Legislative and judicial victories, he continued, “did very little” to help poor Black people in the North. New laws and court decisions failed to destroy the roots of American racism, he said, adding that “our society is still structured on the basis of racism.” Most Americans had not been asked to sacrifice for equality. They had not been asked to make reparations for slavery and Jim Crow. They had not addressed or attempted to cure the nation’s vast inequalities of wealth and opportunity. The new federal laws had cost most Americans nothing. That would have to change, King said, even if it
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