Please note: The exact date of this speech is unknown.
In 1967, Rustin called for a sweeping Freedom Budget to confront the economic roots of racial injustice, arguing that the civil rights movement had shifted from winning rights to demanding resources. Only large-scale federal investment, he insisted, could meet the needs of the poorest and restore hope to Black communities.
The Freedom Budget for All Americans was unveiled in October 1966 by A. Philip Randolph, Bayard Rustin, and Martin Luther King Jr. as a ten-year plan to abolish poverty through full employment, guaranteed income, affordable housing, universal healthcare, and progressive taxation. Drawing on New Deal Keynesian economics and developed with economists like Leon Keyserling, the proposal sought to link racial justice with economic justice for all Americans, framing it as a moral and political imperative. The plan envisioned spending $185 billion over ten years, funded by projected economic growth, to create jobs through public works and provide economic security for those unable to work.
By 1967, when Rustin delivered this speech, the Freedom Budget had garnered endorsements from civil rights leaders, labor unions, and religious organizations but faced substantial political obstacles. The escalating Vietnam War drained federal resources and political attention, while conservative opposition and liberal hesitation hindered momentum. Rustin's speech came at a moment of profound transition: the legislative victories of the mid-1960s had not translated into material improvement for millions of poor Black Americans, and frustration was boiling over into urban rebellions. King himself had begun emphasizing economic justice in his Poor People's Campaign, which incorporated many Freedom Budget principles.
Despite its visionary scope and widespread initial support, the Freedom Budget never became law. A version of its job guarantee proposal was introduced by Congressman Augustus Hawkins in the early 1970s, but the final 1978 Full Employment and Balanced Growth Act was stripped of its most transformative elements such as the job guarantee and income redistribution measures. A reminder of the unresolved issues facing American democracy, the Freedom Budget continues to be a seminal statement of the interdependence of economic and civil rights.
In this powerful 1967 speech, Bayard Rustin articulates his vision for systemic economic transformation through the Freedom Budget for All Americans, a comprehensive plan developed with A. Philip Randolph and endorsed by Martin Luther King Jr. Rustin begins by critiquing the historical tendency to reduce racial injustice to psychological and moral frameworks, arguing instead that prejudice and discrimination are fundamentally rooted in economic structures. He traces this pattern from Thomas Jefferson's nightmare about slavery to the abolitionist movement's failure to propose concrete economic solutions after emancipation and even to contemporary Black Power advocates who, despite their compelling critiques, lack substantive economic programs.
Rustin divides the civil rights movement into two distinct periods: Period One (1955-1965), focused on securing rights like voting and public accommodations that required little federal funding, and Period Two (post-1965), which demands massive government investment in housing, employment, education, and political participation. He warns that the movement has entered a fundamentally different phase where moral appeals and symbolic victories are insufficient. With the passage of civil rights legislation, class divisions within the Black community have become starkly visible—those with economic means can now exercise their rights, while the poor remain excluded. Rustin emphasizes that this new period requires billions of federal dollars, sophisticated political strategy, and coalition-building across racial and class lines.
The Freedom Budget, Rustin explains, proposes public works programs that benefit everyone—cleaning rivers so both Robert Kennedy and working-class families can enjoy them and purifying air for Nelson Rockefeller and Harlem residents alike. It calls for guaranteed income for those unable to work, a $2 minimum wage with government subsidies for small businesses that cannot afford it, free universal healthcare, and free education from kindergarten through PhD. Rustin rejects the notion that America must choose between domestic investment and international commitments, insisting the nation has the wealth to do both if it musters the political will. He confronts critics from both the right and left, refusing to delay economic justice until after the Vietnam War ends and condemning those who mistake local community organizing for substantive structural change without federal financial backing.
Rustin closes with an unflinching assessment of generational change within the Black community. He contrasts his grandmother's warnings to avoid confrontation with white authority against the defiant stance of young Black militants who refuse to tolerate indignity. While acknowledging the limitations of cultural nationalism and symbolic gestures, he warns that hopelessness—not merely poverty—has fueled urban uprisings, and that restoration of hope demands concrete economic transformation, not appeasement or patronage.
bstev98. "Bayard Rustin: Firebombs Or A Freedom Budget | 1967." YouTube video, 49:47. June 20, 2020. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgMIrrTK8DM.
