15th March. A divided stage. Above, President Johnson addresses Congress and the nation. Below, in the modest living room of a house belonging to a Selma dentist, Sullivan Jackson, Martin Luther King and a number of his associates including John Lewis, twenty-five, chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, whose head is still bandaged from Bloody Sunday, watch the speech on television. We can’t see the screen, which faces upstage casting its bluish light: King sits in an armchair, close to the TV set. His associates react (as during King’s eulogy) frequently, especially during the regular periods of applause in the Speaker’s chambers.
Johnson 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.
John Lewis gives an indignant snort and speaks up.
Lewis He talks about Reeb, you notice he doesn’t mention Jimmie Lee.
A general murmur of agreement in the room.
SNCC Man Yeah, he only cares about the white man.
King Give him a chance, John: and all of you, hush up.
All of these exchanges as Johnson is continuing to speak.
Johnson Rarely in any time does an issue lay bare the secret heart of America itself. 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?’
A first round of applause; and now some positive reactions from those watching in Selma.
There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem.
More applause. A real change of attitude now among the viewers in Selma.
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. 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. 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 colour.
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, no hesitation or no compromise with our purpose. We cannot, we must not, refuse to protect the right of every American to vote. We have already waited a hundred years and more and the time for waiting is gone.
A prolonged standing ovation in the chamber. In Selma, the spectators shift and look at one another.
Lewis My God, he sounds as if he means it.
Johnson 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.
A shocked silence is followed by growing applause. In Selma, there’s pandemonium, cheering and whooping. Only King is motionless, palpably moved.
SNCC Man Did he just say that?
Second Viewer Can you believe it?
Lewis is looking at King.
Lewis Are you all right, Martin?
King It’s everything we asked for.
Lewis I’ve never seen you cry before.
King dabs at his eye as tears begin to spill.
Johnson 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 – 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.
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. 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.
Another standing ovation in the Speaker’s chambers. By now, King is frankly weeping, mopping at his face with a large white handkerchief.