Thursday, August 29, 2013

Speeches at the 50th anniversary of MLK's "I Have a Dream"

It has been half a century since Martin Luther King, Jr., delivered his famous speech upon the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. The speech came when the nation was on the verge of some great and sweeping changes. The United States was still in what many consider it's "golden age", but it was also an age of conformity and general unfairness. There was racial segregation, which mean de facto white supremacy, and this was legally enforced in the Jim Crow South. Women had the right to vote, but were far behind men on so many levels, particularly in terms of the opportunities available to them, and their salaries were even more glaringly low in comparison to men's then they are today. Other minorities lagged far behind, as well. In short, it was a different country than it is today.

Things had begun to change, though. Arguably, things had begun to change during the Second World War, when Truman had worked towards desegregating the US Army. Change was certainly beginning to become obvious with the Civil Rights Activism of the mid-1950's, with bus boycotts and marches and the landmark Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision, that recognized, once and for all, that there could be no such thing as "separate but equal".

Still, change did not come quickly or easily. The Civil Rights Movement may have been heating up, but there was a lot left to go. Protestors would continue to march with increased intensity. Demonstrators would sit in at segregated lunch counters, effectively protesting unfair laws. They would endure not just mere ridicule, but physical abuse, such as punches and having food smeared on them. In the face of such hatred and bigotry, they remained nonviolent.

There were arrests, including of prominent and respected leaders of the movement. Peaceful protesters were hosed down, attacked by dogs, and faced police brutality. At times, some were killed, including prominent leaders like Medgar Evars, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King, Jr..

Yet, the movement continued ever onwards. The bravery of those who endured such abuses in the name of greater quality and fairness in their nation is almost unimaginable, and we really do not seem to have anything remotely like that in the United States presently to compare it with. It's hard to imagine, since the nation is radically different nowadays.

That said, there were reminders that, while the face of the struggle has changed, there certainly still is a struggle, and it is far from over. There is a long, long way to go yet, and unlike some prediction by a couple of whites (of a rather older generation, admittedly) that racism was over because of the election of Barack Obama, the election (and re-election) of a black president has, in fact, often times opened up some of the racial tensions that still exist, and some have shown outright racism in their criticisms of Obama.

I do not have the time (or the space) to add every speech that was available yesterday, nor even to comment on them. This I wanted to do, and perhaps will do, when I get back from a small trip with my son over the weekend. I get back on Sunday, and perhaps will try to gather my thoughts and add them to a blog entry on the subject.

For now, let me at least add the texts of the speeches from President Carter, President Clinton, and President Obama yesterday, as well as some links to view these speeches and other highlights from the memorable day for yourself.


Below are the full texts of the speeches delivered by the three presidents in attendance yesterday, taken from the Wall Street Journal site, with the link: http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2013/08/28/carter-clinton-praise-mlk-at-50th-anniversary-event/?mod=WSJBlog

President Jimmy Carter's Speech:

Well, I’m greatly honored to be here. And I realize that most people know that it’s highly unlikely that any of us three over on my right would have served in the White House or be on this platform had it not been for Martin Luther King Jr. and his movement and his crusade for civil rights. So we are grateful to him for us being here. (Applause.)

I’m also proud that I came from the same part of the South as he did. He never lost contact with the folks back home. He was helping Tennessee garbage workers, as you know, when he gave his life to a racist bullet.

I remember how it was, back in those days. I left Georgia in 1943 for college and the Navy. And when I came home from submarine duty, I was put on the Board of Education. I suggested to the other members that we visit all the schools in the county. They had never done this before, and they were reluctant to go with me.

But we finally did it, and we found that white children had three nice brick buildings, but the African-American children had 26 different elementary schools in the county. They were in churches, in front living rooms and a few in barns. They had so many because there were no school buses for African-American children, and they had to be within walking distance of where they went to class. Their schoolbooks were outdated and worn out, and every one of them had a white child’s name in the front of the book.

We finally obtained some buses. And then the state legislature ordained that the front fenders be painted black. Not even the school buses could be equal to each other.

