Today is the anniversary of a truly remarkable speech to Congress, written largely by Speechwriter Richard Goodwin, but with all of the political instincts that made President Lyndon B. Johnson one of our most consequential and controversial presidents. I will quote from the speech below, but his speech reminds me of why each of us should be worried about the times in which we live. His speech warrants these observations about the elephant in America’s room:
Much of white America is still hopelessly racist, as evidenced by the far-right efforts in many states to outrageously purge voting rolls and to make it so difficult for low-income people of color to vote. We are just fooling ourselves if we believe we have made as much progress as we think regarding racial and ethnic equity in America.
The men in power in this country still view women as little more than a uterus. The lawsuit by 5 brave women in Texas lays bare the insanity of leaving abortion laws to the individual states while still calling ourselves the UNITED States of America. The political hacks on the Supreme Court had the unifying formula for the subject of abortion right there in the Roe and Casey decisions yet created chaos with its Dobbs decision. But all the Court did was the bidding of human beings (many men and some women) who truly do not accept “woman” as much more than she was 2000 years ago.
A startling number of Americans have no clue as to the meaning of “democracy”, freedom, liberty, equality. The “Era of Trump” has demonstrated for all the world to see one overriding fact about a sizeable number of people in this country: their views about the human condition, the nature of government, social and ethical concerns are THE RIGHT VIEWS and that those other folks who call themselves Democrats, Liberals, and/or Progressives are not just wrong, but dangerous and must be stopped at all costs. And it IS a one-way street. Compare Fox News and MSNBC: Does Fox News offer daily, regular doses of Democrats turned Republicans or Independents? NO. Does MSNBC offer daily, regular doses of Republicans turned Democrats or Independents? YES. That’s it. Right there. That is all you need to know about why this nation is in deep trouble. We are a great nation when legitimate, well-considered CONSERVATISM engages in respectful and civil debate with equally legitimate, well-considered LIBERALISM, followed by a vote of all people and an acceptance of the result. We are as far away from that ideal as I have ever seen.
So now let’s remember LBJ 58 years ago today (these are just excerpts. You can find the entire speech with an easy You Tube search). Remember that March 15, 1965 was just days after Bloody Sunday in Selma, AL when John Lewis and others were beaten nearly to death by police who sought to stop a peaceful march across the Edmund Pettis Bridge; a march for voting rights in America:
“I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy…
There is no cause for self-satisfaction in the long denial of equal rights of millions of Americans. But there is cause for hope and for faith in our democracy in what is happening here tonight…Our mission is at once the oldest and the most basic of this country: to right wrong, to do justice, to serve man.
In our time we have come to live with moments of great crisis. Our lives have been marked with debate about great issues: issues of war and peace, issues of prosperity and depression. But rarely in any time does an issue lay bare the secret heart of America itself. Rarely are we met with a challenge, not to our growth or abundance, our welfare or our security, but rather to the values and the purposes and the meaning of our beloved nation. The issue of equal rights for American Negroes is such an issue. And should we defeat every enemy, should we double our wealth and conquer the stars, and still be unequal to this issue, then we will have failed as a people and as a nation. For with a country as with a person, “What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem. And we are met here tonight as Americans–not as Democrats or Republicans–we are met here as Americans to solve that problem.
This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a purpose. The great phrases of that purpose still sound in every American heart, North and South. “All men are created equal.” “Government by consent of the governed.” “Give me liberty or give me death.” Well, those are not just clever words, or those are not just empty theories. In their name Americans have fought and died for two centuries, and tonight around the world they stand there as guardians of our liberty, risking their lives.
Those words are a promise to every citizen that he shall share in the dignity of man. This dignity cannot be found in a man’s possessions; it cannot be found in his power, or in his position. It really rests on his right to be treated as a man equal in opportunity to all others. It says that he shall share in freedom, he shall choose his leaders, educate his children, and provide for his family according to his ability and his merits as a human being.
To apply any other test–to deny a man his hopes because of his color or race, his religion or the place of his birth–is not only to do injustice, it is to deny America and to dishonor the dead who gave their lives for American freedom.
Our fathers believed that if this noble view of the rights of man was to flourish, it must be rooted in democracy. The most basic right of all was the right to choose your own leaders. The history of this country, in large measure, is the history of the expansion of that right to all of our people. Many of the issues of civil rights are very complex and most difficult. But about this there can and should be no argument. Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote. There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have to ensure that right…
The Constitution says that no person shall be kept from voting because of his race or his color. We have all sworn an oath before God to support and to defend that Constitution. We must now act in obedience to that oath…
There is no moral issue. It is wrong–deadly wrong–to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country. There is no issue of states rights or national rights. There is only the struggle for human rights…
What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and state of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life. Their cause must be our cause, too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it’s all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.
As a man whose roots go deeply into Southern soil I know how agonizing racial feelings are. I know how difficult it is to reshape the attitudes and the structure of our society. But a century has passed, more than a hundred years, since the Negro was freed. And he is not fully free tonight. It was more than a hundred years ago that Abraham Lincoln, a great president of another party, signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but emancipation is a proclamation and not a fact. A century has passed, more than a hundred years, since equality was promised. And yet the Negro is not equal. A century has passed since the day of promise. And the promise is unkept.
The time of justice has now come. I tell you that I believe sincerely that no force can hold it back. It is right in the eyes of man and God that it should come. And when it does, I think that day will brighten the lives of every American…
So I say to all of you here, and to all in the nation tonight, that those who appeal to you to hold on to the past do so at the cost of denying you your future.
This great, rich, restless country can offer opportunity and education and hope to all–black and white, North and South, sharecropper and city dweller. These are the enemies: poverty, ignorance, disease. They are the enemies and not our fellow man, not our neighbor. And these enemies too–poverty, disease and ignorance–we shall overcome…
This is one nation. What happens in Selma or Cincinnati is a matter of legitimate concern to every American. But let each of us look within our own hearts and our own communities, and let each of us put our shoulder to the wheel to root out injustice wherever it exists….”