem, we might we will
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export it, maybe to Atlanta, then to Brazil.
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I'm afraid is going to long time coming in Harlem. Yes?
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[Question from audience] within the framework of the black culture, which is so important? [Callender] Yes.
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Yes there are there are a number of new series of textbooks that
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presenting a more honest picture of the of the pluralistic society
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that we live in in America and. And coming to grips with the fact that, even
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though this is still a white-dominated culture, there are many groups that have made significant contributions
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to the life of this country. Now. I was I was a seminary graduate
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in a graduate school in Union Seminary before I discovered that Washington, DC,
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was, was laid out architecturally by a black man. You know that is an
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amazing fact. We had. The only hero I knew when I grew up was Joe Lewis. Well,
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you know. But see the white
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man made Joe Lewis our hero, you see. And, you know, we
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don't we don't. We like Joe but he's not the type of model that we want to hold
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up before black youth today. We want to hold up before black youth today the
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L'Enfants and the John Russwurms [John Brown Russwurm]. And, these are probably all strange names to you, but even
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black people who've made significant contributions to American culture. But the main thing, the main thing.
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We want our young black kids to be proud of their blackness. That's
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the thing. Once they have a sense of dignity and self-esteem, then you can start talking
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integration because he can integrate on an equal basis. You don't integrate any kind of patronizing or
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paternalistic begging way. But you you move with the sense of confidence and pride
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that you should have in yourself. This is the kind of thing we try to communicate. Yes, sir?
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[Question from audience.] Now, if you walk down the streets of New York City
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what you said, in your estimation. was he a man of . . .
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[Callender] I I don't know about that really.
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good. If anybody could he probably could, but I'm not even sure he could. [Audience] The relation
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cities. Would you give reaction
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from your point of view? [Callender] Well,
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I can understand the jubilation. Because Powell [Congressman Adam Clayton Powell] is the kind of personality
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that irritates whites, irritates a lot of blacks too, but for different reasons. I'm mad at
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Adam Powell simply because I think that he had a tremendous opportunity as a black man to do an amazing
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job. And, he goofed. And, as far as I am concerned, he's got to go. But I
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You see, you white people make me vote for him. Really! You
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make me vote for him because there's a double standard for him. I was brought up in Cambridge, Massachusetts,
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you see. Tell me not about corrupt congressmen
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because, you see, when I graduated from from from Cambridge Latin, the mayor of
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Cambridge whose name was Lyons in those days, couldn't hand me my diploma, which was a traditional
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ceremonial part the mayor played at graduation from high school, because he was in jail
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hooked up in some racket with James Michael Curley who was in jail and was
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elected congressman from Boston, Massachusetts, while he was in jail and
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seated. And seated. Now you see.
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That's what you call white power. You see they had to seat Mr Curley because he was an Irish Catholic from Boston
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and they had power. Seventy five percent of the people in Boston are is Catholic. But you see,
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Mr Powell [Congressman Adam Clayton Powell] don't have that kind of black power behind him so they can treat
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him in a different kind of way. Curley was actually in jail when he was elected.
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When he came out, he took his seat in the Congress. Now.
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You know you can't you can't you can't make me believe in this democratic
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system when we have this kind of dual standard. I think that Adam Powell has has
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her caused by I voted for him when he ran again for reelection some because I think
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the way that Congress dealt with him was unfair and unjust and only dealt with him that way because he was
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a black man. I
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agree with you brother. But you know. I've maybe when Jesus comes we'll get
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there. I agree with you. I think the goal, you know, is
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equality of opportunity, social justice, freedom of choice. You know.
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And I think that's the goal. But, as long as the black people have
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to negotiate from a position of weakness and
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subjugation, we'll never get to that goal. It is only when we can negotiate
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from a position of power and strength that. You see, nobody
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gives up power voluntarily. Nobody does. You have to take it.
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So I'm all for organizing within the black communities to develop competitive institutions.
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We've done education for seventeen years, my brother. I've picketed
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sat in, chained in, boycotted the New York City Board of Education.
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Seventeen long years. Wasted my time, wasted time. Couldn't we couldn't change them
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they were impossible. You know. So did we do? Now that we have built up our own
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competitive education system where we have taken the rejects from this system and get them into college.
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When we have been successful way they fail. I don't have to call up the Superintendent of Schools in New York. He calls me up.
