乐

经典生活美好享受

找乐	健身	电影	听歌	聊天	讲演
泡吧	旅游	DV	电游	恋爱	台球

乐（FUN）-找乐

您的位置：首页-乐-讲演-本页

12.Lyndon Baines Johnson: "We Shall Overcome"

Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Members of the Congress:

I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy.?I
urge every member of both parties, Americans of all religions and of all
colors, from every section of this country, to join me in that cause.
At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape
a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. So it was at
Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was
last week in Selma, Alabama. There, long-suffering men and women
peacefully protested the denial of their rights as Americans. Many were
brutally assaulted. One good man, a man of God, was killed.
There is no cause for pride in what has happened in Selma. There is no
cause for self-satisfaction in the long denial of equal rights of millions
of Americans. But there is cause for hope and for faith in our democracy
in what is happening here tonight. For the cries of pain and the hymns and
protests of oppressed people have summoned into convocation all the
majesty of this great government -- the government of the greatest nation
on earth. Our mission is at once the oldest and the most basic of this
country: to right wrong, to do justice, to serve man.
In our time we have come to live with the moments of great crisis. Our
lives have been marked with debate about great issues -- issues of war and
peace, issues of prosperity and depression. But rarely in any time does an
issue lay bare the secret heart of America itself. Rarely are we met with
a challenge, not to our growth or abundance, or our welfare or our
security, but rather 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, and 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. For with a country as with a person,
"What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his
own soul?"
There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no
Northern problem. There is only an American problem. And we are met here
tonight as Americans -- not as Democrats or Republicans. We are met here
as Americans to solve that problem.
This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a
purpose. The great phrases of that purpose still sound in every American
heart, North and South: "All men are created equal," "government by
consent of the governed," "give me liberty or give me death." Well, those
are not just clever words, or those are not just empty theories. In their
name Americans have fought and died for two centuries, and tonight around
the world they stand there as guardians of our liberty, risking their
lives.
Those words are a promise to every citizen that he shall share in the
dignity of man. This dignity cannot be found in a man's possessions; it
cannot be found in his power, or in his position. It really rests on his
right to be treated as a man equal in opportunity to all others. It says
that he shall share in freedom, he shall choose his leaders, educate his
children, provide for his family according to his ability and his merits
as a human being. To apply any other test -- to deny a man his hopes
because of his color, or race, or his religion, or the place of his birth
is not only to do injustice, it is to deny America and to dishonor the
dead who gave their lives for American freedom.
Our fathers believed that if this noble view of the rights of man was to
flourish, it must be rooted in democracy. The most basic right of all was
the right to choose your own leaders. The history of this country, in
large measure, is the history of the expansion of that right to all of our
people. Many of the issues of civil rights are very complex and most
difficult. But about this there can and should be no argument.
Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote.
There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no
duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have to ensure that
right.
Yet the harsh fact is that in many places in this country men and women
are kept from voting simply because they are Negroes. Every device of
which human ingenuity is capable has been used to deny this right. The
Negro citizen may go to register only to be told that the day is wrong, or
the hour is late, or the official in charge is absent. And if he persists,
and if he manages to present himself to the registrar, he may be
disqualified because he did not spell out his middle name or because he
abbreviated a word on the application. And if he manages to fill out an
application, he is given a test. The registrar is the sole judge of
whether he passes this test. He may be asked to recite the entire
Constitution, or explain the most complex provisions of State law. And
even a college degree cannot be used to prove that he can read and write.
For the fact is that the only way to pass these barriers is to show a
white skin. Experience has clearly shown that the existing process of law
cannot overcome systematic and ingenious discrimination. No law that we
now have on the books -- and I have helped to put three of them there --
can ensure the right to vote when local officials are determined to deny
it. In such a case our duty must be clear to all of us. The Constitution
says that no person shall be kept from voting because of his race or his
color. We have all sworn an oath before God to support and to defend that
Constitution. We must now act in obedience to that oath.
Wednesday, I will send to Congress a law designed to eliminate illegal
barriers to the right to vote.
The broad principles of that bill will be in the hands of the Democratic
and Republican leaders tomorrow. After they have reviewed it, it will come
here formally as a bill. I am grateful for this opportunity to come here
tonight at the invitation of the leadership to reason with my friends, to
give them my views, and to visit with my former colleagues.? I've had
prepared a more comprehensive analysis of the legislation which I had
intended to transmit to the clerk tomorrow, but which I will submit to the
clerks tonight. But I want to really discuss with you now, briefly, the
main proposals of this legislation.
This bill will strike down restrictions to voting in all elections --
Federal, State, and local -- which have been used to deny Negroes the
right to vote.? This bill will establish a simple, uniform standard which
cannot be used, however ingenious the effort, to flout our Constitution.
It will provide for citizens to be registered by officials of the United
States Government, if the State officials refuse to register them. It will
eliminate tedious, unnecessary lawsuits which delay the right to vote.
Finally, this legislation will ensure that properly registered individuals
are not prohibited from voting.
I will welcome the suggestions from all of the Members of Congress -- I
have no doubt that I will get some -- on ways and means to strengthen this
law and to make it effective. But experience has plainly shown that this
is the only path to carry out the command of the Constitution.
To those who seek to avoid action by their National Government in their
own communities, who want to and who seek to maintain purely local control
over elections, the answer is simple: open your polling places to all your
people.
Allow men and women to register and vote whatever the color of their skin.
Extend the rights of citizenship to every citizen of this land.
There is no constitutional issue here. 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. I have not the slightest doubt what will be your answer.
But the last time a President sent a civil rights bill to the Congress, it
contained a provision to protect voting rights in Federal elections. That
civil rights bill was passed after eight long months of debate. And when
that bill came to my desk from the Congress for my signature, the heart of
the voting provision had been eliminated. This time, on this issue, there
must be no delay, or no hesitation, or no compromise with our purpose.
We cannot, we must not, refuse to protect the right of every American to
vote in every election that he may desire to participate in. And we ought
not, and we cannot, and we must not wait another eight months before we
get a bill. We have already waited a hundred years and more, and the time
for waiting is gone.
So I ask you to join me in working long hours -- nights and weekends, if
necessary -- to pass this bill. And I don't make that request lightly. For
from the window where I sit with the problems of our country, I recognize
that from outside this chamber is the outraged conscience of a nation, the
grave concern of many nations, and the harsh judgment of history on our
acts.
But even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over. 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's not just Negroes, but really it's all of us, who
must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.
And we shall overcome.
As a man whose roots go deeply into Southern soil, I know how agonizing
racial feelings are. I know how difficult it is to reshape the attitudes
and the structure of our society. But a century has passed, more than a
hundred years since the Negro was freed. And he is not fully free tonight.

