Americans of every race and color have died in battle to protect our freedom. Americans of every race and color have worked to build a nation of wide… - Lyndon B. Johnson

You must follow a course of compassion and courage. You must love thy neighbor as thyself, and you must try to point the way, and to lift up the weak so that he, too, may be strong. Yes, you must point a course of courage in these trying times when smear and fear and intolerance are abroad in the land, the same courage that brought this Nation into existence, the same courage that held this Union together. The same courage that crossed the oceans on two occasions in our lifetime to preserve freedom in the world was never needed more than it is needed today. Unless I miss my guess, it has never been possessed to a greater degree than it is possessed today in the souls of each of you who sit in this room. Yes, we know not what the future may bring. We know not how we may be led. We know not what may be God's will. But His course is to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly. I would like to feel, as I leave this room and return to the lonely acres that are surrounded by a big, black, iron fence, that whatever I do, wherever I go, wherever my decisions may lead us, I will have your prayers and your support.

The American city should be a collection of communities where every member has a right to belong. It should be a place where every man feels safe on his streets and in the house of his friends. It should be a place where each individual’s dignity and self-respect is strengthened by the respect and affection of his neighbors. It should be a place where each of us can find the satisfaction and warmth which comes from being a member of the community of man. This is what man sought at the dawn of civilization. It is what we seek today.

The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community. It is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation for its own sake and for what it adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods. But most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor.