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Fifty years ago today

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A lot of stuff happened fifty years ago today.

Here in Washington state, it was the opening of the SR-520 floating bridge.

In New York City’s upper East Side, two young women were murdered in their apartment. Later, a 19 year old black man named George Whitmore, Jr. was arrested for the murders. The police coerced a confession out of him through intimidation and by assaulting him.

Whitmore was eventually cleared, but the case had two lasting impacts on America. First, it was cited by the Supreme court when they established guidelines known as Miranda rights. Secondly, it was used as justification to restrict and eventually eliminate New York state’s death penalty.

Fifty years ago today in the other Washington, a quarter of a million people gathered for a “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.” The official program began with the National Anthem sung by Marian Anderson, and an Invocation by the Archbishop of Washington, the Rev. Patrick O’Boyle. (O’Boyle was a leader in racial desegregation and desegregated D.C.’s Catholic schools long before the Supreme Court made it mandatory.)

John Lewis, now a Democratic Congressman from Georgia, gave a speech as the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. An excellent speech was given by Rabbi Joachim Prinz, President of the American Jewish Congress (listen here).

And, of course, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a speech that marked a turning point for the civil rights movement:

Today, fifty years later, there is another gathering in D.C. for a week-long remembrance.

Today’s speakers included Rev. Al Sharpton (2:44:50), Opera Winfrey (3:25:33), Rep. Lewis (3:34:45), President Jimmy Carter (3:45:10), President Bill Clinton (3:51:50), and President Barack Obama (4:25:10).

How did Republicans celebrate? Both Presidents Bush couldn’t make it for health reasons. George W. Bush did offer a statement.

Rep. Eric Cantor (R-VA) memorialized the 50th anniversary by going on a civil rights pilgrimage through Alabama with Rep. Lewis. Cantor released a statement that concludes:

I was especially moved by the gesture of Montgomery Police Chief Kevin Murphy who presented John Lewis with the badge off his uniform apologizing for the police department’s failure to protect the African American community in those turbulent days of the ’50’s and ’60’s. Reflecting on these important moments in our nation’s history, I look forward to focusing on ways in which together we can continue to confront challenges and solve the nation’s problems.

Ummm…has anyone mentioned to him that voting rights for African Americans are under, what appears to be, a systematic attack after the Supreme Court gutted part of the Voting Rights act?

At least one Republican is willing to do something. Speaking at a RNC by-invite-only commemoration luncheon at the Capitol Hill Club on Monday, Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) said:

“[M]y job is to fix the Voting Rights Act,” and promised that by the end of the year, Congress would create and pass the section of the law struck down by Supreme Court in June.

Well…that encouraging.

Other speakers…not so much. The RNC event also featured former congressman Allen West (R-FL) and former Ohio Secretary of Voter Suppression State Ken Blackwell (R).

Daily Beast‘s Ben Jacob was underwhelmed by the RNC event.

In other venues, we had this contribution from former Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL). It’s a teabaggy dream nightmare delivered to his radio audience:

[…]
I have a dream that young unmarried black women will say “no” to young black men who want to have sex.

I have a dream that today’s black leadership will quit blaming racism and “the system” for what ails black America.

I have a dream that black America will take responsibility for improving their own lives.

I have a dream that one day black America will cease their dependency on the government plantation, which has enslaved them to lives of poverty, and instead depend on themselves, their families, their churches, and their communities.

Ahhh, yes. God (or gods) bless the First Amendment, but it’s sure good to have him in the former Rep. category.

Comments

  1. 1

    Observance and commemoration is important (even if you choose to blow it off; IOKIYAR!), but
    please don’t forget Sen Ted Kennedy’s statement:

    “The work goes on, the cause endures, the hope still lives, and the dream shall never die”

    There’s a lot of work to do.

    And let’s not forget what MLK had to say at the National Labor Leadership Assembly for Peace in November 1967


    Now what are some of the domestic consequences of the war in Vietnam? It has made the Great Society a myth and replaced it with a troubled and confused society. The war has strengthened domestic reaction. It has given the extreme right, the anti-labor, anti-Negro, and anti-humanistic forces a weapon of spurious patriotism to galvanize its supporters into reaching for power, right up to the White House. It hopes to use national frustration to take control and restore the America of social insecurity and power for the privileged. When a Hollywood performer [ed. Ronald Reagan], lacking distinction even as an actor can become a leading war hawk candidate for the Presidency, only the irrationalities induced by a war psychosis can explain such a melancholy turn of events. [Applause]

    The war in Vietnam has produced a shameful order of priorities in which the decay, squalor and pollution of the cities are neglected. And even though 70% of our population now live in them the war has smothered, and nearly extinguished the beginnings of progress toward racial justice. The war has created the bizarre spectacle of armed forces of the United States fighting in ghetto streets in America while they are fighting in jungles in Asia. The war has so increased Negro frustration and despair that urban outbreaks are now an ugly feature of the American scene. How can the Administration, with quivering anger, denounce the violence of ghetto Negroes when it has given an example of violence in Asia that shocks the world.

    How does that ring in 2013?

  2. 2

    And the DUMMOCRAPTS didn’t invite the only Black Senator in the US Senate to the ceremonies… Oh wait a minute… Tim Scott is Republican…

    Never Mind!

    Maybe one day, Dr. King’s dream will be realized when we can stand together on such a historic occasion and black conservatives aren’t excluded for having a political opinion counter to the left’s, Marxist progressive ideology.

    Such open mindedness.

  3. 3

    Um, Spuddy, King was a leftist Liberal, and had an FBI file three feet thick. Tim Scott’s whole ideology and the party he adheres to is diametrically opposite of everything Martin Luther King stood for.

  4. 4

    Person Playing Puddybud @2,

    You know, Squirt, if you get your news from “Tea Party News Network,” you are almost certain to get egg on your face once the facts come out.

    But, on that topic, I notice the RNC “Commemoration of the 50th Anniversary of the March on Washington luncheon” at the Capitol Hill Club on Monday didn’t have the only Black Senator in the U.S. Senate on the bill.

    Man…what a bunch of closed-minded racists!!!!

    I wonder if Sen. Scott was busy making a guest appearance on former Rep. Joe Walsh’s hate-talk show?

  5. 5

    This is my reworking of his biased list:
    I have a dream that all parents will have the right to send their kids to a good public school and get a good education.
    I have a dream that all boys and girls will grow up with loving parents.
    I have a dream that young men will stop shooting other young men.
    I have a dream that all young people will say “no” to gangs and to drugs.
    I have a dream that all young people will graduate from high school.
    I have a dream that young men and women will have access to birth control and heath care until they are emotionally and financially ready to be parents.
    I have a dream that America will take responsibility for improving their own lives and have access to the means to do that, without making them financial indentured servants.

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