The 'American Promise' still speaks but are we listening?

On the anniversary of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, it's appropriate to remember that a bipartisan we -- not a singular minority -- put in place this law that gave substance to the 15th Amendment, which we, as a nation, ratified in 1870.After the murder of voting rights activists James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner by Ku Klux Klan members in Mississippi on June 21, 1964, the killing of activist and deacon Jimmie Lee Jackson by state troopers in Selma, Alabama on Feb. 26, 1965, the brutal televised beatings of non-violent protesters by state troopers during the infamous "Bloody Sunday" march across Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama on March 7, 1965, the beating of three activist Unitarian ministers on March 9, 1965 in Selma, Alabama, the death of Boston activist Rev. James Reeb from that beating on March 11, 1965, and 10 days before the murder of activist Viola Liuzzo in Selma, Alabama on March 25, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson spoke to sustained applause and standing ovations before a joint session of Congress urging passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. 

Introduced as a Senate Bill on March 17, 1965, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 initially passed the Senate on May 26, 1965 by a bipartisan 77-19 vote, passed the House with amendments on July 9, 1965 by a bipartisan 333-85 vote, was approved after a joint committee revision by a bipartisan House on Aug. 3, 1965 (328-74) and by a bipartisan Senate on Aug. 4, 1965 (79-18), and was signed by President Johnson on Aug. 6, 1965.  In subsequent years, Congress amended and reaffirmed its bipartisan support for the Act in 1970, 1975, 1982, 1992, and 2006. 

Although recent U.S. Supreme Court's decisions (Shelby County v. Holder - 2013, Brnovich v. Democratic National Committee - 2021) have opened the door to the enactment of over 100 restrictive voting laws in more than 30 states based on a myth of rampant voter fraud (the conservative Heritage.org "sampling of proven instances of election fraud" list 1,584 instances of voter fraud from 1984 to 2024; during that same period approx. 802.15 million votes were cast in just U.S. Presidential elections; comparing the "sampling" to just presidential voting -- even though the Heritage.Org sampling involves primarily local elections - the "sampling" would amount to 0.0002% of the votes cast; see also Brennan Center For Justice, "Debunking the Voter Fraud Myth," in 1965, the Voting Rights Act was viewed as central to our identity as Americans.

In his address to Congress on March 15, 1965, President Johnson reminded the nation that our core American values of dignity and respect compel the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

"I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy.

I urge every member of both parties, Americans of all religions and of all colors, from every section of this country, to join me in that cause.

. . . .

There is no cause for pride in what has happened in Selma. There is no cause for self-satisfaction in the long denial of equal rights of millions of Americans. But there is cause for hope and for faith in our democracy in what is happening here tonight.

. . . .

There is no Negro problem. There is no Southern problem. There is no Northern problem. There is only an American problem. And we are met here tonight as Americans--not as Democrats or Republicans-we are 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. The great phrases of that purpose still sound in every American heart, North and South: "All men are created equal"--"government by consent of the governed"--"give me liberty or give me death." Well, those are not just clever words, or those are not just empty theories. In their name Americans have fought and died for two centuries, and tonight around the world they stand there as guardians of our liberty, risking their lives.

Those words are a promise to every citizen that he shall share in the dignity of man. This dignity cannot be found in a man's possessions; it cannot be found in his power, or in his position. It really rests on his right to be treated as a man equal in opportunity to all others. It says that he shall share in freedom, he shall choose his leaders, educate his children, and provide for his family according to his ability and his merits as a human being.

To apply any other test--to deny a man his hopes because of his color or race, his religion or the place of his birth--is not only to do injustice, it is to deny America and to dishonor the dead who gave their lives for American freedom.

. . . .

Many of the issues of civil rights are very complex and most difficult. But about this there can and should be no argument. Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote. There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right. There is no duty which weighs more heavily on us than the duty we have to ensure that right.

. . . .

There is no constitutional issue here. The command of the Constitution is plain.

There is no moral issue. It is wrong--deadly wrong--to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country.

There is no issue of States rights or national rights. There is only the struggle for human rights.

. . . .

But even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over. What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and State of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life.

Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome.

As a man whose roots go deeply into Southern soil I know how agonizing racial feelings are. I know how difficult it is to reshape the attitudes and the structure of our society.

But a century has passed, more than a hundred years, since the Negro was freed. And he is not fully free tonight.

It was more than a hundred years ago that Abraham Lincoln, a great President of another party, signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but emancipation is a proclamation and not a fact.

A century has passed, more than a hundred years, since equality was promised. And yet the Negro is not equal.

A century has passed since the day of promise. And the promise is unkept.

The time of justice has now come. I tell you that I believe sincerely that no force can hold it back. It is right in the eyes of man and God that it should come. And when it does, I think that day will brighten the lives of every American.

For Negroes are not the only victims. How many white children have gone uneducated, how many white families have lived in stark poverty, how many white lives have been scarred by fear, because we have wasted our energy and our substance to maintain the barriers of hatred and terror?

So I say to all of you here, and to all in the Nation tonight, that those who appeal to you to hold on to the past do so at the cost of denying you your future.

This great, rich, restless country can offer opportunity and education and hope to all: black and white, North and South, sharecropper and city dweller. These are the enemies: poverty, ignorance, disease. They are the enemies and not our fellow man, not our neighbor. And these enemies too, poverty, disease and ignorance, we shall overcome.

. . . ."

In these times of distrust and division, President Johnson's words remind us that our American values, as reflected in our Constitution and founding documents, urge us, in the words of President Abraham Lincoln, to be "touched .... by the better angels of our nature" in our steps toward a more perfect union. 

President Lyndon B. Johnson

On March 15, 1965, President Johnson called a joint session of Congress to give his special message on voting rights. The remarks are known as his "The American Promise" speech.