President Obama, joined by thousands of people, today commemorated the 50th anniversary of the
famed civil rights marches from Selma to Montgomery Alabama.
His speech at the event, possibly the finest and most moving that he has given while in office, and that's saying something.
From
WhiteHouse.gov -
AUDIENCE MEMBER: We love you, President Obama!
THE PRESIDENT: Well, you know I love you back. (Applause.)
It is a rare honor in this life to follow one of your heroes. And John Lewis is one of my heroes.
Now, I have to imagine that when a younger John Lewis woke up that
morning 50 years ago and made his way to Brown Chapel, heroics were not
on his mind. A day like this was not on his mind. Young folks with
bedrolls and backpacks were milling about. Veterans of the movement
trained newcomers in the tactics of non-violence; the right way to
protect yourself when attacked. A doctor described what tear gas does
to the body, while marchers scribbled down instructions for contacting
their loved ones. The air was thick with doubt, anticipation and fear.
And they comforted themselves with the final verse of the final hymn
they sung:
“No matter what may be the test, God will take care of you;
Lean, weary one, upon His breast, God will take care of you.”
And then, his knapsack stocked with an apple, a toothbrush, and a
book on government -- all you need for a night behind bars -- John Lewis
led them out of the church on a mission to change America.
President and Mrs. Bush, Governor Bentley, Mayor Evans, Sewell,
Reverend Strong, members of Congress, elected officials, foot soldiers,
friends, fellow Americans:
As John noted, there are places and moments in America where this
nation’s destiny has been decided. Many are sites of war -- Concord and
Lexington, Appomattox, Gettysburg. Others are sites that symbolize the
daring of America’s character -- Independence Hall and Seneca Falls,
Kitty Hawk and Cape Canaveral.
Selma is such a place. In one afternoon 50 years ago, so much of our
turbulent history -- the stain of slavery and anguish of civil war; the
yoke of segregation and tyranny of Jim Crow; the death of four little
girls in Birmingham; and the dream of a Baptist preacher -- all that
history met on this bridge.
It was not a clash of armies, but a clash of wills; a contest to
determine the true meaning of America.
And because of men and women
like John Lewis, Joseph Lowery, Hosea Williams, Amelia Boynton, Diane
Nash, Ralph Abernathy, C.T. Vivian, Andrew Young, Fred Shuttlesworth,
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and so many others, the idea of a just
America and a fair America, an inclusive America, and a generous America
-- that idea ultimately triumphed.
As is true across the landscape of American history, we cannot
examine this moment in isolation. The march on Selma was part of a
broader campaign that spanned generations; the leaders that day part of a
long line of heroes.
We gather here to celebrate them. We gather here to honor the
courage of ordinary Americans willing to endure billy clubs and the
chastening rod; tear gas and the trampling hoof; men and women who
despite the gush of blood and splintered bone would stay true to their
North Star and keep marching towards justice.
They did as Scripture instructed: “Rejoice in hope, be patient in
tribulation, be constant in prayer.” And in the days to come, they went
back again and again. When the trumpet call sounded for more to join,
the people came –- black and white, young and old, Christian and Jew,
waving the American flag and singing the same anthems full of faith and
hope. A white newsman, Bill Plante, who covered the marches then and
who is with us here today, quipped that the growing number of white
people lowered the quality of the singing. (Laughter.) To those who
marched, though, those old gospel songs must have never sounded so
sweet.
In time, their chorus would well up and reach President Johnson. And
he would send them protection, and speak to the nation, echoing their
call for America and the world to hear: “We shall overcome.”
(Applause.) What enormous faith these men and women had. Faith in God,
but also faith in America.
The Americans who crossed this bridge, they were not physically
imposing. But they gave courage to millions. They held no elected
office. But they led a nation. They marched as Americans who had
endured hundreds of years of brutal violence, countless daily
indignities –- but they didn’t seek special treatment, just the equal
treatment promised to them almost a century before. (Applause.)
What they did here will reverberate through the ages. Not because
the change they won was preordained; not because their victory was
complete; but because they proved that nonviolent change is possible,
that love and hope can conquer hate.
As we commemorate their achievement, we are well-served to remember
that at the time of the marches, many in power condemned rather than
praised them. Back then, they were called Communists, or half-breeds,
or outside agitators, sexual and moral degenerates, and worse –- they
were called everything but the name their parents gave them. Their
faith was questioned. Their lives were threatened. Their patriotism
challenged.
