parents, will be harnessed to a constructive effort to make partici-

patory democracy a reality.

Another area in which the Urban League will move in the

coming months is that of drugs. Drug abuse has become a major

national issue, but only after white middle-class kids became its

victims. Black kids have been nodding in doorways for decades,

and no one cared. The veins of black youth have been pierced by

death-laden needles, and society showed massive indifference.

But now that King Heroin stalks the hallways of suburban

schools, the country is up in arms and demands action. National,

state, and local governments cannot avoid their responsibility to

mount full-scale war on drugs and the criminals who push them,

as well as on those law-enforcement officials who look the other

way and profit from them.

We in the Urban League will take measures to set up model

prevention and education programs to help remove from the

black community this cancerous growth that destroys its children

and makes its streets unsafe.

The Urban League is also uniquely situated, through its wide

network of affiliates and its record of professional expertise, to

mount Action Research Teams on both the local and national

levels, Action Research Teams that will bring the facts and the

necessary interpretations of those facts to black people and their

leadership.

Years ago, when black people were to be kept down, it was

done by thugs putting on dirty old white sheets and burning a

cross on a lawn or by hanging someone from a tree. Separate and

unequal was the law of the land, given legislative and judicial

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VERNON E. JORDAN, JR.

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