President Lyndon B. Johnson, The “We Shall Overcome” Speech (March 15, 1965) to the full Congress in which Johnson called for passage of the Voting Rights Act a few days after the Selma, Alabama protests met by police violence.
These are the enemies: poverty, ignorance, disease. They are our enemies, nor our fellow man, not our neighbor. And these enemies too — poverty, disease and ignorance — we shall overcome.
Source: PBS American Experience; LBJ
Johnson sent the bill to Congress two days later. It was passed and LBJ signed it into law in August with Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks and other civil rights leaders in attendance.
IN 2008, LBJ’s noted biographer, Robert Caro, wrote a reflection on this 1965 speech and Johnson’s role in the civil rights movement on the Op-Ed pages of the New York Times:
“Abraham Lincoln struck off the chains of black Americans … but it was Lyndon Johnson who led them into voting booths, closed democracy’s sacred curtain behind them, placed their hands upon the lever that gave them a hold on their own destiny, made them, at last and forever, a true part of American political life.”
Portions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 are currently under review by the United States Supreme Court. This is a link to the New York Times archive on the Voting Rights Act.
The National Endowment for the Humanities educational website Edsitement also offers classroom resources on the “We Shall Overcome” speech.
