Thank you. Thank you very much. (applause.) Thank you so much. Please,please, have aseat. Thank you.
What a singular honor it is forme to be here today. I want to thank,first and foremost, theJohnson family for giving us this opportunity and thegraciousness with which Michelle and Ihave been received.
We came down a little bit latebecause we were upstairs looking at some of the exhibits andsome of theprivate offices that were used by President Johnson and Mrs. Johnson. And Michellewas in particular interested to-- of a recording in which Lady Bird is critiquing PresidentJohnson’sperformance. (Laughter.) And she said, come, come, you need to listento this. (Laughter.) And she pressed the button and nodded herhead. Some things do not change --(laughter) -- even 50 years later.
To all the members of Congress,the warriors for justice, the elected officials andcommunity leaders who arehere today -- I want to thank you.
Four days into his suddenpresidency -- and the night before he would address a jointsession of theCongress in which he once served -- Lyndon Johnson sat around a table withhisclosest advisors, preparing his remarks to a shattered and grieving nation.
He wanted to call on senators andrepresentatives to pass a civil rights bill -- the mostsweeping sinceReconstruction. And most of his staffcounseled him against it. They said itwashopeless; that it would anger powerful Southern Democrats and committeechairmen; that itrisked derailing the rest of his domestic agenda. And one particularly bold aide said he didnotbelieve a President should spend his time and power on lost causes, howeverworthy they mightbe. To which, it issaid, President Johnson replied, “Well, what the hell’s the presidencyfor?” (Laughter and applause.) What the hell’s the presidency for if not tofight for causes youbelieve in?
Today, as we commemorate the 50thanniversary of the Civil Rights Act, we honor the menand women who made itpossible. Some of them are heretoday. We celebrate giants like JohnLewisand Andrew Young and Julian Bond. Werecall the countless unheralded Americans, blackand white, students andscholars, preachers and housekeepers -- whose names are etched notonmonuments, but in the hearts of their loved ones, and in the fabric of thecountry theyhelped to change.
But we also gather here, deep inthe heart of the state that shaped him, to recall one giantman’s remarkableefforts to make real the promise of our founding: “We hold these truths to beself-evident,that all men are created equal.”
Those of us who have had thesingular privilege to hold the office of the Presidency knowwell that progressin this country can be hard and it can be slow, frustrating andsometimesyou’re stymied. The office humblesyou. You’re reminded daily that in thisgreatdemocracy, you are but a relay swimmer in the currents of history, boundby decisions madeby those who came before, reliant on the efforts of those whowill follow to fully vindicate yourvision.
But the presidency also affords aunique opportunity to bend those currents -- by shapingour laws and by shapingour debates; by working within the confines of the world as it is, butalso byreimagining the world as it should be.
This was President Johnson’sgenius. As a master of politics and thelegislative process, hegrasped like few others the power of government tobring about change.
LBJ was nothing if not arealist. He was well aware that the lawalone isn’t enough to changehearts and minds. A full century after Lincoln’s time, he said, “Until justice is blind tocolor, untileducation is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcernedwith the color of men’s skins,emancipation will be a proclamation but not afact.”
He understood laws couldn’taccomplish everything. But he also knewthat only the law couldanchor change, and set hearts and minds on a differentcourse. And a lot of Americansneededthe law’s most basic protections at that time. As Dr. King said at the time, “It may betrue that the law can’t make a manlove me but it can keep him from lynching me, and I thinkthat’s pretty important.” (Applause.)