One of the finest moments of my life was 10 months after Dr. King’s famous speech right here, when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. I was really grateful when the King family adopted me as their presidential candidate in 1976. (Cheers.) Every handshake from Dr. King, from Daddy King, every hug from Coretta got me a million Yankee votes. (Laughter.)

Daddy King prayed at the Democratic Convention — for quite a while, I might say — (laughter) — and Coretta was in the hotel room with me and Rosalyn when I was elected president.

My Presidential Medal of Freedom citation to Coretta for Dr. King said, and I quote, “He gazed at the great wall of segregation and saw that the power of love could bring it down. He made our nation stronger because he made it better.”

We were able to create a national historic site where Dr. King lived, worked and worshipped. It’s next door to the Carter Center, linked together just by a walking path. And at the Carter Center, we try to make the (principles ?) that we follow the same as his, emphasizing peace and human rights.

I remember that Daddy King said, too many people think Martin freed only black people; in truth, he helped to free all people. (Applause.) And Daddy King added, it’s not enough to have a right to sit at a lunch counter if you can’t afford to buy a meal. And he also said, the ghetto still looks the same even from the front seat of a bus.

Perhaps the most challenging statement of Martin Luther King Jr. was, and I quote: “The crucial question of our time is how to overcome oppression and violence without resorting to oppression and violence.” In the Nobel Prize ceremony of 2002, I said that my fellow Georgian was, and I quote again, “the greatest leader that my native state, and perhaps my native country, has ever produced.” And I was not excluding presidents and even the Founding Fathers when I said this.

(Cheers, applause.)

I believe we all know how Dr. King would have reacted to the new ID requirements to exclude certain voters, especially African- Americans. I think we all know how Dr. King would have reacted to the Supreme Court striking down a crucial part of the Voters’ Rights Act just recently passed overwhelmingly by Congress. I think we all know how Dr. King would have reacted to unemployment among African- Americans being almost twice the rate of white people and for teenagers at 42 percent. I think we would all know how Dr. King would have reacted to our country being awash in guns and for more and more states passing “stand your ground” laws. I think we know how Dr. King would have reacted for people of District of Columbia still not having full citizenship rights. (Cheers, applause.)

And I think we all know how Dr. King would have reacted to have more than 835,000 African-American men in prison, five times as many as when I left office, and with one-third of all African-American males being destined to be in prison in their lifetimes.


Well, there’s a tremendous agenda ahead of us, and I’m thankful to Martin Luther King Jr. that his dream is still alive. Thank you. (Cheers, applause.)

“I would respectfully suggest that Martin Luther King did not live and die to hear his heirs whine about political gridlock. It’s time to stop complaining and put our shoulders against the stubborn gates holding the American people back,” he said.




Full Text of President Bill Clinton's Speech: 

Thank you.

Mr. President, Mrs. Obama, President Carter, Vice President Biden, Dr. Biden, I want to thank my great friend Reverend Bernice King and the King family for inviting me to be a part of this 50th observation of one of the most important days in American history.

Dr. King and A. Philip Randolph, John Lewis and Bayard Rustin, Dorothy Height, Myrlie Evers, Daisy Bates and all the others who led this massive march knew what they were doing on this hallowed ground.

In the shadow of Lincoln’s statute, the burning memory of the fact that he gave his life to preserve the Union and end slavery, Martin Luther King urged his crowd not to drink from the cup of bitterness but to reach across the racial divide because, he said, we cannot walk alone. Their destiny is tied up with our destiny. Their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

He urged the victims of racial violence to meet white Americans with an outstretched hand, not a clenched fist, and, in so doing, to prove the redeeming power of unearned suffering. And then he dreamed of an America where all citizens would sit together at the table of brotherhood, where little white boys and girls and little black boys and girls would hold hands across the color line, where his own children would be judged not by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

This march and that speech changed America. They opened minds, they melted hearts and they moved millions, including a 17-year-old boy watching alone in his home in Arkansas. (Applause.) It was an empowering moment, but also an empowered moment. As the great chronicler of those years, Taylor Branch, wrote: The movement here gained the force to open, quote, “the stubborn gates of freedom,” and out flowed the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, immigration reform, Medicare, Medicaid, open housing.

