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INTRODUCTION

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do more than that. They outline earlier debates of some of the

important issues Americans continue to grapple with today.

At this momentous point, as we turn from one presidency

to another, the task facing all Americans today is, as it always

has been, to make democracy work. In the ï™"ï™Åšï™‰ï™ƒs, Roy

Wilkins, the longtime head of the National Association for

the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP); Whitney

M. Young, Jr., my immediate predecessor as head of the Na-

tional Urban League; Martin Luther King, Jr.; and many oth-

ers understood that this goal was not going to be achieved

merely by the enactment of the civil rights laws. They real-

ized that the struggle to push democracy forward would have

to continue, bolstered by new actors forging new paths that

would connect black America more and more closely to the

American mainstream.

In my work as an advocate in that journey during my years

at the National Urban League and beyond, I have come to re-

spect and love the craft of public speaking such that it has be-

come an important part of my life. Early in my life, I decided

I wanted to be an advocate for black America’s quest to gain

the full measure of American citizenship, and it was quite

clear that required the ability to speak in a way that influ-

enced people. If you are the state director of the NAACP in

Georgia, as I was, and you can’t get up in the pulpit and stir

the congregation, you are not going to be successful. Most of

all, these speeches offer lessons about and, I hope, inspiration

for continued public advocacy for social justice.