Nixon & Goode on School busing and Televised address

0:25I can't see it all, man.
0:34Just remember what I wrote.
0:36I appreciate it.
0:45I have people living on the top of the city.
0:47I want to see if you've got your level and everything.
0:51I suppose if you want to hear a little of that, that's good.
0:56All right.
0:58I'll talk about this level probably in a little bit here.
1:02If you focus on it before it goes in, that's maybe about 13 and 1 half.
1:0814 and 1 half.
1:1114 and 1 half.
1:18I don't know.
1:20I'm just asking.
1:22I don't know.
1:25Who's directing?
1:26Here, here.
1:27Who's?
1:27No.
1:27WP's not?
1:28He didn't.
1:29Yeah.
1:29That's what I told you.
1:33No, no, no, no.
1:33I don't know.
1:35I don't know.
1:36I don't know.
1:39I don't know.
1:40I don't know.
1:42I don't know.
1:43I don't know.
1:45I don't know.
1:54Jim, any problems?
1:55No, sir.
1:57You all right?
1:57Yeah, I'm fine.
2:01I'm on a little stronger as I talk.
2:09Right.
2:10Right.
2:10Right.
2:38That's it.
2:42That's it.
2:46That's it.
2:48That's it.
3:12I don't want to wait until the very, very special moment.
3:28I don't know what you're talking about.
3:37I don't know what you're talking about.
3:49I don't know.
3:50I don't know.
3:51I don't know.
4:02And that's what you want to do.
4:03Take care of it.
4:18All those kids.
4:19All those kids.
5:11I'm sorry, what's your name?
5:12Steve.
5:12Steve.
5:12Steve.
5:13Steve.
5:13Steve.
5:13Steve.
5:37We would have to have this park just about all the park points of the test.
5:41And there's not another facility that's got enough room for three cameras to shoot through that.
5:48That's reasonable, fellas.
5:49Maybe it's something bigger shooting.
5:51But at least they've put out a lot of money.
5:56Two votes of 6,000 to be on these states in the 2017 election.
5:59So about 6,000 who have made a weak appearance in the election.
6:06But that doesn't mean we have a problem.
6:13We have a real problem.
6:15We have a problem.
6:23All right, baby.
6:23Good day.
6:23Good day.
6:40Thank you so much.
6:47You're welcome.
7:07I want you to know that he still gave me the answer.
7:47That's just what he is.
7:47He doesn't have a reason to talk shit.
7:48Well, yeah, I'm scared.
7:48Shut up.
8:10Sometimes, she can't seem to let it go back anymore.
8:11She can't hold it.
8:12She just went back to where she had to be to let it go.
8:14She can't let it go.
8:14She can't.
8:15No, every once in a while, she can't let it go back.
8:16She can't let it go.
8:17She can't.
8:53Thank you.
9:17I've never seen him.
10:11I don't know.
10:43That lady, uh, I don't know her.
11:12You're crazy.
11:12I'm not crazy.
11:13I'm not crazy.
11:43What about this?
12:09Thank you.
13:21He left.
13:22He left.
13:22Thank you, Ma.
13:22Don't take me for a ride.
13:57Three minutes.
13:58No, he's not.
14:25Marks, Marks, Mark is here.
14:26You don't need to be skeptical.
14:26We'll check.
14:27Go ahead, Matt.
14:27I told him.
14:27I told him that he has a, let me tell you.
14:28And I changed my mind.
14:29He's a nice man.
14:29I'm a big man.
14:57Two minutes, sir.
14:58What?
14:58I can't hear you, sir.
14:58Four minutes, sir.
15:24All right, the door is open.
15:54We've got about two minutes.
15:56One minute there, we've got a minute and 45 seconds.
15:5845, minute 45, okay.
15:59Well, we'll have 40 minutes of the scale, 40 seconds of the scale.
16:2930 seconds left.
16:30One minute to yourself and take a deep breath.
17:01We're on the air at 45.
17:0230 seconds.
17:0215 to a standing line.
17:44Good evening.
17:45Tonight I want to talk to you about one of the most difficult issues of our time, the issue of busing.
17:52Across this nation, in the north, east, west, and south, states, cities, and local school districts have been torn apart in debate over this issue.
18:02My own as a Indian as well know, I am opposed to busing for the purpose of achieving racial balance in our schools.
18:09I have spoken out against busing scores of times over many years.
18:14And I believe most Americans, white and black, share that view.
18:19But what we need now is not just speaking out against more busing.
18:24We need action to stop it.
18:27Above all, we need to stop it in the right way, in a way that will provide better education for every child in America in a deep segregated school system.
18:41The reason action is so urgent is because of a number of recent decisions of the lower federal courts.
18:47Those courts have gone too far.
18:50In some cases, beyond the requirements laid down by the Supreme Court, it ordered a massive bust to achieve racial balance.
18:59The decisions are left in their wake, confusion and contradiction in the law, anger, fear, and turmoil in local communities.
19:08And worst of all, agonized concern among hundreds of thousands of parents for the education and the safety of their children who have been forced by court order to be bused miles away from their neighborhood schools.
19:20What is the answer?
19:25There are many who believe that a constitutional amendment is the only way to deal with this problem.
19:31The Constitutional Amendment proposal deserves a thorough consideration by the Congress on its merits.