It is well to remember that the leaders and the foot soldiers here were both idealists and tough realists; they had to be. It was a violent time. Just three months later, we lost President Kennedy and we thank God that President Johnson came in and fought for all those issues I just mentioned. (Applause.) Just five years later, we lost Senator Kennedy. And in between there was the carnage of the fight for jobs, freedom and equality. Just 18 days after this march, four little children were killed in the Birmingham church bombinng. Then there were the Ku Klux Klan murders, the Mississippi lynching and a dozen others until in 1968 Dr. King himself was martyred, still marching for jobs and freedom.

What a debt we owe to those people who came here 50 years ago. (Cheers, applause.) The martyrs played it all for a dream, a dream, as John Lewis said, that millions have now actually lived.

So how are we going to repay the debt? Dr. King’s dream of interdependence, his prescription of wholehearted cooperation across racial lines — they ring as true today as they did 50 years ago. Oh, yes, we face terrible political gridlock now. Read a little history; it’s nothing new. Yes, there remain racial inequalities in employment, income, health, wealth, incarceration, and in the victims and perpetrators of violent crime. But we don’t face beatings, lynchings and shootings for our political beliefs anymore. And I would respectfully suggest that Martin Luther King did not live and die to hear his heirs whine about political gridlock. It is time to stop complaining and put our shoulders against the stubborn gates holding the American people back. (Cheers, applause.)

We cannot be disheartened by the forces of resistance to building a modern economy of good jobs and rising incomes or to rebuilding our education system to give our children a common core of knowledge necessary to ensure success or to give Americans of all ages access to affordable college and training programs. And we thank the president for his efforts in those regards. (Applause.)

We cannot relax in our efforts to implement health care reform in a way that ends discrimination against those with pre-existing conditions — one of which is inadequate income to pay for rising health care — (applause) — a health care reform that will lower costs and lengthen lives; nor can we stop investing in science and technology to train our young people of all races for the jobs of tomorrow; and to act on what we learn about our bodies, our businesses and our climate. We must push open those stubborn gates.

We cannot be discouraged by a Supreme Court decision that said we don’t need this critical provision of the Voting Rights Act because, look at the states, it made it harder for African Americans and Hispanics and students and the elderly and the infirm and poor working folks to vote. What do you know; they showed up, stood in line for hours and voted anyway. So, obviously we don’t need any kind of law. (Applause.)

But a great democracy does not make it harder to vote than to buy an assault weapon. (Cheers, applause.) We must open those stubborn gates.

And let us not forget that while racial divides persist and must not be denied, the whole American landscape is littered with the lost dreams and dashed hopes of people of all races. And the great irony of the current moment is that the future has never brimmed with more possibilities. It has never burned brighter in what we could become if we push open those stubborn gates and if we do it together.

The choice remains as it was on that distant summer day 50 years ago: cooperate and thrive or fight with each other and fall behind. We should all thank God for Dr. King and John Lewis and all those who gave us a dream to guide us, a dream they paid for, like our founders, with their lives, their fortunes, their sacred honor. (Cheers, applause.) And we thank them for reminding us that America is always becoming, always on a journey. And we all, every single citizen among us, have to run our length.


God bless them, and God bless America. (Cheers, applause.)


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/10272514/Obama-on-Martin-Luther-King-anniversary-the-full-speech.html

Full Text of President Barack Obama's Speech:

