The American Ethical Union applauds and endorses the call of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders for "compassionate, massive and sustained" national action toward the realization of common opportunities for all within a single society.

In recent years there has been increasing recognition that racial justice in America can only be achieved in conjunction with many major social and economic reforms. But during the same period the white backlash, liberal timidity, and the war in Vietnam combined to weaken the alliance of civil rights, liberal, religious and labor organizations which so effectively campaigned for earlier civil rights legislation, and black separatists unconsciously cooperated with white racists in undermining the liberal coalition needed to wrest social and economic reforms from American society.

In response to these tendencies and in the light of the findings of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders the American Ethical Union hereby reaffirms its long standing commitment to the principles of racial equality, integration, and interracial efforts to achieve social justice for all. We call for cooperation between federal, state and local governments in launching a massive program to attain the major goals set forth by the National Advisory Commission, including:

The creation of two million new jobs over the next three years -- one million in the public sector and one million in the private sector;

New and vigorous action to remove racial discrimination in employment and promotion;

The development of a national, system of income supplementation to provide a minimum decent standard of living for those who cannot work and an income supplementation involving incentive toward fuller employment for those who can work or do work;

Sharply increased efforts to eliminate both legal and defacto segregation in our schools and simultaneous efforts to improve dramatically the quality of ghetto education;

Enactment of a comprehensive and enforceable federal open housing law to cover the sale and rental of all housing including single family houses;

Massive expansion of the public housing program with emphasis on small units in scattered sites.

Source: Where We Stand ... 1969

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