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.)
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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