In this episode of Talks at GS, National Urban League President and CEO Marc Morial discusses the national protests following the death of George Floyd, the debate surrounding police reform and how to address systemic racism throughout various American institutions.
On the significance of Juneteenth: “I think today it is more significant because we have this new conversation and new action on issues of structural racism, on issues of the nation’s long history of racial injustice, because its roots are in that peculiar institution, which historians call the ‘peculiar institution,’ which slavery was. And so the significance of it is to recognize that today, certainly there has been marked progress since 1865, of course, and certainly since 1964 and 1965, but we still are dealing with effects when it comes to health and economics and education and how our society operates from racism and structural racism.”
On striving for equality in American society: “We’re all part of this mosaic, we’re all part of this gumbo. We’re all part of it and this is about the legacy of our generation for our children…. Are we going to tolerate a nation which is divided by race, ethnicity, religion, or are we going to understand let’s respect our differences? Let’s recognize that people need to be proud of who they are, their family traditions, their ethnic traditions, religious traditions. But what we’re trying to do here is something that in humankind has not been done. And that is the ability of a people to build a diverse, multi-ethnic democracy that is a world economic power.”
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