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Lyndon B. Johnson
“We Shall Overcome”
March 15, 1965
Washington, DC
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 of them 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 crises. 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're 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." And those are not just clever words, and 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 promised 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
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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 Americans 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. This 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
expansion of the 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 insure 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 insure 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 have 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 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.
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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 insure that
properly registered individuals are not prohibited from voting. I will welcome the suggestions
from all 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 home
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 state's 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 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 100 years and more and the time for waiting is gone. So I ask you
to join me in working long hours and 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 100 years--since the Negro was freed. And he is not fully free tonight. It was
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more than 100 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 100 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 unkept. The time of
justice has now come, and 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 wasted 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, North and South,
sharecropper and city dweller. These are the enemies: poverty, ignorance, disease. They are 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 is 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 and 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 the far corners of the world and who 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 20 years ago. And now in these common
dangers, in 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.
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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 been called upon 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 the 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.
There have been many pressures upon your President and there will be others as the days come
and go. But I pledge to you tonight that we intend to fight this battle where it should be fought--
in the courts, and in the Congress, and 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 theatre.
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. We must all remember after this speech I'm making tonight, after the police
and the F.B.I. 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 and again today.
The bill 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.
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But I would like to caution you and remind you that to exercise these privileges takes much more
than just legal rights. 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 and 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 I 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, 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 taxpayers 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, 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. McCullock 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 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.
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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 future, 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 but believe that He truly understands and that He really favors the undertaking
that we begin here tonight.