And yet, what could be more American than what happened in this
place? (Applause.) What could more profoundly vindicate the idea of
America than plain and humble people –- unsung, the downtrodden, the
dreamers not of high station, not born to wealth or privilege, not of
one religious tradition but many, coming together to shape their
country’s course?
What greater expression of faith in the American experiment than
this, what greater form of patriotism is there than the belief that
America is not yet finished, that we are strong enough to be
self-critical, that each successive generation can look upon our
imperfections and decide that it is in our power to remake this nation
to more closely align with our highest ideals? (Applause.)
That’s why Selma is not some outlier in the American experience.
That’s why it’s not a museum or a static monument to behold from a
distance. It is instead the manifestation of a creed written into our
founding documents: “We the People…in order to form a more perfect
union.” “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are
created equal.” (Applause.)
These are not just words. They’re a living thing, a call to action, a
roadmap for citizenship and an insistence in the capacity of free men
and women to shape our own destiny. For founders like Franklin and
Jefferson, for leaders like Lincoln and FDR, the success of our
experiment in self-government rested on engaging all of our citizens in
this work. And that’s what we celebrate here in Selma. That’s what
this movement was all about, one leg in our long journey toward
freedom. (Applause.)
The American instinct that led these young men and women to pick up
the torch and cross this bridge, that’s the same instinct that moved
patriots to choose revolution over tyranny. It’s the same instinct that
drew immigrants from across oceans and the Rio Grande; the same
instinct that led women to reach for the ballot, workers to organize
against an unjust status quo; the same instinct that led us to plant a
flag at Iwo Jima and on the surface of the Moon. (Applause.)
It’s the idea held by generations of citizens who believed that
America is a constant work in progress; who believed that loving this
country requires more than singing its praises or avoiding uncomfortable
truths. It requires the occasional disruption, the willingness to
speak out for what is right, to shake up the status quo. That’s
America. (Applause.)
That’s what makes us unique. That’s what cements our reputation as a
beacon of opportunity. Young people behind the Iron Curtain would see
Selma and eventually tear down that wall. Young people in Soweto would
hear Bobby Kennedy talk about ripples of hope and eventually banish the
scourge of apartheid. Young people in Burma went to prison rather than
submit to military rule. They saw what John Lewis had done. From the
streets of Tunis to the Maidan in Ukraine, this generation of young
people can draw strength from this place, where the powerless could
change the world’s greatest power and push their leaders to expand the
boundaries of freedom.
They saw that idea made real right here in Selma, Alabama. They saw that idea manifest itself here in America.
Because of campaigns like this, a Voting Rights Act was passed.
Political and economic and social barriers came down. And the change
these men and women wrought is visible here today in the presence of
African Americans who run boardrooms, who sit on the bench, who serve in
elected office from small towns to big cities; from the Congressional
Black Caucus all the way to the Oval Office. (Applause.)
Because of what they did, the doors of opportunity swung open not
just for black folks, but for every American. Women marched through
those doors. Latinos marched through those doors. Asian Americans, gay
Americans, Americans with disabilities -- they all came through those
doors. (Applause.) Their endeavors gave the entire South the chance to
rise again, not by reasserting the past, but by transcending the past.
What a glorious thing, Dr. King might say. And what a solemn debt we
owe. Which leads us to ask, just how might we repay that debt?
First and foremost, we have to recognize that one day’s
commemoration, no matter how special, is not enough. If Selma taught us
anything, it’s that our work is never done. (Applause.) The American
experiment in self-government gives work and purpose to each generation.
Selma teaches us, as well, that action requires that we shed our
cynicism. For when it comes to the pursuit of justice, we can afford
neither complacency nor despair.
Just this week, I was asked whether I thought the Department of
Justice’s Ferguson report shows that, with respect to race, little has
changed in this country. And I understood the question; the report’s
narrative was sadly familiar. It evoked the kind of abuse and disregard
for citizens that spawned the Civil Rights Movement. But I rejected
the notion that nothing’s changed. What happened in Ferguson may not be
unique, but it’s no longer endemic. It’s no longer sanctioned by law
or by custom. And before the Civil Rights Movement, it most surely
was. (Applause.)
We do a disservice to the cause of justice by intimating that bias
and discrimination are immutable, that racial division is inherent to
America. If you think nothing’s changed in the past 50 years, ask
somebody who lived through the Selma or Chicago or Los Angeles of the
1950s. Ask the female CEO who once might have been assigned to the
secretarial pool if nothing’s changed. Ask your gay friend if it’s
easier to be out and proud in America now than it was thirty years ago.
