Special to NABJ Black News & Views
From – https://blacknewsandviews.com/
Reprinted – by Texas Metro News
Almost 60 years ago today, nearly 600 peaceful protestors set out from Brown Chapel AME Church in Selma, Alabama, on a 54-mile journey to Montgomery, the state capital. They did not make it that day.
But, they did not give up.
Today, President Joe Biden will deliver the State of the Union address to a country seemingly as divided as it was on Bloody Sunday on March 7, 1965. It won’t be easy.
But, please, Mr. President, do not give up.
When people around the world saw on their televisions the late John Lewis and his colleagues being beaten on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, when they saw for themselves the wounds the vile divisions in the country created, and when they heard President Lyndon B. Johnson’s speech during a joint session of Congress the next week – it was then that they finally acted.
Please, Mr. President, don’t give up.
In his speech to Congress on March 15, 1965, President Johnson referred to a Bible verse in saying, “[T]here is cause for hope and for faith in our democracy in what is happening here tonight … For with a country as with a person, ‘What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?’ ”
Johnson continued, “[W]e are met here tonight as Americans — not as Democrats or Republicans — we are met here as Americans to solve [our] problem[s]. … These are the enemies: poverty, ignorance, disease. They are the enemies and not our fellow man, not our neighbor.”
Johnson went on, “I do not want to be the president who built empires, or sought grandeur, or extended dominion. I want to be the president who educated young children to the wonders of their world … I want to be the president who helped the poor to find their own way and who protected the right of every citizen to vote in every election. I want to be the president who helped to end hatred among his fellow men and who promoted love among the people of all races and all regions and all parties. I want to be the president who helped to end war among the brothers of this earth.”
Please, President Biden, don’t give up.
We can’t help but think about the divisions, indeed chasms, in our country today that are really no different from those back in March of 1965. For no good reason — unable to find common ground and unwilling to take the high road and set aside individual and political interests for the interests of people, families and our country — our nation is stuck; good, necessary, meaningful and important legislation is languishing.
But don’t give up, Mr. President. Please.
There are many lessons to be learned from John Lewis on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday. For one, he never gave up on American ideals, not on the Edmund Pettus Bridge, not in the halls of Congress — never. He never gave up on what is right and what is best for all; and no matter the person or the occasion, he was always civil, thoughtful, honest and gracious.
We remember well Congressman Lewis often saying “We may not have chosen the same path, but we are all in this together. So, we’d better find a way, make a way, to get along and work together.”
Mr. President, please don’t give up.
Michael Collins
Board Chair
John and Lillian Miles Lewis Foundation
Linda Earley Chastang, Esq.
President Emerita
John and Lillian Miles Lewis Foundation
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