To the King family, who have sacrificed and inspired so much, to President Clinton, President Carter, Vice President Biden, Jill, fellow Americans, five decades ago today, Americans came to this honored place to lay claim to a promise made at our founding.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
In 1963, almost 200 years after those words were set to paper, a full century after a great war was fought and emancipation proclaimed, that promise, those truths remained unmet. And so they came by the thousands, from every corner of our country -- men and women, young and old, blacks who longed for freedom and whites who could no longer accept freedom for themselves while witnessing the subjugation of others. Across the land, congregations sent them off with food and with prayer. In the middle of the night, entire blocks of Harlem came out to wish them well.
With the few dollars they scrimped from their labor, some bought tickets and boarded buses, even if they couldn't always sit where they wanted to sit. Those with less money hitchhiked, or walked. They were seamstresses, and steelworkers, and students, and teachers, maids and pullman porters. They shared simple meals and bunked together on floors.
And then, on a hot summer day, they assembled here, in our nation's capital, under the shadow of the great emancipator, to offer testimony of injustice, to petition their government for redress and to awaken America's long-slumbering conscience.
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We rightly and best remember Dr. King's soaring oratory that day, how he gave mighty voice to the quiet hopes of millions, how he offered a salvation path for oppressed and oppressors alike. His words belong to the ages, possessing a power and prophecy unmatched in our time.
But we would do well to recall that day itself also belonged to those ordinary people whose names never appeared in the history books, never got on TV.
Many had gone to segregated schools and sat at segregated lunch counters, had lived in towns where they couldn't vote, in cities where their votes didn't matter. There were couples in love who couldn't marry, soldiers who fought for freedom abroad that they found denied to them at home. They had seen loved ones beaten and children fire- hosed. And they had every reason to lash out in anger or resign themselves to a bitter fate.
And yet they chose a different path. In the face of hatred, they prayed for their tormentors. In the face of violence, they stood up and sat in with the moral force of nonviolence. Willingly, they went to jail to protest unjust laws, their cells swelling with the sound of freedom songs. A lifetime of indignities had taught them that no man can take away the dignity and grace that God grants us. They had learned through hard experience what Frederick Douglas once taught: that freedom is not given; it must be won through struggle and discipline, persistence and faith.
That was the spirit they brought here that day.
That was the spirit young people like John Lewis brought that day. That was the spirit that they carried with them like a torch back to their cities and their neighborhoods, that steady flame of conscience and courage that would sustain them through the campaigns to come, through boycotts and voter registration drives and smaller marches, far from the spotlight, through the loss of four little girls in Birmingham, the carnage of Edmund Pettus Bridge and the agony of Dallas, California, Memphis. Through setbacks and heartbreaks and gnawing doubt, that flame of justice flickered and never died.
And because they kept marching, America changed. Because they marched, the civil rights law was passed. Because they marched, the voting rights law was signed. Because they marched, doors of opportunity and education swung open so their daughters and sons could finally imagine a life for themselves beyond washing somebody else's laundry or shining somebody else's shoes. Because they marched, city councils changed and state legislatures changed and Congress changed and, yes, eventually the White House changed.
Because they marched, America became more free and more fair, not just for African-Americans but for women and Latinos, Asians and Native Americans, for Catholics, Jews and Muslims, for gays, for Americans with disabilities.
America changed for you and for me.
And the entire world drew strength from that example, whether it be young people who watched from the other side of an Iron Curtain and would eventually tear down that wall, or the young people inside South Africa who would eventually end the scourge of apartheid. Those are the victories they won, with iron wills and hope in their hearts. That is the transformation that they wrought with each step of their well-worn shoes. That's the depth that I and millions of Americans owe those maids, those laborers, those porters, those secretaries -- folks who could have run a company, maybe, if they had ever had a chance; those white students who put themselves in harm's way even though they didn't have to, those Japanese- Americans who recalled their own interment, those Jewish Americans who had survived the Holocaust, people who could have given up and given in but kept on keeping on, knowing that weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning on the battlefield of justice, men and women without rank or wealth or title or fame would liberate us all, in ways that our children now take for granted as people of all colors and creeds live together and learn together and walk together, and fight alongside one another and love one another, and judge one another by the content of our character in this greatest nation on Earth.
