King and left him half-dead? What did the federal government do when local police officials kicked and assaulted the pregnant wife of Slater King, and she lost her baby? Where is the political party that will make it unnecessary to march in the streets of Birmingham? Where is the political party that will protect the citizens of Albany, Georgia? Do you know that in Albany, Georgia, nine of our leaders have been indicted, not by the Dixiecrats, but by the federal government for peaceful protest? But what did the federal government do when Albany’s deputy sheriff beat Attorney C.B. Where is our party? Where is the political party that will make it unnecessary to march on Washington? The party of Javits is also the party of Goldwater. But what political leader can stand up and say, “My party is the party of principles”? For the party of Kennedy is also the party of Eastland. By and large, American politics is dominated by politicians who build their careers on immoral compromises and ally themselves with open forms of political, economic, and social exploitation. My friends, let us not forget that we are involved in a serious social revolution.
We need a bill that will ensure the equality of a maid who earns five dollars a week in a home of a family whose total income is $100,000 a year. We need a bill that will provide for the homeless and starving people of this nation. We must have legislation that will protect the Mississippi sharecropper who is put off of his farm because he dares to register to vote. It will not help the citizens of Mississippi, of Alabama and Georgia, who are qualified to vote, but lack a sixth-grade education. As it stands now, the voting section of this bill will not help the thousands of black people who want to vote. What about the three young men, SNCC field secretaries in Americus, Georgia, who face the death penalty for engaging in peaceful protest? It will not protect the hundreds and thousands of people that have been arrested on trumped charges. In its present form, this bill will not protect the citizens of Danville, Virginia, who must live in constant fear of a police state. Unless Title III is put in this bill, there is nothing to protect the young children and old women who must face police dogs and fire hoses in the South while they engage in peaceful demonstrations. We support it with great reservations, however. It is true that we support the administration’s civil rights bill. We come here today with a great sense of misgiving. Our brother James Farmer, along with many others, is also in jail. While we stand here there are students in jail on trumped-up charges. While we stand here, there are sharecroppers in the Delta of Mississippi who are out in the fields working for less than three dollars a day, twelve hours a day. For they are receiving starvation wages, or no wages at all. For hundreds and thousands of our brothers are not here. We march today for jobs and freedom, but we have nothing to be proud of.
JOHN LEWIS, “SPEECH AT THE MARCH ON WASHINGTON” (28 AUGUST 1963)
0 kommentar(er)
