Statement on the Civil Rights Bill (HR 7152)

-7- Our duty is well described. I hope the Senate will rise to the occasion and that Senators with differing views will engage in this debate with candor and earnestness, free from the emotions and prejudice which so often accompany this type of legislation. Mr. President, we cannot turn back the clock to 1619 and undo the deed which first brought African slaves to our shores. If we could, there js little doubt that we would be debating this bill today. We do not legislate in a vacuum, but must deal with the economic, social and political forces unleashed in the aftermath of the landing of that first slave ship. It is becoming increasingly clear that the problem of the Negro in American life is not a Southern problem - it is a national problem and the solution will not be found in pointing the finger of scorn at our region. For economic reasons the South has traditionally been the homeland for the American Negro. These same inexorable economic force