Why Obama Will Not Have a 'We Shall Overcome' Moment on Gays

Yesterday, LGBT activist David Mixner wrote about the letdown that was President Obama's East Room event to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the Stonewall riots. A "carefully worded warm, fuzzy speech that failed to answer many questions," Mixner called it, writing that he wanted something more. Jonathan Martin said it seemed like Mixner is hoping for a moment like the one Lyndon Johnson created in March of 1965, when he declared "We Shall Overcome" to a special joint session of Congress.

Sadly, that will not happen.

For two reasons. First, the "We Shall Overcome" moment was one of remarkable circumstance. "Bloody Sunday" had occurred in Selma just a week prior, when gas-masked Alabama state troopers set upon voting rights marchers at the Edmund Pettus Bridge. What followed was a hellish kaleidoscope of nightsticks and shrieks... blood and teargas... horses and sirens... all captured on film to interrupt your regularly scheduled programming for fifteen minutes that night. Two days later, a group of white Unitarian ministers in town for the demonstrations were attacked on the street. The first one they clubbed, Rev. James Reeb, suffered a while before dying from his collapsed skull. The White House was besieged with pickets. Protests and vigils were popping up around the country. People demanded action.

Thus Johnson hastily called up a joint session of Congress, which he would address. He told his speechwriter, Dick Goodwin (who strolled in that morning at his "customary gentleman's hour of 9:30") what he wanted to say. He asked that it mention the dirt-poor Mex-American kids he taught as a young man in a little town halfway between San Antonio and Laredo. He wanted to say how he could see -- feel -- "the pain of prejudice" in their eyes.... Johnson knew what he was getting himself into.

Which leads to the second reason: President Johnson believed in voting rights for people of color much more than President Obama believes in civil rights for the LGBT community. Mixner notes how the words 'marriage' and 'civil unions' went unspoken in the President's remarks on Monday. He opposes marriage equality, has backstopped for DOMA and continues the ban on gays in the military via inaction.

And while the Obama administration blames their dallying on the press or the political situation, they should be reminded that that didn't stop Johnson. Repeatedly in early 1965, the press said that a voting rights bill simply wasn't in the cards for this session of the 89th Congress. Too much else was going on, and besides, they just passed some civil rights legislation in '64. What's your rush?... But Johnson was resolute. In February, he met with Dr. King in the White House and promised that a voting rights law would get through, one way or another. And so he did. While Selma burned that week, he maneuvered... leading to that special joint session.

Goodwin wrote the address in a few frantic hours with no time for it to be edited or posted to the TelePrompTers. The President, never a great orator, read from typed pages on the dais as he said, "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 at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama."

From there, he traced the history of race problems in our country and reached back to distinctly American language to rebut hatred: "All men are created equal -- Government by consent of the governed -- Give me liberty or give me death." Some paragraphs later, the President added another, more recent phrase: "And we... shall... overcome." An instant of silence in the chamber before a flood of jubilee, applause, cheering, tears. Dr. King wept when he heard those words.

Lyndon Johnson was always more of a manipulator than a charmer. And yet it's hard to imagine President Obama, with all of his grace, recreating a moment so beautifully done.

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Comments

[singforpeace]

Growing up in a family deeply entrenched in the black freedom struggle, I feel this essay overstates a number of things. Lyndon Johnson was no fierce civil rights advocate, nor was John F. Kennedy. Fortunately for the nation, Johnson and Kennedy, as Lincoln had a century before, recognized the political and social urgency that was pressed upon them at that historical moment. A number of things worked in favor of a strong civil rights agenda at that point in time--the tsunami of African American claims for social, political and economic justice; the Cold War which continued to spotlight the tenuous nature of American claims to superiority in light of the racial divisions in the nation; the upsurge of violent backlash against a non-violent movement in the South; the substantial racial violence in the urban north; and the fact that the "revolution" was televised and brought into 95% of American living rooms. President Obama's actions thus far are a stark contrast to his assertion of being a "fierce advocate" for full citizenship for LGBT Americans. However, one of the distinctions between the LGBT movement and the black freedom struggle is the terms upon which the battles were waged and the systemic, structural, pervasive, historic, and codified marginalization of African Americans. As an African American lesbian, I urge all of us interested in advancing the fight for full rights to make our voice heard in a way that demands recognition.

[myskylark]

I can't help thinking of the unprincipled and ignorant assaults on Hillary Clinton by Obama supporters, black and white, when she made the historical and relevant statement that it took LBJ to get the Civil Rights and Voting Rights bills passed by Congress. As I recall, when Obama was questioned about the attacks on Clinton, he didn't rush to her defense. He made the ambiguous statement that Hillary Clinton had gotten a lot of people "upset." It was Obama's ugliest moment, because he knew better.

[Morcat]

True, Obama isn't Lyndon Johnson, and we don't have an MKL for this generation, but I fervently believe that history and fate are renewing their friendship over total equality for GLBT Americans. I consider it the great moral struggle of this early century. We need to take to the streets more, write more letters, withhold more political donations, and more straight allies like myself need to stand up publicly for their gay friends. We can get this done, too. We can't get rid of all the bigotry, but we can right the civil wrongs, and stop enshrining bigotry in our laws and let the whole world know that at this point in time and in this place, we saw another "turning point in mans unending search for freedom."