To dismiss the magnitude of this progress, to suggest, as some sometimes do, that little has changed -- that dishonors the courage and the sacrifice of those who paid the price to march in those years. Medgar Evers, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner, Martin Luther King Jr., they did not die in vain. Their victory was great.
But we would dishonor those heroes as well to suggest that the work of this nation is somehow complete. The arc of the moral universe may bend towards justice, but it doesn't bend on its own. To secure the gains this country has made requires constant vigilance, not complacency. Whether it's by challenging those who erect new barriers to the vote or ensuring that the scales of justice work equally for all in the criminal justice system and not simply a pipeline from underfunded schools to overcrowded jails. it requires vigilance.
And we'll suffer the occasional setback. But we will win these fights. This country has changed too much. People of good will, regardless of party, are too plentiful for those with ill will to change history's currents.
In some ways, though, the securing of civil rights, voting rights, the eradication of legalized discrimination -- the very significance of these victories may have obscured a second goal of the march, for the men and women who gathered 50 years ago were not there in search of some abstract idea. They were there seeking jobs as well as justice, not just the absence of oppression but the presence of economic opportunity. For what does it profit a man, Dr. King would ask, to sit at an integrated lunch counter if he can't afford the meal?
This idea that -- that one's liberty is linked to one's livelihood, that the pursuit of happiness requires the dignity of work, the skills to find work, decent pay, some measure of material security -- this idea was not new.
Lincoln himself understood the Declaration of Independence in such terms, as a promise that in due time, the weights should be lifted from the shoulders of all men and that all should have an equal chance.
Dr. King explained that the goals of African-Americans were identical to working people of all races: decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old age security, health and welfare measures -- conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community.
What King was describing has been the dream of every American. It's what's lured for centuries new arrivals to our shores. And it's along this second dimension of economic opportunity, the chance through honest toil to advance one's station in life, that the goals of 50 years ago have fallen most short.
Yes, there have been examples of success within black America that would have been unimaginable a half-century ago. But as has already been noted, black unemployment has remained almost twice as high as white employment, Latino unemployment close behind. The gap in wealth between races has not lessened, it's grown.
As President Clinton indicated, the position of all working Americans, regardless of color, has eroded, making the dream Dr. King described even more elusive.
For over a decade, working Americans of all races have seen their wages and incomes stagnate. Even as corporate profits soar, even as the pay of a fortunate few explodes, inequality has steadily risen over the decades. Upward mobility has become harder. In too many communities across this country in cities and suburbs and rural hamlets, the shadow of poverty casts a pall over our youth, their lives a fortress of substandard schools and diminished prospects, inadequate health care and perennial violence.
And so as we mark this anniversary, we must remind ourselves that the measure of progress for those who marched 50 years ago was not merely how many blacks had joined the ranks of millionaires; it was whether this country would admit all people who were willing to work hard, regardless of race, into the ranks of a middle-class life. The test was not and never has been whether the doors of opportunity are cracked a bit wider for a few. It was whether our economic system provides a fair shot for the many, for the black custodian and the white steelworker, the immigrant dishwasher and the Native American veteran. To win that battle, to answer that call -- this remains our great unfinished business.
We shouldn't fool ourselves. The task will not be easy. Since 1963 the economy's changed.
The twin forces of technology and global competition have subtracted those jobs that once provided a foothold into the middle class, reduced the bargaining power of American workers.
And our politics has suffered. Entrenched interests -- those who benefit from an unjust status quo resisted any government efforts to give working families a fair deal, marshaling an army of lobbyists and opinion makers to argue that minimum wage increases or stronger labor laws or taxes on the wealthy who could afford it just to fund crumbling schools -- that all these things violated sound economic principles.
We'd be told that growing inequality was the price for a growing economy, a measure of the free market -- that greed was good and compassion ineffective, and those without jobs or health care had only themselves to blame.
And then there were those elected officials who found it useful to practice the old politics of division, doing their best to convince middle-class Americans of a great untruth, that government was somehow itself to blame for their growing economic insecurity -- that distant bureaucrats were taking their hard-earned dollars to benefit the welfare cheat or the illegal immigrant.
And then, if we're honest with ourselves, we'll admit that during the course of 50 years, there were times when some of us, claiming to push for change, lost our way. The anguish of assassinations set off self-defeating riots.