It was more than a hundred years ago that Abraham Lincoln, a great
President of another party, signed the Emancipation Proclamation; but
emancipation is a proclamation, and not a fact. A century has passed, more
than a hundred years, since equality was promised. And yet the Negro is
not equal. A century has passed since the day of promise. And the promise
is un-kept.
The time of justice has now come. I tell you that I believe sincerely that
no force can hold it back. It is right in the eyes of man and God that it
should come. And when it does, I think that day will brighten the lives of
every American. For Negroes are not the only victims. How many white
children have gone uneducated? How many white families have lived in stark
poverty? How many white lives have been scarred by fear, because we've
wasted our energy and our substance to maintain the barriers of hatred and
terror?
And? so I say to all of you here, and to all in the nation tonight, that
those who appeal to you to hold on to the past do so at the cost of
denying you your future.
This great, rich, restless country can offer opportunity and education and
hope to all, all black and white, all North and South, sharecropper and
city dweller. These are the enemies: poverty, ignorance, disease. They're
our enemies, not our fellow man, not our neighbor. And these enemies too
-- poverty, disease, and ignorance: we shall overcome.
Now let none of us in any section look with prideful righteousness on the
troubles in another section, or the problems of our neighbors. There's
really no part of America where the promise of equality has been fully
kept. In Buffalo as well as in Birmingham, in Philadelphia as well as
Selma, Americans are struggling for the fruits of freedom. This is one
nation. What happens in Selma or in Cincinnati is a matter of legitimate
concern to every American. But let each of us look within our own hearts
and our own communities, and let each of us put our shoulder to the wheel
to root out injustice wherever it exists.
As we meet here in this peaceful, historic chamber tonight, men from the
South, some of whom were at Iwo Jima, men from the North who have carried
Old Glory to far corners of the world and brought it back without a stain
on it, men from the East and from the West, are all fighting together
without regard to religion, or color, or region, in Vietnam. Men from
every region fought for us across the world twenty years ago.
And now in these common dangers and these common sacrifices, the South
made its contribution of honor and gallantry no less than any other region
in the Great Republic -- and in some instances, a great many of them,
more.
And I have not the slightest doubt that good men from everywhere in this
country, from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Golden Gate
to the harbors along the Atlantic, will rally now together in this cause
to vindicate the freedom of all Americans.
For all of us owe this duty; and I believe that all of us will respond to
it. Your President makes that request of every American.
The real hero of this struggle is the American Negro. His actions and
protests, his courage to risk safety and even to risk his life, have
awakened the conscience of this nation. His demonstrations have been
designed to call attention to injustice, designed to provoke change,
designed to stir reform. 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.
For at the real heart of battle for equality is a deep seated belief in
the democratic process. Equality depends not on the force of arms or tear
gas but depends upon the force of moral right; not on recourse to violence
but on respect for law and order.
And there have been many pressures upon your President and there will be
others as the days come and go. But I pledge you tonight that we intend to
fight this battle where it should be fought -- in the courts, and in the
Congress, and in the hearts of men.
We must preserve the right of free speech and the right of free assembly.
But the right of free speech does not carry with it, as has been said, the
right to holler fire in a crowded theater. We must preserve the right to
free assembly. But free assembly does not carry with it the right to block
public thoroughfares to traffic.
We do have a right to protest, and a right to march under conditions that
do not infringe the constitutional rights of our neighbors. And I intend
to protect all those rights as long as I am permitted to serve in this
office.
We will guard against violence, knowing it strikes from our hands the very
weapons which we seek: progress, obedience to law, and belief in American
values.
In Selma, as elsewhere, we seek and pray for peace. We seek order. We seek
unity. But we will not accept the peace of stifled rights, or the order
imposed by fear, or the unity that stifles protest. For peace cannot be
purchased at the cost of liberty.
In Selma tonight -- and we had a good day there -- as in every city, we
are working for a just and peaceful settlement And we must all remember
that after this speech I am making tonight, after the police and the FBI
