Yesterday President Barack Obama spoke to the assembly commemorating the 5oth anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. In my view, it was Obama oratory at it’s finest, but you be the judge of that. I have an article, the complete video, and a link to the transcript for you.
For three days, the veterans of a long-ago movement reunited and drew together their spiritual heirs to explore the legacy of the Civil Rights Act a half-century after it transformed America. And then the legacy walked onstage.
President Obama presented himself on Thursday as the living, walking, talking and governing embodiment of the landmark 1964 law that banned discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion or national origin.
In a speech that stirred an audience of civil rights champions here at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum, Mr. Obama acknowledged that racism has hardly been erased and that government programs have not always succeeded. But, he added, “I reject such cynicism because I have lived out the promise of L.B.J.’s efforts, because Michelle has lived out the legacy of those efforts, because my daughters have lived out the legacy of those efforts.”
Thanks to the law and the movement that spawned it and the progress made after it, Mr. Obama said, “new doors of opportunity and education swung open for everybody,” regardless of race, ethnicity, disability or sexual orientation. “They swung open for you, and they swung open for me,” he said. “And that’s why I’m standing here today, because of those efforts, because of that legacy.”…
Inserted from <NY Times>
Here is the video.
For a transcript, go to the Washington Post.
Most of us think of LBJ in terms of the Vietnam War. Obama did an excellent job of fleshing out the man to present his good side.
Obama is right that history moves in all directions, and Republicans are doing their utmost to return us to the paradigm of lynching and Jim Crow. Obama is spot on to reject Republican cynicism and racism.
Obama is right that our rights and freedoms must be won over and over again. Republicans will not stop trying to take them away.
8 Responses to “Obama on the Civil Rights Act”
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Definitely one of Pres. Obama's best speeches! Too often, LBJ is only remembered for VietNam and all his wonderful accomplishments are pushed aside and merely forgotten. Without him we wouldn't have the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights act which TeaPublicans are trying their best to decimate. We wouldn't have Medicare and Medicaid. Our President has reminded everyone of these accomplishments and even more, the struggles to achieve them.
Racism and discrimination are still alive and well in USA…
Obama's speech is like a breath of fresh air after the years of bush, cheney,
rumsfeld, ashcroft (gonzales) and rice.
President Barack Obama's speech was awesome as was Lyndon B. Johnson's
signage and passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964.
" … to recall one giant man's remarkable efforts to make real the promise of our founding. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. … in this great democracy, you are but a relay swimmer in the currents of history, bound by decisions made by those who came before, reliant on the efforts of those who will follow to fully vindicate your vision. … Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation, but not a fact. …"
I didn't have time to listen to the whole speech, but I read it. After reading it, it came to me that democracy is not a destination, civil rights is not a destination, but they are part of a moral journey in life, and that journey never ends because there are always those who are ready to say "good enough" and stop. To me, that is the legacy of the relay swimmer.
I've come back, after the opera. It's amazing how an opera written in 1896 about 1792 sounds so much like today's news: "'An enemy of the people.' Ha! It's trite, but fortunately, people still get suckered in." Then, when the guy gets sorry, and admits the whole indictment was a lie, the victim is convicted and executed anyway. This not in Texas or Mississippi (sounds like it, doesn't it?), but set in the French Revolution (well, OK, it sounds like that too).
I have now watched the speech and I have stopped crying. What I think makes my heart bleed the most is, was LBJ the last Democrat who understood that horse trading was not just about giving horses, and part of horses away? I have been watching everything that we worked for (and are still working for) erode since the first day of the Nixon administration, little bits at a time, sometimes hidden away in insufficient cost of living increases to maintain funding, sometimes obvious and gruesome, as recently when the Voting Rights Act was gutted. We need to go forward, but we can't go forward when we are so far behind that we may never catch up!
Now that I have ruined everyone's mood (I hope not actually), I did get a giggle from his throwaway line right at the beginning: "Some things do not change." I'm not quite sure whether that interprets as "Women still know best," or "Wives are still the only ones who speak the truth to power(ful husbands)," or both, but I'll happily go with either or both.
I actually watched the address, and you are right, it was outstanding and he is a wonderful orator. I was so angry at LBJ over the war in Viet Nam that I ignored his momentous decisions regarding the civil rights act. Our country has improved because of that act, but we still have a long way to go. I agree with Joanne D, our rights have been eroded since Nixon took office, and they continue to erode today.
What else can I say? Amen to all comments!
I am so proud to have played a part in electing President Obama and a second term… 😆