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He says, "How do you do it?" He makes sneak trips up to our academy.
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Really, he does! To see what's happening, you know, how
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do they do it? You see. And, as I said, two weeks ago we sat down in his office and
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we negotiated with him. He said well though we'd like to take some of your techniques and ideas and put them
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in our school system. We said, sure, we would do it, but we do it on our terms. Let us
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take over Ben Franklin and put our street workers in there, our teachers in the in the study halls. We'll
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start a separate street academy for Ben Franklin. We run it, and you give us the money. We run it.
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That's the only way we would do it. He did it. Now this fall. We're going to be running Benjamin Franklin High School.
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And Giguardi junior high school. I'm going to set up a separate street academy for that school.
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Give us time. We are going to change that school. We're going to have all those black kids at Benjamin Franklin, the Puetor Rican kids at
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Benjamin Franklin High School on their way to college. I know it. Jimmy's going to be in there and Harvey going to be in there.
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We are going to put our best streetworkers in there. We're going to change that school. That's what I mean
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by strengthening the black community so they can be a position to negotiate
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with the white community. We've done this with business. American Airlines, for instance. You
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know we all. The president of American Airlines happened to be a southerner. Nice guy and
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he. We've been saying to the business community. Look. You have got to get
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in here in these ghetto communities and bring the strengths of your your the
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weight of your your of your community to bear on these ghetto communities. Well.
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We had we brought him up there and he saw I was doing and you know what we're doing is just plain old hard American isn't you know.
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Rugged individual selves help this kind of thing. And he. They came up in a result
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of American Airlines coming up in the arbitrary American Airlines are going to sponsor one of my
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street academies and the textile industry in New York City is going to sponsor an academy. We have appointments
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now to see Andy High School and TIME LIFE. And others. We feel that we can get the
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business community of New York City significantly involved in the educational process in Harlem.
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We then form a coalition of the black community with the business community. And I dare the Board of Education
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not to deal with us. They, they will deal with us. When high school calls up or George Champion
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calls up or McGeorge Bundy calls up Donovan [Donovan, James B.], he's going to listen. And that's just the kind of thing I'm
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talking about. [Jim Schull] Maybe I can say. Maybe I could say just a little bit about this
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white identity thing. I used to have a Young Life club back in Seattle when I
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was at the University of Washington. So a lot of guys in the club
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were having big big problems with with with
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with white identity. I didn't put in those terms at that time, but
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there's a big. Well, superiority.
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Does one thing. It's it's it's iirst of all it's unreal.
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So when you live in an unreal world, it catches up with you, you know. Slowly
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catches up with you. And then you turn around and you see this big hole, you see, where you thought there was something
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very solid. Turn around and see that there's a big vacuum.
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In many ways, the young, young white men growing up in
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America today feel a vacuum. The men I know
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many of the young men working, young professional men working in New York rhat I've met,
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many of them, almost to a man, will tell me the emptiness that
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they feel. And, they can't figure out what's going on today.
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It's a big problem. Probably that this is a think the thing that meant to
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the most to me in this is that something I told a fellow in in my club.
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And, and a lot of guys since then. In the Brothers Karamazov [novel by Fyodor Dostoyevsky] There's a there's a high
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priest, who is very very holy. And,
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The Brothers Karamazov, one of them is holy
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and the other one is a lecher. The priest says to the, the
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one. I mean. The lecher says to the priest, excuse me,
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Sir, you are so holy. I could never never rate up to you. The priest,
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Father Zosima says, Says to him. No I'm not holy. In fact
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in many many ways, I'm much worse than you are. For
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for. And I said I could I could say for my people because I haven't lost my whiteness,
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whatever it is. I'm trying to trying to find it for my people to recognize
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who they are in this, that that they're no better than any other man.
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All America is constructed on a superiority level over the rest of the world. You look
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at how Africa is viewed. You look at how we view Vietnam, "the
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Gooks," you know. The blacks in Africa. The yellow tide. The thing in church this
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morning the bomb on Hiroshima. Why not in Germany you know.
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This is this is in been in embedded in us. Now, it's not only racism. There are other things.
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There are other kinds of superiority. But. But what White America, the
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young men who are going to be see facing a heck of a lot in the next twenty years
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have got to, got to be, well. The foundations have to be shaken a little bit.
