YOUNG: I would first figure out some way to disperse the population, break up the congestion, eliminate the ghetto. I wouldn't do it just because I want to mix up the races, but because it's dangerous to have people crowded together in inferior housing. If all the housing in Harlem were perfectly in order, there would still be too many people living there to receive service.
Secondly, I would do all I could to give people a stake in the system. I would involve black people in the decision-making process at all levels.
And, thirdly, I would get the federal government to provide the resources that must come from the federal government.
SEALE: I wouldn't want to be mayor of a city. I wouldn't want to be president of a capitalistic regime. When the people establish a socialite system, I don't know what they might want me to do. If I'm here, if the pig agents don't kill me or what, I don't know. In a capitalistic system, hell no. Capitalism put us in slavery. It's impossible for any black American slavery. It's impossible for any black Americans to talk about any unity unless they talk about cooperation. If they talk about cooperation, they talk about a system of socialism because that's exactly what it is. So in the future if I'm around, and the people want me to be a local commissioner. I'd do what the masses of people want me to do. I want to cooperate with them. Power to the people.
TERRY: Under present conditions, what would you do if you were the President?
BOND: I would quickly end the war, simply by telling the South Vietnamese that by a certain date the last fighting man would leave the country. I would direct the Congress to extend the voting rights act of 1965 for another ten years. I'd improve the Nixon welfare plan. I would urge legislation providing full employment. I'd call a moratorium on highway construction and divert those funds into the construction of homes and school rooms.
JACKSON: I would speak for national conditions with equal protection and impartiality, and deal with the poor class. Blacks and poor whites are both affected by the defects in capitalism. Of the 40 million people at the bottom of the economy, listed as malnourished, 20 million of them are white. Of the 14 million rural poor, 11 million are white.
YOUNG: I would first have to make a decision as to whether or not I was going to be more concerned about political manipulation and expedience, or statesmanship. In terms of simple arithmetic, the majority of white Americans have made it and are smug and want to hold on to what they've got. They're fearful. I can play up to those people, exploit them, capitalize on them, and get reelected. Or, I could say, that's not good statesmanship, that's not good for the country, and what I must do is to lead, I must not just reflect public attitudes. I must mold.
TERRY: What kind of society would you like to live in?
BOND: I'd like to live in a world with no war, poverty or want. There would be the opportunity for any man to realize his potential, and no opportunity for any man's potential to be stunted at any stage of his life. He would be adequately housed, fed, and educated. Although I say it's utopian. I do feel it's achievable, I like to think that men are capable of anything rising to any great heights or sinking to any low depths. This country and the other countries of the world can do the things they should for their citizens if they have the will and provide the pressure.
JACKSON: Where men are judged more on character than on color. Where cooperation in many instances will supplant competition. Where man would begin to trust a democracy and not put so much faith in autocracy, which is what we have now.
YOUNG: I don't speak of segregated, integrated society. I want to live in an open society, that fits my definition of freedom. Freedom is the opportunity to make choices, the availability of options. It doesn't say that everybody must have a certain income or live a certain way. But it says that the opportunity is there, and the choices are there. If he chooses to live in the Bowery, he may be happier than the guy who lives out in the suburbs. But at least that's not predetermined for him by a set of circumstances over which he has no control. I don't care who people want to associate with, but he ought to have the choice to decide.
TERRY: If conditions for blacks do not radically change, what will life in 1980 be like for them?
BOND: The urban centers will be black because the whites will all become suburbanites. America will be a little less polluted, but her interest in pollution will be to the detriment of other social problems. The economic gap between black and white rich and poor, will be worse or the same. American troops will be involved in prosecuting a war someplace else. Dissent of any kind against the established order will be forbidden. The police force will have developed efficient ways of immediately crushing any kind of uprising, physical or nonviolent, domestic or foreign.
JACKSON: Well, God is gonna be black. Angels are gonna be polka-dot. Children will be flying airplanes. People will be walking around wearing air pollution masks. And big children, nine years old, will be engaging in sex on the corner.
YOUNG: I just hope we have a society by 1980. I've tried to get the President to adopt a domestic Marshall Plan. Why don't we set 1976 as a target date-the 200th anniversary of the founding of this country. Set a time program, like Kennedy did for the Space Program when we say, this year we're going to do this, this year you can depend on this, all looking toward 1976.
We will either accept the challenge that is with us and will not go away, and live up to our potential as a society, or else we'll go down the drain of history as a nation that had all the potential, all of the resources, but blew it, and we will incur the pity of the world, and deserve it.
SEALE: I can't look into 1980 per se. I know that this country is headed for a 1984.