On Wednesday, President Barack Obama stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his speech “Let Freedom Ring” exactly 50 years ago on August 28, 1963.
About 100,000 people stood in drizzling rain as the president spoke of unmet promises that led 250,000 people to the same place 50 years ago, in a program that also included former Presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton and members of the King family.
Americans were promised that all men are created equal and with unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Yet in 1963, almost 200 years after those words were set to paper, he said, “those truths remained unmet.”
“So they came by the thousands from every corner of our country, men and women, young and old, blacks who longed for freedom and whites who could no longer accept freedom for themselves while witnessing the subjugation of others,” Obama said.
With their meager earnings, some bought tickets and boarded buses, he said, while others with less money hitchhiked or walked.
“Then, on a hot summer day, they assembled here, in our nation’s capital, under the shadow of the Great Emancipator – to offer testimony of injustice, to petition their government for redress, and to awaken America’s long-slumbering conscience,” Obama said.
Because they marched, civil rights and voting rights laws were passed, and doors of opportunity for education were swung open.
“Congress changed, and eventually the White House changed,” he said, receiving applause and cries from the audience.
“On the battlefield of justice, men and women without rank or wealth or title or fame would liberate us all in ways that our children now take for granted,” he said. “To dismiss the magnitude of this progress – to suggest, as some sometimes do, that little has changed – that dishonors the courage and the sacrifice of those who paid the price to march in those years.”
Obama said that King’s vision for African Americans was the same goal for all people – for their families to be able to earn decent wages, under fair-working conditions, have access to quality health care and education, so they can grow in their communities.
“The goals have fallen short,” he said. “There have been examples of success within black America that would have been unimaginable a half century ago. But, black unemployment has remained almost twice as high as white unemployment, Latino unemployment close behind.”
The gap in wealth between races has grown, he said. The position of all working Americans has eroded, he said, “making the dream Dr. King described even more elusive.”
America’s great unfinished business is to build an economic system that doesn’t just support a few, as it does now, but provides for the many, he said.
“We shouldn’t fool ourselves, the task will not be easy,” he said.
Currently, the nation’s politics suffer, and many are entrenched in their own personal interests rather than the interests of all people, he said. They claim the growing economic inequality is the price we pay for a growing economy, he said. They say greed is good, and “those without jobs or health care had only themselves to blame,” he said.
All the while, many families are stuck in “fortresses” of substandard education and inadequate health care.
“As we mark this anniversary, we must remind ourselves that the measure of progress for those who marched 50 years ago was not merely how many blacks could join the ranks of millionaires,” he said. “It was whether this country would admit all people who are willing to work hard regardless of race into the ranks of a middle-class life.”
He also reminded the audience that during the course of 50 years, there were times when some lost their way, inciting “self-defeating riots” and allowing legitimate grievances against police brutality to excuse criminal behavior.
However, Americans can “keep marching” in their everyday lives. For example, teachers who go the extra mile and parents who raise their children right are marching, he said.
“In the face of impossible odds,” Obama said, “people who love their country can change it.”