Legitimate grievances against police brutality tipped into excuse - making for criminal behavior. Racial politics could cut both ways as the transformative message of unity and brotherhood was drowned out by the language of recrimination. And what had once been a call for equality of opportunity, the chance for all Americans to work hard and get ahead was too often framed as a mere desire for government support, as if we had no agency in our own liberation, as if poverty was an excuse for not raising your child and the bigotry of others was reason to give up on yourself. All of that history is how progress stalled. That's how hope was diverted. It's how our country remained divided.
But the good news is, just as was true in 1963, we now have a choice. We can continue down our current path in which the gears of this great democracy grind to a halt and our children accept a life of lower expectations, where politics is a zero-sum game, where a few do very well while struggling families of every race fight over a shrinking economic pie. That's one path. Or we can have the courage to change.
The March on Washington teaches us that we are not trapped by the mistakes of history, that we are masters of our fate.
But it also teaches us that the promise of this nation will only be kept when we work together. We'll have to reignite the embers of empathy and fellow feeling, the coalition of conscience that found expression in this place 50 years ago.
And I believe that spirit is there, that true force inside each of us. I see it when a white mother recognizes her own daughter in the face of a poor black child. I see it when the black youth thinks of his own grandfather in the dignified steps of an elderly white man. It's there when the native born recognizing that striving spirit of a new immigrant, when the interracial couple connects the pain of a gay couple who were discriminated against and understands it as their own. That's where courage comes from, when we turn not from each other or on each other but towards one another, and we find that we do not walk alone. That's where courage comes from.
And with that courage, we can stand together for good jobs and just wages. With that courage, we can stand together for the right to health care in the richest nation on earth for every person. With that courage, we can stand together for the right of every child, from the corners of Anacostia to the hills of Appalachia, to get an education that stirs the mind and captures the spirit and prepares them for the world that awaits them. With that courage, we can feed the hungry and house the homeless and transform bleak wastelands of poverty into fields of commerce and promise.
America, I know the road will be long, but I know we can get there. Yes, we will stumble, but I know we'll get back up. That's how a movement happens. That's how history bends. That's how, when somebody is faint of heart, somebody else brings them along and says, come on, we're marching.
There's a reason why so many who marched that day and in the days to come were young, for the young are unconstrained by habits of fear, unconstrained by the conventions of what is. They dared to dream different and to imagine something better. And I am convinced that same imagination, the same hunger of purpose serves in this generation.
We might not face the same dangers as 1963, but the fierce urgency of now remains. We may never duplicate the swelling crowds and dazzling processions of that day so long ago, no one can match King's brilliance, but the same flames that lit the heart of all who are willing to take a first step for justice, I know that flame remains.
That tireless teacher who gets to class early and stays late and dips into her own pocket to buy supplies because she believes that every child is her charge -- she's marching. That successful businessman who doesn't have to, but pays his workers a fair wage and then offers a shot to a man, maybe an ex-con, who's down on his luck -- he's marching.
The mother who pours her love into her daughter so that she grows up with the confidence to walk through the same doors as anybody's son -- she's marching. The father who realizes the most important job he'll ever have is raising his boy right, even if he didn't have a father, especially if he didn't have a father at home -- he's marching. The battle-scarred veterans who devote themselves not only to helping their fellow warriors stand again and walk again and run again, but to keep serving their country when they come home -- they are marching. Everyone who realizes what those glorious patriots knew on that day, that change does not come from Washington but to Washington, that change has always been built on our willingness, we, the people, to take on the mantle of citizenship -- you are marching.

And that's the lesson of our past, that's the promise of tomorrow, that in the face of impossible odds, people who love their country can change it. And when millions of Americans of every race and every region, every faith and every station can join together in a spirit of brotherhood, then those mountains will be made low, and those rough places will be made plain, and those crooked places, they straighten out towards grace, and we will vindicate the faith of those who sacrificed so much and live up to the true meaning of our creed as one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/08/28/jimmy-carter-march-on-washington-speech_n_3831402.html

http://www.sfgate.com/news/politics/article/Carter-remembers-King-on-50th-Dream-anniversary-4768544.php

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfPOKMAfq3Y


http://live.reuters.com/Event/50th_Anniversary_of_I_Have_A_Dream_Speech?Page=1










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