Today, on the 50th anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington, we will hear countless clips from the "I Have a Dream" speech given by Martin Luther King, Jr. What you won't hear much of is the speech given by a 23-year old John Lewis.
Now before we go any further it's important to realize that each of the speakers had to hand in copies of their speeches to the organizers of the march - lest someone get a bit too militant for Uncle Sam's tastes. It is also worth noting that the mainstream media is all over the 50th anniversary of the march and the question repeated over and over again is whether Rev. King's dream has been realized.
The coverage shows the fascination we have in memorializing events after a certain number of years have passed. Instead of focusing on the woeful job our government has done in ensuring freedom and equality, we'll have an orgy of praise for the anniversary of a speech. Instead of focusing on the shameful minimum wage and the absurdity of a full-time worker living below the poverty line, we'll talk about a dream. Instead of focusing on the ways our criminal (in)justice system has criminalized being young and black, or instead of focusing on the disparity of sentencing in drug cases, we'll hold hands and slap ourselves on the back for how far we've come in the last 50 years.
Now before we go any further it's important to realize that each of the speakers had to hand in copies of their speeches to the organizers of the march - lest someone get a bit too militant for Uncle Sam's tastes. It is also worth noting that the mainstream media is all over the 50th anniversary of the march and the question repeated over and over again is whether Rev. King's dream has been realized.
The coverage shows the fascination we have in memorializing events after a certain number of years have passed. Instead of focusing on the woeful job our government has done in ensuring freedom and equality, we'll have an orgy of praise for the anniversary of a speech. Instead of focusing on the shameful minimum wage and the absurdity of a full-time worker living below the poverty line, we'll talk about a dream. Instead of focusing on the ways our criminal (in)justice system has criminalized being young and black, or instead of focusing on the disparity of sentencing in drug cases, we'll hold hands and slap ourselves on the back for how far we've come in the last 50 years.
Mr. Lewis was the leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). He was beaten and almost killed during the Freedom Rides. He is now a 13-term Congressman and a member of Georgia's congressional delegation. He is also the sole surviving speaker from that day.
While Rev. King's speech has a deep resonance with those who champion freedom and equality, Mr. Lewis' speech talks about the nuts and bolts of oppression. His speech is a cry to organize to fight. His speech is a condemnation of the two major parties who worked together to preserve Jim Crow. It is a call for economic justice.
We march today for jobs and freedom, but we have nothing to be proud of. For hundreds and thousands of our brothers are not here. For they are receiving starvation wages, or no wages at all. While we stand here, there are sharecroppers in the Delta of Mississippi who are out in the fields working for less than three dollars a day, twelve hours a day. While we stand here there are students in jail on trumped-up charges. Our brother James Farmer, along with many others, is also in jail. We come here today with a great sense of misgiving.
It is true that we support the administration’s civil rights bill. We support it with great reservations, however. Unless Title III is put in this bill, there is nothing to protect the young children and old women who must face police dogs and fire hoses in the South while they engage in peaceful demonstrations. In its present form, this bill will not protect the citizens of Danville, Virginia, who must live in constant fear of a police state. It will not protect the hundreds and thousands of people that have been arrested on trumped charges. What about the three young men, SNCC field secretaries in Americus, Georgia, who face the death penalty for engaging in peaceful protest?
As it stands now, the voting section of this bill will not help the thousands of black people who want to vote. It will not help the citizens of Mississippi, of Alabama and Georgia, who are qualified to vote, but lack a sixth-grade education. “One man, one vote” is the African cry. It is ours too. It must be ours!
We must have legislation that will protect the Mississippi sharecropper who is put off of his farm because he dares to register to vote. We need a bill that will provide for the homeless and starving people of this nation. We need a bill that will ensure the equality of a maid who earns five dollars a week in a home of a family whose total income is $100,000 a year. We must have a good FEPC bill.
My friends, let us not forget that we are involved in a serious social revolution. By and large, American politics is dominated by politicians who build their careers on immoral compromises and ally themselves with open forms of political, economic, and social exploitation. There are exceptions, of course. We salute those. But what political leader can stand up and say, “My party is the party of principles”? For the party of Kennedy is also the party of Eastland. The party of Javits is also the party of Goldwater. Where is our party? Where is the political party that will make it unnecessary to march on Washington?
Where is the political party that will make it unnecessary to march in the streets of Birmingham? Where is the political party that will protect the citizens of Albany, Georgia? Do you know that in Albany, Georgia, nine of our leaders have been indicted, not by the Dixiecrats, but by the federal government for peaceful protest? But what did the federal government do when Albany’s deputy sheriff beat Attorney C.B. King and left him half-dead? What did the federal government do when local police officials kicked and assaulted the pregnant wife of Slater King, and she lost her baby?
To those who have said, “Be patient and wait,” we have long said that we cannot be patient. We do not want our freedom gradually, but we want to be free now! We are tired. We are tired of being beaten by policemen. We are tired of seeing our people locked up in jail over and over again. And then you holler, “Be patient.” How long can we be patient? We want our freedom and we want it now. We do not want to go to jail. But we will go to jail if this is the price we must pay for love, brotherhood, and true peace.
I appeal to all of you to get into this great revolution that is sweeping this nation. Get in and stay in the streets of every city, every village and hamlet of this nation until true freedom comes, until the revolution of 1776 is complete. We must get in this revolution and complete the revolution. For in the Delta in Mississippi, in southwest Georgia, in the Black Belt of Alabama, in Harlem, in Chicago, Detroit, Philadelphia, and all over this nation, the black masses are on the march for jobs and freedom.
They’re talking about slow down and stop. We will not stop. All of the forces of Eastland, Barnett, Wallace, and Thurmond will not stop this revolution. If we do not get meaningful legislation out of this Congress, the time will come when we will not confine our marching to Washington. We will march through the South; through the streets of Jackson, through the streets of Danville, through the streets of Cambridge, through the streets of Birmingham. But we will march with the spirit of love and with the spirit of dignity that we have shown here today. By the force of our demands, our determination, and our numbers, we shall splinter the segregated South into a thousand pieces and put them together in the image of God and democracy. We must say: “Wake up America! Wake up!” For we cannot stop, and we will not and cannot be patient.
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