约翰逊演讲稿：We Shall Overcome
林登·贝恩斯·约翰逊 (Lyndon Baines Johnson) 出生于得克萨斯州斯通威尔。1930年毕业于该州圣马科斯西南师范学院，1935年毕业于乔治顿大学法律学院。1930年至1932年在休斯敦任教。
1935年至1937年任全国青年总署得克萨斯州公署署长。1937年国会补缺选举中当选为众议员，并任众议院海军委员会委员。1941年至1942年在海军服役。1948年当选为参议员。1951年成为参议院民主党副领袖。1953年起任参议院民主党多数派领袖，兼任参议院军事委员会、财政委员会、拨款委员会等要职。1959年至1960年任参议院航空和空间科学委员会首任主席。1956年争取民主党总统候选人提名失败。1960年与肯尼迪竞争民主党总统候选人提名失败，接受肯尼迪提名他为副总统的建议。1961年至1963年任副总统。1963年11月22日肯尼迪总统遇刺身亡后继任总统。1965年连任总统。1969年1月退休。1980年被授予总统自由勋章。著有回忆录《高瞻远瞩》。1973年1月22日在得克萨斯的圣安东尼奥因心脏病去世。
We Shall Overcome
Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Members of the Congress:
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.
At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama. There, long-suffering men and women peacefully protested the denial of their rights as Americans. Many were brutally assaulted. One good man, a man of God, was killed.
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. For the cries of pain and the hymns and protests of oppressed people have summoned into convocation all the majesty of this great government -- the government of the greatest nation on earth. Our mission is at once the oldest and the most basic of this country: to right wrong, to do justice, to serve man.
In our time we have come to live with the moments of great crisis. Our lives have been marked with debate about great issues -- issues of war and peace, issues of prosperity and depression. But rarely in any time does an issue lay bare the secret heart of America itself. Rarely are we met with a challenge, not to our growth or abundance, or our welfare or our security, but rather to the values, and the purposes, and the meaning of our beloved nation.
The issue of equal rights for American Negroes is such an issue.
And should we defeat every enemy, and should we double our wealth and conquer the stars, and still be unequal to this issue, then we will have failed as a people and as a nation. For with a country as with a person, “What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?”
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, 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, or 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.
Our fathers believed that if this noble view of the rights of man was to flourish, it must be rooted in democracy. The most basic right of all was the right to choose your own leaders. The history of this country, in large measure, is the history of the expansion of that right to all of our people. 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.