We Shall Overcome

One of my favorite quotes from this article was when the former President said, "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." As we have discussed in class, there are two types of obligations we associate with citizenship: legal and moral. President Lyndon B. Johnson here points out that the law he was proposing, a law to force polling places to allow African-Americans to vote, met both obligations. In addition, it rectified the unmistakable wrong on both counts of denying their right to vote. By denying their legal right to vote, those in charge of voter registration were committing a terrible wrong. He also points out that, and I quote, "We have already waited 100 years and more and the time for waiting is gone." These rights were supposed to be granted to the African-American population with the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. He asks why they should have to wait any longer for what is rightfully theirs.

However, he does not only focus on the African-Americans and their plight. He also makes a plea to the American people to help all those who are less fortunate in this country.

"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 wasted energy and our substance to maintain the barriers of hatred and terror?"

Clearly there was a need in this time to make the same opportunities available to all United States citizens, something that we are still working toward today. The level of success toward that endeavor is debatable, but at least we are trying, which is more than we can say for the people of 50 years ago, before this movement, who were denying others of their rights. We just need to be sure that we don't push the "equalization" movement so far that the former oppressors do not wind up being oppressed themselves.