"I have been saying for a long time that the crisis in the world is not economic or political or military. Essentially, the crisis in the world is a moral crisis. It's a reflection of man's growing immorality to himself, of man's growing inhumanity to man. The H-bomb is the highest and most terrible destructive expression of that growing inhumanity. And in a sense our crisis in America—the crisis in education, the crisis in civil rights—is not political, it is moral. But we haven't demonstrated the moral courage to step up to solving these problems, and this is our basic problem. America is in crisis, not because it lacks the economic resources, not because it lacks the political know-how, not because we don't know how to do the job of squaring democracy's practices with its noble promises. We just haven't demonstrated the moral courage. And until we do, we will not meet this basic crisis in civil rights and in education."
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Activists from the United StatesCivil rights activistsLabor activistsPeople from West VirginiaFormer socialists
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Walter Reuther
Walter Philip Reuther (September 1, 1907 – May 9, 1970) was an American leader of organized labor and civil rights activist who built the United Auto Workers (UAW) into one of the most progressive labor unions in American history. He was the husband of May Reuther, and the brother of Victor G. Reuther and Roy L. Reuther.
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