I think that it's about the only thing that is really positive going at
this time. Of those projects that are going. I think that other people
have got good projects that are going to serve a purpose, but I think
because of the "big dream" as people say of it, and what it embraces in
so many different areas of concern, that it is basically the civil
rights movement, if you want to use that and I'll let you use that term
to make it simple, it is the movement. And when you
look at the staff around here and you see where they have been, they
have now got out of the streets, gone back to school, taken the specific
sciences that he said you needed to know and then have returned here.
And our applications now are generally coming in by the tons now,
recognizing some of the things that I've said. In fact, I got a letter
from a guy the other day that said, "I disagreed with you and I remember
when you presented your plan"—that was Dr. Clark of the
Metropolitan Human Resources in New York—"and I attacked your
plan of Soul City as a return to segregation because you wanted to go
back to the South." And he said, "And all the things you said about
blacks going back to the South has been fulfilled, and I'm going to join
you. Because I now see that that is the only thing, and I admit that I
was wrong in opposing you. And now I'm going to join you." And he asked,
"How can I join, and in what capacity?"
[interruption]
I said, if this pattern can be set up right, it can create so darn many
opportunities, it can take the pressure off the larger cities. You see,
the bigger cities represent . . . there is always the argument of "can
you have big cities dying?" Well, the big cities have got to live, they
represent so much for us . . . and I think it's the quality of how
manageable can big cities be? And I think that if you could take three
million people out of certain areas of New York City and develop a town
over here, a community that allows a person to have their upward
mobility, to move forward. In other words, you
create a university out here and you've got a great number of new jobs
for professors, you see, teachers, employees, and such. The advantage of
a new town is that it starts off as a non-competitive force for existing
towns. And it can siphon off thousands of people and I think that every
man seeks to be able to rise to his highest level. Every man is likewise
motivated by self-interest and every man wants to be happy. He doesn't
want to fight. He really wants to love, not fight. And I believe that if
you can combine these things, just like when we came here, what's it
going to do with Oxford and other things? Now, one of the things I've
got to do before I leave here today is get an agreement between Oxford
and Henderson for our regional water system. They say, "Well, you come
down here . . ."
The emphasis has always been made upon people's differences. If I found
out that there's one point where you differ from me, see, and you found
out the one point where I differ from you, we'd fight over that and then
we'd walk away. We never talk about what we agree upon. And I say that
if you bring a group of whites from Oxford, Henderson, Franklin County,
Warrenton, all these counties around here and sit them down together and
say, "What do we want?" and start sifting all their wants . . . and you
bring all the blacks together and you'll find that they've got ninety
percent common interests and you put them together to start working for
those ninety percent common objectives, bring them back together one
year later and you'll find they have now increased to ninety-three or
ninety-four. I think that you've got to forget the
differences and put people together to work on common objectives. Just
forget the damn differences, we can't solve them anyway, most of the
time and you're always going to have pretty near that five percent
difference. Get them together on their common objectives and you slowly
detract from their differences.