19:40But as an answer to the immediate problem we face of stopping more busing now, the Constitutional Amendment approach has a fatal flaw.
19:50It takes too long.
19:53The Constitutional Amendment would take between a year and 18 months at the very least to become effective.
20:00This means that hundreds of thousands of school children will be ordered by the courts to be bused away from their neighborhood schools in the next school year with no hope for relief.
20:11What we need is action now, not action two, three, or four years from now.
20:17And there's only one effective way to deal with the problem now.
20:23That is for the Congress to act.
20:26That is why I am sending a special message to the Congress tomorrow urging immediate consideration and action on two issues.
20:36First, I shall oppose legislation that would call an immediate halt to all new busing orders by federal courts, a moratorium on new busing.
20:49And next, I shall propose a companion major, the Equal Educational Opportunities Act of 1972.
20:58This act would require that every state or locality grant equal educational opportunities to every person regardless of race, color, or nationality.
21:11For the first time in our history, the cherished American ideal of equality of educational opportunity would be affirmed in the lawful hand by the elected representatives of the people in Congress.
21:25The act would further establish an educational bill of rights for Mexican-Americans, Puerto Ricans, Indians, and others who start their education under language handicaps to make certain that they, too, will have equal opportunity
21:41The act I propose would concentrate federal school aid funds on the areas of greatest educational need.
21:50That would mean directing over $2.5 billion in the next year mainly towards improving the education of children from poor families.
22:02This proposal deals directly with the problem that has been too often overlooked.
22:09We all know that within the central cities of our nation, there are schools so inferior that it is hypocritical even to suggest that the poor children who go there are getting a decent education, let alone an education comparable to that of children who go to schools in the suburbs.
22:29Even the most extreme proponents of busing admit that it would be years before programs could be set up and financed which would bus the majority of these children out of these central city areas to better schools in the suburbs.
22:45That means that putting primary emphasis on more busing rather than on better education inevitably will leave a lost generation of poor children in the central cities doomed to inferior education.
23:05It is time for us to make a national commitment to see that the schools in the central cities are upgraded so that the children who go there will have just as good a chance to get quality education as do the children who go to school in the suburbs.
23:23What I am proposing is that at the same time we stop more busing,
23:30we move forward to guarantee that the children currently attending the poorest schools in our cities and in rural areas be provided with education equal to that of good schools in their communities.
23:44Taken together, the two elements of my proposal, the moratorium on new busing and the Equal Educational Opportunities Act, would focus our efforts, where they agree with the law,
23:59on better education for all of our children, rather than on more busting for some of our children.
24:11In addition, I am directing all agencies and departments of the federal government at every level to carry out this spirit as far as the letter of the message in all of their actions.
24:24I am directing the Justice Department, intervening in selected cases where the lower courts have gone beyond the Supreme Court's requirements in order to bust them.
24:36These are the highlights of the new approach I propose.
24:39Let me now go to the heart of the problem that confronts us.
24:44I want to tell you why I feel that busing for the purpose of achieving racial balance in our schools is wrong, and why the great majority of Americans are right in wanting to bring it to an end.
24:56The purpose of such busing is to help end segregation.
25:02But experience in case after case has shown that busing is a bad means to a good end.
25:11The frank recognition of that fact does not reduce our commitment to desegregation.
25:17It simply tells us that we have to come up with a better means to that good end.
25:23The great majority of Americans, white and black, feel strongly that the busing of school children away from their own neighborhoods for the purpose of achieving racial balance is wrong.
25:38But the great majority, black and white, also are determined that the process of desegregation must go forward until the goal of genuinely peaceful educational opportunity is achieved.
25:54The question then is, how can we end segregation in a way that does not result in more busing?
26:03The proposals I have sent to the Congress provide an answer to that question.
26:10One emotional undercurrent that has done much to make this issue so difficult is the feeling that some people have that to oppose busing is to be anti-black.
26:24This is dangerous nonsense.
26:28There's no escaping the fact that some people do oppose busing because of racial prejudice.
