Remarks Following a Meeting in New Orleans With Leaders of Seven State Advisory Committees on Public Education

Ladies and gentlemen:

I am standing here with Director Shultz, who, as you know, is Vice Chairman of this Committee¹ that has been meeting with leaders from various Southern States, seven States,² as a matter of fact.

He started in that responsibility when he was in the Cabinet as Secretary of Labor and has continued since he has assumed the responsibility, still in the Cabinet, as the Director of Management and Budget.

After I make a brief statement expressing some sentiments with regard to these committees and my appreciation to them for serving, Mr. Shultz will be glad to brief you on some of the developments during the meetings that have been held. He was here this morning meeting with a group from Louisiana and also has sat in as I did for the last two hours and a half with the meetings in which all of the Chairmen and Vice Chairmen from the seven States participated.

He will also be able to take some questions. After that is concluded, I believe a press reception is scheduled to which you are all invited. We will remain there until you get time to file your stories, at least as I understand.

Where is that going to be held, Mr. Ziegler?

MR. ZIEGLER. Right next door, Mr. President.

THE PRESIDENT. Right next door, fine. I have had a very good day today in terms of learning what the problem is and also in hearing candidly from the Chairmen and Cochairrnen of each of the committees from the seven States involved what their recommendations would be for Federal participation in helping ,to solve the problem.

Let me be very direct and very candid with regard to where we stand on the problem of school desegregation.

The highest court of the land has spoken. The unitary school system must replace the dual school system throughout the United States. The law having been determined, it is the responsibility of those in the Federal Government and particularly the responsibility of the President of the United States to uphold the law. And I shall meet that responsibility.

However, in upholding the law, a law which requires a very significant social change, one that has enormous ramifications as it affects the communities, the schools, the homes of so many people in the Southern States involved, there are different approaches.

One approach is simply to sit back and wait for school to open and for trouble to start, and then if trouble begins, to order in the Federal enforcers to see that the law is complied with.

I rejected that approach from the beginning. Normally that is enough. When the Congress passes a law or when the Supreme Court decides or interprets a law in a certain way, it is only the responsibility of the President, the Attorney General, and others to enforce the law.

But in this instance, in the event that the law is not complied with, in the event that there are difficulties, as has been predicted in many quarters, those who will suffer will not simply be this generation, it will be primarily the next generation, the students, the children in the school districts involved.

They will pay the price for the failure, a failure of leadership, and it is here that I point out that leadership, strong leadership, is not limited simply to enforcing the law when the law is broken. We believe, all of us, in law and order and justice. We believe in enforcing the law.

But I also believe that leadership in an instance like this requires some preventive action. We are trying to take some preventive action and we are getting magnificent cooperation from dedicated people in the seven States involved.

These are civic leaders serving without pay and many of them serving even though some of their friends and neighbors suggest that they, too, should sit on the sidelines and not borrow trouble by trying to give advice or to develop public opinion so that this orderly transition can be made.

To me, one of the most encouraging experiences that I have had since taking office was to hear each one of these leaders from the Southern States speak honestly about the problems, not glossing over the fact that there were very grave problems, telling us what was needed to be done from the Federal standpoint, telling us also what they were doing at the local level. It was encouraging to see this kind of leadership come.

Time will tell how successful we have been, but I do know this: As a result of these advisory committees being set up, we are going to find that in many districts the transition will be orderly and peaceful, whereas otherwise it could have been the other way. And the credit will go to these outstanding Southern leaders, more credit to them actually than to the Federal officials who were there to help them.

Another point that I would like to urge on all of those who are listening here today, and many of you I know are from the Southern States, is this: Being again quite candid and quite blunt, this problem of race relations and particularly with regard to segregation in our schools is not a sectional problem. It is a national problem. It should be handled in a national way.

I have no patience with those from the North that point the finger at the South and then overlook the fact that in many Northern cities and Northern States the problem may also be a very, very difficult one.

That is why, as I approach this problem, I emphasize this is one country, this is one people, and we are going to carry out the law in that way, not in a punitive way, treating the South as basically a second class part of the Nation, but treating this part of the country with the respect that it deserves, asking its leaders to cooperate with us and we with them.

And then finally this point: One theme that every one of the participants in this meeting, the Chairmen and Vice Chairmen, white and black, participating, constantly came back to was quality education-quality education for all students, while students and black students.

One theme that they all came back to was the necessity for the survival of and the improvement of public school education.

It is this that we have worked for in this administration, and it is this that these committees will be working for as they meet and as they advise us in these very critical months ahead. What we want is quality education for this whole Nation, and particularly during this first year of transition to a unitary from a dual system.

I would say finally that it would be extremely helpful in this period if we could have the cooperation of the members of the press and the members of the media. You will find instances, I am sure, where there could be difficulties and problems. And it is your responsibility to report the news, whether it is bad or good.

But I know of no time in our Nation's history when the country needs to hear of those many, many successes where men and women of good will worked out the problem, rather than hearing only of those few instances that might be failures.

I do believe that this meeting has been most worthwhile from my standpoint. It demonstrated again that leaving Washington and coming to the country, hearing directly from the people in the country, is good for a President and good for the members of his Cabinet.

Thank you.