"You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying, "Now you are free to go where you want, and 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 liberate him, bring him 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."
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Presidents of the United StatesPoliticians from TexasMembers of the United States SenateUnited States presidential candidates, 1968United States presidential candidates, 1964
Original Language: English
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Statement on affirmative action in the LBJ Commencement Address at Howard University (4 June 1965)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Lyndon_B._Johnson
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