To deny this progress, this hard-won progress -– our progress –- would
be to rob us of our own agency, our own capacity, our responsibility to
do what we can to make America better.
Of course, a more common mistake is to suggest that Ferguson is an
isolated incident; that racism is banished; that the work that drew men
and women to Selma is now complete, and that whatever racial tensions
remain are a consequence of those seeking to play the “race card” for
their own purposes. We don’t need the Ferguson report to know that’s
not true. We just need to open our eyes, and our ears, and our hearts
to know that this nation’s racial history still casts its long shadow
upon us.
We know the march is not yet over. We know the race is not yet won.
We know that reaching that blessed destination where we are judged, all
of us, by the content of our character requires admitting as much,
facing up to the truth. “We are capable of bearing a great burden,”
James Baldwin once wrote, “once we discover that the burden is reality
and arrive where reality is.”
There’s nothing America can’t handle if we actually look squarely at
the problem. And this is work for all Americans, not just some. Not
just whites. Not just blacks. If we want to honor the courage of those
who marched that day, then all of us are called to possess their moral
imagination. All of us will need to feel as they did the fierce urgency
of now. All of us need to recognize as they did that change depends on
our actions, on our attitudes, the things we teach our children. And
if we make such an effort, no matter how hard it may sometimes seem,
laws can be passed, and consciences can be stirred, and consensus can be
built. (Applause.)
With such an effort, we can make sure our criminal justice system
serves all and not just some. Together, we can raise the level of
mutual trust that policing is built on –- the idea that police officers
are members of the community they risk their lives to protect, and
citizens in Ferguson and New York and Cleveland, they just want the same
thing young people here marched for 50 years ago -– the protection of
the law. (Applause.) Together, we can address unfair sentencing and
overcrowded prisons, and the stunted circumstances that rob too many
boys of the chance to become men, and rob the nation of too many men who
could be good dads, and good workers, and good neighbors. (Applause.)
With effort, we can roll back poverty and the roadblocks to
opportunity. Americans don’t accept a free ride for anybody, nor do we
believe in equality of outcomes. But we do expect equal opportunity.
And if we really mean it, if we’re not just giving lip service to it,
but if we really mean it and are willing to sacrifice for it, then, yes,
we can make sure every child gets an education suitable to this new
century, one that expands imaginations and lifts sights and gives those
children the skills they need. We can make sure every person willing to
work has the dignity of a job, and a fair wage, and a real voice, and
sturdier rungs on that ladder into the middle class.
And with effort, we can protect the foundation stone of our democracy
for which so many marched across this bridge –- and that is the right
to vote. (Applause.) Right now, in 2015, 50 years after Selma, there
are laws across this country designed to make it harder for people to
vote. As we speak, more of such laws are being proposed. Meanwhile,
the Voting Rights Act, the culmination of so much blood, so much sweat
and tears, the product of so much sacrifice in the face of wanton
violence, the Voting Rights Act stands weakened, its future subject to
political rancor.
How can that be? The Voting Rights Act was one of the crowning
achievements of our democracy, the result of Republican and Democratic
efforts. (Applause.) President Reagan signed its renewal when he was
in office. President George W. Bush signed its renewal when he was in
office. (Applause.) One hundred members of Congress have come here
today to honor people who were willing to die for the right to protect
it. If we want to honor this day, let that hundred go back to
Washington and gather four hundred more, and together, pledge to make it
their mission to restore that law this year. That’s how we honor those
on this bridge. (Applause.)
Of course, our democracy is not the task of Congress alone, or the
courts alone, or even the President alone. If every new
voter-suppression law was struck down today, we would still have, here
in America, one of the lowest voting rates among free peoples. Fifty
years ago, registering to vote here in Selma and much of the South meant
guessing the number of jellybeans in a jar, the number of bubbles on a
bar of soap. It meant risking your dignity, and sometimes, your life.
What’s our excuse today for not voting? How do we so casually
discard the right for which so many fought? (Applause.) How do we so
fully give away our power, our voice, in shaping America’s future? Why
are we pointing to somebody else when we could take the time just to go
to the polling places? (Applause.) We give away our power.
Fellow marchers, so much has changed in 50 years. We have endured
war and we’ve fashioned peace. We’ve seen technological wonders that
touch every aspect of our lives. We take for granted conveniences that
our parents could have scarcely imagined. But what has not changed is
the imperative of citizenship; that willingness of a 26-year-old deacon,
or a Unitarian minister, or a young mother of five to decide they loved
this country so much that they’d risk everything to realize its
promise.