and the Marshals have all gone, and after you have promptly passed this
bill, the people of Selma and the other cities of the Nation must still
live and work together. And when the attention of the nation has gone
elsewhere, they must try to heal the wounds and to build a new community.
This cannot be easily done on a battleground of violence, as the history
of the South itself shows. It is in recognition of this that men of both
races have shown such an outstandingly impressive responsibility in recent
days -- last Tuesday, again today.
The bill that I am presenting to you will be known as a civil rights bill.
But, in a larger sense, most of the program I am recommending is a civil
rights program. Its object is to open the city of hope to all people of
all races.
Because all Americans just must have the right to vote. And we are going
to give them that right. All Americans must have the privileges of
citizenship -- regardless of race. And they are going to have those
privileges of citizenship -- regardless of race.
But I would like to caution you and remind you that to exercise these
privileges takes much more than just legal right. It requires a trained
mind and a healthy body. It requires a decent home, and the chance to find
a job, and the opportunity to escape from the clutches of poverty.
Of course, people cannot contribute to the nation if they are never taught
to read or write, if their bodies are stunted from hunger, if their
sickness goes untended, if their life is spent in hopeless poverty just
drawing a welfare check. So we want to open the gates to opportunity. But
we're also going to give all our people, black and white, the help that
they need to walk through those gates.
My first job after college was as a teacher in Cotulla, Texas, in a small
Mexican-American school. Few of them could speak English, and I couldn't
speak much Spanish. My students were poor and they often came to class
without breakfast, hungry. And they knew, even in their youth, the pain of
prejudice. They never seemed to know why people disliked them. But they
knew it was so, because I saw it in their eyes. I often walked home late
in the afternoon, after the classes were finished, wishing there was more
that I could do. But all I knew was to teach them the little that I knew,
hoping that it might help them against the hardships that lay ahead.
And somehow you never forget what poverty and hatred can do when you see
its scars on the hopeful face of a young child. I never thought then, in
1928, that I would be standing here in 1965. It never even occurred to me
in my fondest dreams that I might have the chance to help the sons and
daughters of those students and to help people like them all over this
country.
But now I do have that chance -- and I'll let you in on a secret -- I mean
to use it.
And I hope that you will use it with me.
This is the richest and the most powerful country which ever occupied this
globe. The might of past empires is little compared to ours. But I do not
want to be the President who built empires, or sought grandeur, or
extended dominion.
I want to be the President who educated young children to the wonders of
their world.
I want to be the President who helped to feed the hungry and to prepare
them to be tax-payers instead of tax-eaters.
I want to be the President who helped the poor to find their own way and
who protected the right of every citizen to vote in every election.
I want to be the President who helped to end hatred among his fellow men,
and who promoted love among the people of all races and all regions and
all parties.
I want to be the President who helped to end war among the brothers of
this earth.
And so, at the request of your beloved Speaker, and the Senator from
Montana, the majority leader, the Senator from Illinois, the minority
leader, Mr. McCulloch, and other Members of both parties, I came here
tonight -- not as President Roosevelt came down one time, in person, to
veto a bonus bill, not as President Truman came down one time to urge the
passage of a railroad bill -- but I came down here to ask you to share
this task with me, and to share it with the people that we both work for.
I want this to be the Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, which did
all these things for all these people.
Beyond this great chamber, out yonder in fifty States, are the people that
we serve. Who can tell what deep and unspoken hopes are in their hearts
tonight as they sit there and listen. We all can guess, from our own
lives, how difficult they often find their own pursuit of happiness, how
many problems each little family has. They look most of all to themselves
for their futures. But I think that they also look to each of us.
Above the pyramid on the great seal of the United States it says in Latin:
"God has favored our undertaking." God will not favor everything that we
do. It is rather our duty to divine His will.
But I cannot help believing that He truly understands and that He really
favors the undertaking that we begin here tonight.

　