Aug. 7, 1961 - Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy said today at a news conference in Ivory Coast, a country on the south coast of West Africa, that progress for Negroes in America was like freedom for Africans - a difficult process of changing well-established customs. Paulin Joachim, African editor of a magazine called Bingo, said Africans "are deeply concerned over the inhuman and intolerable conditions of the Negro in the South." The Attorney General replied that, while the U.S. had a racial problem, "the important thing is that the U.S. Government and the vast majority of people are trying to do something about the problem." Mr. Joachim declared: "All we want is for every man to eat in a restaurant and to ride in a bus." Mr. Kennedy replied, "I couldn't agree with you more, and it doesn't take courage to say so."
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