That’s what it means to love America. That’s what it means to
believe in America. That’s what it means when we say America is
exceptional.
For we were born of change. We broke the old aristocracies,
declaring ourselves entitled not by bloodline, but endowed by our
Creator with certain inalienable rights. We secure our rights and
responsibilities through a system of self-government, of and by and for
the people. That’s why we argue and fight with so much passion and
conviction -- because we know our efforts matter. We know America is
what we make of it.
Look at our history. We are Lewis and Clark and Sacajawea, pioneers
who braved the unfamiliar, followed by a stampede of farmers and miners,
and entrepreneurs and hucksters. That’s our spirit. That’s who we
are.
We are Sojourner Truth and Fannie Lou Hamer, women who could do as
much as any man and then some. And we’re Susan B. Anthony, who shook
the system until the law reflected that truth. That is our character.
We’re the immigrants who stowed away on ships to reach these shores,
the huddled masses yearning to breathe free –- Holocaust survivors,
Soviet defectors, the Lost Boys of Sudan. We’re the hopeful strivers
who cross the Rio Grande because we want our kids to know a better
life. That’s how we came to be. (Applause.)
We’re the slaves who built the White House and the economy of the
South. (Applause.) We’re the ranch hands and cowboys who opened up the
West, and countless laborers who laid rail, and raised skyscrapers, and
organized for workers’ rights.
We’re the fresh-faced GIs who fought to liberate a continent. And
we’re the Tuskeegee Airmen, and the Navajo code-talkers, and the
Japanese Americans who fought for this country even as their own liberty
had been denied.
We’re the firefighters who rushed into those buildings on 9/11, the
volunteers who signed up to fight in Afghanistan and Iraq. We’re the
gay Americans whose blood ran in the streets of San Francisco and New
York, just as blood ran down this bridge. (Applause.)
We are storytellers, writers, poets, artists who abhor unfairness,
and despise hypocrisy, and give voice to the voiceless, and tell truths
that need to be told.
We’re the inventors of gospel and jazz and blues, bluegrass and
country, and hip-hop and rock and roll, and our very own sound with all
the sweet sorrow and reckless joy of freedom.
We are Jackie Robinson, enduring scorn and spiked cleats and pitches
coming straight to his head, and stealing home in the World Series
anyway. (Applause.)
We are the people Langston Hughes wrote of who “build our temples for
tomorrow, strong as we know how.” We are the people Emerson wrote of,
“who for truth and honor’s sake stand fast and suffer long;” who are
“never tired, so long as we can see far enough.”
That’s what America is. Not stock photos or airbrushed history, or
feeble attempts to define some of us as more American than others.
(Applause.) We respect the past, but we don’t pine for the past. We
don’t fear the future; we grab for it. America is not some fragile
thing. We are large, in the words of Whitman, containing multitudes.
We are boisterous and diverse and full of energy, perpetually young in
spirit. That’s why someone like John Lewis at the ripe old age of 25
could lead a mighty march.
And that’s what the young people here today and listening all across
the country must take away from this day. You are America.
Unconstrained by habit and convention. Unencumbered by what is, because
you’re ready to seize what ought to be.
For everywhere in this country, there are first steps to be taken,
there’s new ground to cover, there are more bridges to be crossed. And
it is you, the young and fearless at heart, the most diverse and
educated generation in our history, who the nation is waiting to follow.
Because Selma shows us that America is not the project of any one
person. Because the single-most powerful word in our democracy is the
word “We.” “We The People.” “We Shall Overcome.” “Yes We Can.”
(Applause.) That word is owned by no one. It belongs to everyone. Oh,
what a glorious task we are given, to continually try to improve this
great nation of ours.
Fifty years from Bloody Sunday, our march is not yet finished, but
we’re getting closer. Two hundred and thirty-nine years after this
nation’s founding our union is not yet perfect, but we are getting
closer. Our job’s easier because somebody already got us through that
first mile. Somebody already got us over that bridge. When it feels
the road is too hard, when the torch we’ve been passed feels too heavy,
we will remember these early travelers, and draw strength from their
example, and hold firmly the words of the prophet Isaiah: “Those who
hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on [the]
wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk
and not be faint.” (Applause.)
We honor those who walked so we could run. We must run so our
children soar. And we will not grow weary. For we believe in the power
of an awesome God, and we believe in this country’s sacred promise.
May He bless those warriors of justice no longer with us, and bless the United States of America.
Thank you, everybody.
