"We Shall Overcome" -- Lyndon B. Johnson

Lyndon B. Johnson’s “We Shall Overcome” speech was made on March 15, 1965, following a group of Americans was attacked by police in Selma, Alabama—they were preparing to march to Montgomery in order to protest the topic of voting rights discrimination: something that was given to all Americans under the US Constitution. Johnson states, “…every American citizen must have an equal right to vote.” In reading this speech, I kept thinking about two common rights that we, as Americans, all possess: the right to vote and the right to protest. We have discussed both of these in the classroom, and I think that President Johnson brought forth discussion of these problems in a proper, well-mannered way—unlike a certain state official may have done, if there was something that he didn’t agree with, within his jurisdiction. I would like to go into discussion about these two fundamental values that he brought forward in his speech, with relation to the discrimination of fellow Americans.

“’There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem.” Johnson couldn’t be more right in stating that it is everyone’s problem, especially when there was an entire group of Americans that were being discriminated against. Imagine going to city hall on your 18^th birthday, excited to be an adult, only to be rejected when trying to register to vote. They told you to fill out your application, but you abbreviated your middle initial, so they said you aren’t registered; or maybe you filled it out entirely, but they decided that you have to take a test that 90% of Americans—already with voting rights—couldn’t pass. Of course you would want to protest, which as an American, you have the right to do….wait, just kidding. Not all Americans could in 1965; they weren’t stopped by law, but instead by racist police officers.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and more than 500 civil rights activists were going to march from Selma to Montgomery, protesting the right to vote for ALL Americans. Not only were the police violent in unlawfully stopping their march, but a minister from Boston was killed, while many others were seriously hurt. All of this happened because the police and local officials forced decided that they were above the law. They thought that they were higher than the Constitution of the United States, and eventually that was taken care of, in front of the entire nation. Now, we can all vote as citizens of the United States; however, we are still fighting the civil rights battle today.