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Yeah. [Question from audience] [Callender] The
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question was asked, would I define what I think is the institutional church. I mean by the institutional church.
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I mean those buildings, they may
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have seen crosses or spires on them that dot ghetto communities.
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In the two-mile square area of Harlem, we have four hundred forty four of them
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from storefronts to, you know, high Episcopal and even we've got a
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Jewish synagogue. That are structured and and operate on
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Sundays at eleven o'clock and with a nine o'clock Sunday
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School and, and function very much like like private clubs
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do. You know, membership operates the institution and and.
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There's very little relevancy or involvement with the masses of people that surround
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their doorsteps. It used to irk me for a long
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time. And we had a very involved church, by the way. The Church of the Master was a pioneer.
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Particularly in Jim Robinson's [Robinson, James Herman] ministry in so many ways, but it became. It started in the Depression and became a middle class
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institution. And, two thirds of our congregation lived outside of Manhattan. And, they would come in with
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their nice cars every Sunday morning and bypass the winos and addicts and everybody that was poor and the` welfare
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recipients who lived across the street. And then, when we tried to redirect some of their attention to these
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individuals, you have your conflict and hostility. And, it was a real real battle that we had.
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I pity my poor successor because he would have to reap some of the seeds that have been sown in that congregation
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since I, since I left. But that's what I mean by the institutional church. I mean. I
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mean that comfortable, secure, complacent
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operation that meets at Sunday morning at eleven o'clock A.M. and is
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willing to maybe give its money for a change. And yet, I begin to wonder about that
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too. When I, when I look at the assets of the Board of National Missions of the United Presbyterian Church United
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States. Twenty six million dollars in endowment.
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You know. And I see the need for the economic development of the ghetto. I
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begin to wonder whether the people who enriched
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that Board really wanted their money to lie that dormant
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so that we could pay some salaries and conduct a few little
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mission outposts here and there. If we could take that twenty-six million dollars and invest it in the ghetto
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and build strong economic institutions in the ghetto so, and create. What I.
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What I'd like to do. Our long range plan, it is to create what we would call the Harlem Foundation, which would be
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a nonprofit enterprise on the businesses we've set up the money would go into the Harlem Foundation. And, the Harlem
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Foundation would then begin to build other institutions in the ghetto. I can see a much more significant
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use for that twenty six million dollars than lying in, in the
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investment portfolio of the Board of National Missions, if you don't mind that kind of
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heresy. [Question from audience] All
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we have are we have a few of them. We have a lot.
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How many tie-wearing black men are working with me. I think ninety percent of my staff is black and
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tie wearing. But I got a job with them too, you see, because they need their thinking
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changed a little bit. I used to be one of the staunchest critics of the Urban League, with whom I work. In fact when the president of the Urban
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League, Doctor John Mosley, of the Mosley Safe Company, asked me to come as Executive Director. I laughed at him. "You don't want
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me?" You know I'm an activist. The Urban League is another tradition. It has been a
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sort of middle class social welfare organizations. But we are changing the
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thinking and attitudes of these middle class blacks on our staff to really
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get seriously involved. Now, I may have given the impression that there is very
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little that whites can do in the ghetto. This is not true. When I when we talk of bringing
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business into the ghetto, you know, business in America is predominately white. We don't want the
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the andes high school and George Champions [George Champion, Chase Manhattan Bank, CEO] coming up to Harlem tutoring. You know, they'd be out of
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place and then they wouldn't do it. But they have resources and they have staff. They
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have assets. They have equipment, and they have money that can
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be used significantly to begin to develop social change in the
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ghetto. And, this is all we're asking you to do, to to have this sense of responsibility, that
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they be willing to use some of their resources, put it in the hands of competent
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Black professionals, or black and white professionals. Because I really believe
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that this is something we have to do together. Color is not the, the real issue. And
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let us have an opportunity to to really help ourselves. And, they listen to this and
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and they're responding. And I think, as I say, give us give us five years. Let Ty [Tyrone Wong] finish
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college and get the thirty-four guys that went away to college last year. Let them graduate. Let these guys
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come back and get on the streets. And you're going to get some change. Real change.
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Let's see. Do you have another question, sir? [Question from audience] I was in a ghetto in Chicago and New Orleans.
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Yes.
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We're not getting very much cooperation from the black professional ghetto.
