I think that there is a crucial debate under way in American ghettos, and that debate involves a dispute about the basic decency of white America....This proposal which we call 'fair housing' is fundamental to that debate. Because the resolution of that issue I think depends more upon white America than upon the persuasiveness of these two opposite points of view. Because we have to show that we intend to be decent Americans. We must show that we don't intend to live separately in this country but that we intend to live together.

About This Quote

U.S. Congress. Senate. Committee on Banking and Currency. Fair Housing Act of 1967: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Housing and Urban Affairs. 90th Cong., 1st sess., August 21, 22, and 23, 1967 at 2.

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