How will we know if the president's initiative has been successful? Here's one test. One test, it seems to me, it is whether we see at the end of this some stirring among people around the country, a stirring of leaders who try to define and shoulder their burden, our burden, for carrying the struggle forward.

In my view, my generation--Bill Clinton's generation, the post-Martin Luther King generation--has utterly failed to define and shoulder that burden. At a minimum this next year and what comes after it has to break the back of that in action and that lack of vision.