26:34But to go on from this and conclude that anti-busing is simply a code word for prejudice is a vicious lie of millions of concerned parents who oppose busing, not because they are against desegregation, but because they are for better education for their children.
26:56They want their children educated in their own neighborhood.
26:59Many have invested their life savings in a home, in a neighborhood they chose because it had good schools.
27:07They do not want their children bussed across the city to an inferior school just to meet some social planners' concept of what is considered to be the correct racial balance, or what is called progressive social policy.
27:23There are right reasons for opposing busking, and there are wrong reasons.
27:28And most people, including large and increasing numbers of blacks, oppose it for reasons that have little or nothing to do with race.
27:39It would compound an injustice to resist in massing busking simply because some people oppose it for the wrong reasons.
27:51There is another element to consider, and this is the most important one of all.
27:56That is the human element, which I see reflected in thousands of letters I have received on my mail from worried parents all over the country, north, east, west, and south.
28:06Let me give you some examples.
28:09I believe it is wrong when an eight-year-old child who was once able to walk to a neighborhood school is now forced to travel two hours a day on a bus.
28:20I believe it is wrong when a working mother is suddenly faced with three different bus schedules for her children, and that makes it impossible for her to continue to work.
28:30I believe it is wrong when parents are burdened with new worries about their children's safety on the road and in the neighborhoods far from home.
28:38I believe it is wrong when a child in a poor neighborhood is denied the extra personal attention and financial support in his school that we know can make all the difference.
28:53All these individual human wrongs add up to a deeply felt and growing frustration.
29:00These are wrongs that can be and must be set right.
29:05And that is the purpose of the legislation I am sending to Congress tomorrow.
29:13I submit these proposals to the Congress and I commend them to all of you listening tonight mindful of the profound importance and the special complexity of the issues they address.
29:25The key is action, and action now.
29:29And Congress holds that key.
29:33If you agree with the goals I have described tonight, to stop more busing now and provide equality of education for all of our children, I urge you to let your congressmen and senators know your views so that Congress will act promptly to deal with this problem.
29:58Let me close with a personal note.
30:02This is a deeply emotional and divisive issue.
30:06I have done my very best to undertake to weigh and respect the conflicting interests, to strike a balance which is thoughtful and just, to search for answers that will best serve all of our nation's children.
30:22I realize the program I recommended will not satisfy the extremists on the one side who oppose busing for the wrong reasons.
30:34And I realize that my program will not satisfy the extreme social planners on the other side who insist on more busing even at the cost of better education.
30:48But while what I have said tonight will not appeal to either extreme, I believe I have expressed the views of the majority of Americans.
30:59Because I believe that the majority of Americans of all races want more busing stopped and better education started.
31:11Let us recognize that the issue of busing divides mankind.
31:18But let us also recognize that the commitment to equal opportunity in education unites all Americans.
31:29The proposals I am submitting to Congress will allow us to turn away from what divides us and to turn toward what unites us.
31:41The way we handle this difficult issue is a supreme test of the character, responsibility, and the decency of the American people.
31:53Let us handle it in a way we can be proud, by uniting behind a program which will make it possible for all the children in this great and good country of ours to receive a better education,
32:09and you will enjoy a better life.
32:13Thank you.
32:15Good night.
32:24Okay.
32:24Thank you very much.
32:46I think you still have the signal, ma'am.
32:47Now, please come and approach the statue.
34:00Walter?
34:01I don't say I have that picture.
34:21You use what you used last time.
34:24Walter Robinson.
34:37Thank you very much, gentlemen.
34:39In fact, we always give the crew, if you like, all of these presidential contracts.
34:46And so they're not part of the ground team on that.
34:48There they are with the steel.
34:50You can see now the steel is on.
34:52You can see that they have the steel on.
34:55All of these men will do just a good job.
35:16Thank you.
35:23Let's see.
35:23Bye-bye.
35:51Thank you.
36:15Thank you.
36:30All right.
36:32Yeah.
36:57Thank you, sir.
37:00Goodbye.
37:02Goodbye.

Nixon & Goode on School busing and Televised address

AI Summary

Audio

Transcript (AI-generated)

NARA Description

Nixon Library Finding Aid

Also recorded on March 17, 1972

Cite this conversation