Fifty Years Later The Struggle Continues

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. 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.” 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.

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?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?

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.”

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.

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.

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.

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.

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. 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. 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.

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.

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. 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.

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. 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. President Reagan signed its renew­al when he was in office. President George W. Bush signed its renew­al when he was in office. 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.

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? 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? 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.

We’re the slaves who built the White House and the econ­o­my of the South. 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.

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.

https://​www​.youtube​.com/​w​a​t​c​h​?​v​=​N​V​A​Z​p​1​j​0​tKc

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. 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.” 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.”

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.