to make good the promise

March 15, 1965
Pres. Johnson to Congress: 
"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."

on-line dictionary:  suffrage = the right to vote
(that is a weird word -- in an episode of Friends Phoebe makes note of this, saying, "Then we had suffrage -- which sounds awful, but really it's a good thing)

[excerpt]-----------------------  At a subsequent press conference, Johnson left no doubt about his intentions.  He wanted to eliminate "a deep and very unjust flaw in American democracy" by sending Congress a voting rights law that would enforce the constitutional guarantee against barring people from the polls because of race or color.  As for his meeting with Wallace, Johnson described the governor as eager for law and order.  To that end, Johnson said he had suggested three actions: 

that Wallace declare his support for universal suffrage in Alabama,

that he assure the right of peaceful assembly,

and that he call for a biracial meeting to promote greater unity among all Alabamans.

Johnson said nothing about an agreement with Wallace on how to keep the peace.  When Wallace thought it necessary, he would ask the President for help, and Johnson, according to one aide, "would help him save his political ass by accepting the subterfuge."  Consequently, after a federal court had agreed to an SCLC plan for a march to Montgomery beginning on the 21st, Wallace wired Johnson that Alabama lacked the funds to protect the marchers and asked the President to use federal means to do the job.  Johnson replied on March 20 by calling 1800 Alabama national guardsmen into federal service.

Johnson's immediate concern was to mobilize congressional action on voting rights.  He didn't think it was enough simply to send a proposal to the Hill with a special message describing the historical record of constitutional violations of black rights.  Rather, he felt compelled to go before Congress, where he could command the attention of the nation and the world and emphasize the importance and urgency of remedying this

national insult to law and democracy. 

"I wanted to use every ounce of moral persuasion the presidency held," Johnson wrote later.  "I wanted no hedging, no equivocation.  And I wanted to talk from my own heart, from my own experience."

...It was Johnson's greatest speech and one of the most moving and memorable presidential addresses in the country's history.  Comparing Selma to Lexington and Concord, to Appomattox, Johnson described it as "a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. . . . Rarely in any time does an issue lay bare the secret heart of America itself. . . . Rarely are we met with a challenge . . . 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."

The issue, Johnson said, was democracy, the right of the individual, regardless of race or color, to vote.  "There is no constitutional issue here," Johnson asserted. 

"The command of the Constitution is plain. 

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."

And, Johnson declared, measuring every word, "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 is all of us, who must
overcome
the crippling legacy
of bigotry and injustice.  And,"

Johnson paused, raising his arms for emphasis,

"We shall overcome."

A moment of stunned silence followed, as the audience absorbed the fact that the President had embraced the anthem of black protest.  And then almost the entire chamber rose in unison, "applauding, shouting, some stamping their feet."  Tears rolled down the cheeks of senators, congressmen, and observers in the gallery, moved by joy, elation, a sense that the victor, for a change, was human decency, the highest standards by which the nation was supposed to live.

..."A century has passed, more than a hundred years, since the Negro was freed.  And he is not fully free tonight. . . . A century has passed, more than a hundred years, since equality was promised.  And yet the Negro is not equal. . . . The real hero of this struggle is the American Negro," the President added.  "His actions and protests, his courage to risk safety and even to risk his life, have awakened the conscience of this Nation. . . . He has called upon us to make good the promise of America.  And who among us can say that we would have made the same progress were it not for his persistent bravery, and his faith in American democracy?"

Martin Luther King, watching on television in Birmingham, cried.

------------------------- [end excerpt]

{Flawed Giant.  Lyndon Johnson and His Times.  1961 - 1973.
Robert Dallek.
Copyright, 1998.  Oxford University Press,
New York, Oxford.}

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