Week Three Blog-Person 3

Lyndon B. Johnson—the 36^th president of the United States from 1963 until 1969—gave a speech Monday, March 15, 1965 after a horrific racial violence act in Selma, Alabama. The violence was directed towards blacks who were protesting for their right to vote, and it was the police who did the attacking. This speech that Johnson made was mainly directed towards everyone’s right to vote. Throughout his speech, he states that he will send in a bill that will not restrict any denial of a black man’s right to vote; this bill is known as the civil rights bill.

The way Johnson approached this really stuck to me; he said that this discrimination of color is a problem, and that it is every citizen of the United States’ problem. “There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem.” I feel that even though we were—and still are—the strongest country, the arguing and the violence is a wall that prevents us from becoming stronger. At the very end of the article, after this speech, there were still hate crimes that brought over $40 million in damages. Out of the many life lessons I have learned, one is applicable here: if we all work together, changes can happen. As cheesy as that is, it is true. Sometimes we just need to put aside our differences and accept we all want to succeed and we need each other. To quote Johnson again, “And we are met here tonight as Americans--not as Democrats or Republicans; we're met here as Americans to solve that problem. This was the first nation in the history of the world to be founded with a purpose.”

I would like to mention that finding civil rights is still not over. Today, we are not faced with discriminating minorities of race, but rather of sexual orientation. Although one conflicts differently, the struggle continues. We may sit here today and think that it was crazy not to let the black man vote; but we sit here today and think that it is right to deny two people to get married. I believe that we need to accept that everyone is different. People felt that blacks should not vote, but we changed. Maybe it will all change.