wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing apromissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men, yes, black men as well as white men, would be guaranteed the ‘Unalienable Rights of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.’ It is obvious today that America has defaulted on this promissory note…. Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked ‘insufficient funds.’ But we refuse to believe that the bank of justice is bankrupt…. And so we’ve come to cash this check, a check that will give us upon demand the riches of freedom and the security of justice.”
Then came those soaring, anguished cadences of King’s peroration: “I have a dream….” Again and again, he cried out: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed…. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Afterward, the march leaders met with President Kennedy and Vice President Johnson. John Lewis remembers Kennedy standing at the door of the Oval Office. “He was just beaming. He was so pleased everything turned out so well—there was no violence,” Lewis recalled. “He shook hands with each of us and said, ‘You did a good job…. You did a good job.’ And then to Dr. King, ‘You had a dream.’ There was so much optimism, so much hope. He just said, ‘We will work to get a civil rights bill passed.’ … That was the last time I saw President Kennedy alive.”
It fell to Lyndon Johnson, a Texan, to make good on Kennedy’s promise, and the interplay between the new president and Martin Luther King, Jr., was a central part of that drama. After Kennedy’s assassination, King praised the new president but prodded him, too, voicing confidence that “President Johnson will follow the path charted by President Kennedy in civil rights.”
When Johnson phoned to thank him, King suggested that a new civil rights law would be “one of the great tributes” to Kennedy’s memory. Johnson chose almost those exact words addressing Congress a few days later, and he persisted until Congress in June 1964 enacted a civil rights law banning segregation in public accommodations. At the bill signing, Johnson gave King one of the pens that he had used.
Then later, in December 1964, King pressed Johnson once again. As King was returning home from receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Stockholm, Johnson invited him to the White House. America, said King, needs a strong voting rights law. Johnson agreed but said he lacked the votes in Congress. But a month later, on January 18, 1965, Johnson phoned King and urged the civil rights leader to put public pressure on Congress—and on himself as president—to passa voting rights bill. Without saying so explicitly,Johnson was challenging King to “make me do it!” King understood and responded with a new voting rights campaign, including thebloody march at Selma, Alabama, where the brutal clubbing of John Lewis and others provoked national outrage. Once again, the interaction of people power and presidential leadership achieved concrete results. It produced the Voting Rights Act of 1965—a change in law, in policy, and in expanding American democracy.
Largest One-Day Protest Ever: Earth Day 1970—Twenty Million Strong
Probably the broadest engagement of middle-class political power in modern American politics was the environmental movement. On Earth Day in 1970, in the largest one-day grassroots demonstration this country has ever seen,twenty million Americans staged street marches and held rallies and teach-ins to demonstrate their outrage at pollution. They took to the streets because they were disgusted by such incidents as the Santa Barbara
Then came those soaring, anguished cadences of King’s peroration: “I have a dream….” Again and again, he cried out: “I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed…. I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.”
Afterward, the march leaders met with President Kennedy and Vice President Johnson. John Lewis remembers Kennedy standing at the door of the Oval Office. “He was just beaming. He was so pleased everything turned out so well—there was no violence,” Lewis recalled. “He shook hands with each of us and said, ‘You did a good job…. You did a good job.’ And then to Dr. King, ‘You had a dream.’ There was so much optimism, so much hope. He just said, ‘We will work to get a civil rights bill passed.’ … That was the last time I saw President Kennedy alive.”
It fell to Lyndon Johnson, a Texan, to make good on Kennedy’s promise, and the interplay between the new president and Martin Luther King, Jr., was a central part of that drama. After Kennedy’s assassination, King praised the new president but prodded him, too, voicing confidence that “President Johnson will follow the path charted by President Kennedy in civil rights.”
When Johnson phoned to thank him, King suggested that a new civil rights law would be “one of the great tributes” to Kennedy’s memory. Johnson chose almost those exact words addressing Congress a few days later, and he persisted until Congress in June 1964 enacted a civil rights law banning segregation in public accommodations. At the bill signing, Johnson gave King one of the pens that he had used.
Then later, in December 1964, King pressed Johnson once again. As King was returning home from receiving the Nobel Peace Prize in Stockholm, Johnson invited him to the White House. America, said King, needs a strong voting rights law. Johnson agreed but said he lacked the votes in Congress. But a month later, on January 18, 1965, Johnson phoned King and urged the civil rights leader to put public pressure on Congress—and on himself as president—to passa voting rights bill. Without saying so explicitly,Johnson was challenging King to “make me do it!” King understood and responded with a new voting rights campaign, including thebloody march at Selma, Alabama, where the brutal clubbing of John Lewis and others provoked national outrage. Once again, the interaction of people power and presidential leadership achieved concrete results. It produced the Voting Rights Act of 1965—a change in law, in policy, and in expanding American democracy.
Largest One-Day Protest Ever: Earth Day 1970—Twenty Million Strong
Probably the broadest engagement of middle-class political power in modern American politics was the environmental movement. On Earth Day in 1970, in the largest one-day grassroots demonstration this country has ever seen,twenty million Americans staged street marches and held rallies and teach-ins to demonstrate their outrage at pollution. They took to the streets because they were disgusted by such incidents as the Santa Barbara
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