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And frankly I just don't have the time to try to convert those brothers. I just write them off.
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You know, you just have so much energy, so much time. And,
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maybe after the revolution gets going long enough, that they'll they'll get they'll get on
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the bandwagon, but I just don't have time to work those runs. You know they are out of it. They're
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still busy trying to out-white the whites that they ain't got time to get involved. But
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Jelly Roll can react to that. [Jelly Roll] Well really
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in that case, you know. We really don't really identify, we. Some would say
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well we call them Uncle Toms. You know, really, they're not really with us, you know.
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They out, you know. The benefit they sow. And that's you know, wrong with Harlem so many years.
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Some of, you know, the black would get education, then they forget that they black. But you know,
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all they had to do just go into the bathroom and look in the mirror. They know that they're black.
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[Callender] I'm afraid at least I'm going to have to split as the service speaks.
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I want try to get back to New York City in a decent hour. Let me
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say this. I want to leave this one thought with you. I understant that Sarge Shriver [Shriver, Sargent] is going
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to be speaking here sometime soon, next week or something. I was in his office
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Friday. And we went down there to present to him our program.
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And he knows about it. And we have. Our Ford grant is going to run out in December. We have got to get some more money in a hurry to
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keep the program going. And so we went to see Mr. Shriver. And, I've had a long
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friendship and relationship with him. And, so we went down to tell him our problems. And, we ended up listening to
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him tell us his problem. And boy! Has he got them!
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And he'll probably say this next week.
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But if there is anything that you can really do specifically now to
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try to help the situation our country. Is that you can write I start writing to your
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congressman and tell them that we've got to continue the Office of Economic Opportunity.
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As I said before, I was a member of the president's national task force on urban unemployment.
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And we made a study. We presented our report to the president. I don't know how he felt getting
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our report. You know, with Vietnam and riots all over the country, we were asking for an
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investment of forty billion dollars in these fifteen cities to affect any any kind of change.
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I don't even know if you had time to read the report. But this is one thing we discovered
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across the country was, if there was any particular program set in motion by the federal apparatus
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of this country that was at these relating to the masses of people, it was a program,
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program sponsored by the Office of Economic Opportunity. Where poor people would, were now beginning to
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come together and have an opportunity to of some kind of self-determination. That
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program is in trouble. it has serious trouble. And, the riots haven't helped. And it looks
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right now that the Congress of the United States will not refund the Office of
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Economic Opportunity, and it might go out of business. If you really want to do something. I think,
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really to save America,
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I think you ought to start writing to your congressman and tell him that, in spite of the riots, or because of the
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riots as an indication of social unrest, that that program has got to continue.
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And I mean this very seriously. I didn't come here to make a political pitch, but I know what that that program
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means to many people who feel disenfranchised and disinherited. And
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if we lose that, you think you got trouble in this country now. You are going to have some real trouble on your hands
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if that program dies. With that unhappy note. I think I'm going to have to close.
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[Applause]

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Title: Eugene Callender statements and panel discussion on work in Harlem, 6 August 1967, side 2.
Description: Introductory statements and panel discussion with Eugene Callender and young men involved in his evangelistic and social work among youth in Harlem. Recorded for the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. (PCUS) Department of Television Radio and Audio-Visuals (TRAV), August 6, 1967.
Creator: Callender, Eugene. (speaker)
Date: August 6, 1967
1967
Type of resource: sound recording-nonmusical
Genre: sound recordings
speeches
Form: audiotapes
Extent: 1 sound-tape reel : 3 3/4 ips, mono ; 1/4 in.
Language: English
Subject names: Callender, Eugene.
Presbyterian Church in the U.S. TRAV.
Topics: Evangelistic work--New York (state)--New York.
Social work with African American children--New York (state)--New York.
Geographic subjects: Harlem (New York, N.Y.)
North and Central America--United States--New York--Manhattan--New York
Rights status: Contact repository for more information
Physical location: ARCHIVES 12-0904; Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, PA
Related item: Presbyterian Church in the U.S. audio tapes, 1951-1982.--http://prestohost68.inmagic.com/Presto/content/Detail.aspx?ctID=Y2RiNWNk...
Identifier (local): 12-0904_callender_panel_1967-side2
PID (Persistent Identifier): islandora:116375

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Eugene Callender statements and panel discussion on work in Harlem, 6 August 1967, side 2.

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