Commemoration of the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., and James Farmer
Speech by Wade Henderson at the University of Mary Washington on January 17, 2005, as partof the university's Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Celebration.
It is a pleasure to be here at the University of Mary Washington, and an honor to speak at this celebration of the lives and legacies of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and James Farmer.
Today, all across America, we are observing a national holiday for Dr. King - one of only three Americans whom we honor in this way.
Under George Washington's leadership, Americans won the War of Independence and founded this country.
Under Abraham Lincoln's leadership, we preserved the Union and began to eliminate the nation's original sin of slavery.
And, through the leadership of Martin Luther King, we began to keep the promise to which our children pledge allegiance in school - that we would truly be "one nation under God, with liberty and justice for all."
Today, at University of Mary Washington, we also pay tribute to another leader in the peaceful struggle for civil and human rights, James Farmer.
Toward the end of his life, he taught here. He lived close by. And is still here with us in spirit, at the multicultural center which you have renamed in his honor and in the memories of all of us.
I had the privilege of meeting him just a little more than a year before his death, when President Clinton presented him with one of the nation's highest honors, the Medal of Freedom, on January 15, 1998 - seven years ago this Saturday.
Dr. Farmer was in a wheelchair. He was almost completely blind. But, he was a powerful and commanding figure; his booming voice and his brilliant mind were the same as ever.
As someone who had followed the civil rights struggles of the 1960's and who had participated in more recent efforts, I felt that I already knew him.
Soon, we got to talking and he treated me like an old friend. He asked me to come speak at Mary Washington one day.
So thank you all for helping me to keep a promise to a grand, old man that I could not keep when he was alive.
James Farmer was part of the generation of giants who sat-in at lunch counters, rode the greyhounds, marched in the streets, and put their lives on the line so that African Americans and all Americans could enjoy the fundamental freedoms that should be our birthright.
He was one of the "Big Four" civil rights leaders of the 1960's, together with Dr. King of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Roy Wilkins of the NAACP, and Whitney Young of the National Urban League.
Each organization and its leader brought something special to the table: Dr. King's moral leadership; Roy Wilkins' legislative advocacy; Whitney Young's emphasis on economics; and James Farmer's focus on direct action.
The organization that Farmer founded and led - the Congress of Racial Equality, or CORE - were the shock troops of the nonviolent revolution. Together with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee - SNCC - one of whose leaders, James Forman, died last week, CORE organized and mobilized the young at heart and the young in spirit to challenge segregation at great risk to themselves.
Appropriately, on that great day in August, 1963, when Dr. King proclaimed his dream at the historic March on Washington, James Farmer could not be there because he was in jail for participating in nonviolent civil disobedience.
More than four decades later, we have much to celebrate and commemorate. But we still need to rededicate ourselves to keeping the commitments that we owe to Dr. King, James Farmer, that generation of giants, generations yet to come, and the very promise of American democracy.
We are here today at a difficult time. We have made incredible progress since Dr. King and James Farmer marched together and have so much to be thankful for, but we also have much to be concerned about.
Last year we celebrated the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education and the 40th anniversary of the Civil Rights Act. But we are more segregated by race and by politics than at any time in the last 30 years.
This year, we'll celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Voting Rights Act, but, on Thursday, we will swear in a President who, just like the congressional leadership, earned the votes of only one of ten African Americans.
What does that mean for all Americans?
The racial and partisan divide doesn't mean that we can't get any national legislation of interest to advance the cause of equal justice and equal opportunity. But, if the last four years are any guide, we can expect it to be a very difficult time.
Every civil rights bill that's been enacted in this country has required not only Democratic votes, but also the votes of moderate Republicans. Bi-partisanship has been the only means of advancing an affirmative, progressive agenda and I still believe in its power.
But something fundamentally different is happening in the country today. Ideological extremism on the right makes achieving real bi-partisanship more difficult than ever before. And on some issues, it's almost impossible to accomplish.
You can't have bi-partisanship when one side is playing hardball and the other side is playing softball. You can't have bi-partisanship when a leading thinker and strategist on the right, Grover Norquist, says, "bi-partisanship is like date rape." You can't have bi-partisanship in that situation.
You can't have bi-partisanship when one side treats you like a tornado treats a trailer park. And you can't have bi-partisanship when the other side watches quietly as the storm rips through, promising only to drop by later and help you clean up the debris. You can't have bi-partisanship on that basis.
Bi-partisanship can only be achieved when everyone knows that you can fight back. When one side has an ideologically driven agenda that represents a roll back in everything you stand for, they've got to know that you have the power to stop them or you can't have bi-partisanship.
In the days ahead, members of both parties in the United States Senate will face an important challenge.
As they consider the President's nomination of Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General of the United States, they need to examine, to debate and to decide whether his record and his views make him an appropriate choice to be the nation's leading law enforcement official.
To say the least, there is genuine cause for concern.
All Americans should be concerned about Gonzales' role in setting the Administration's policy on detention, interrogation and torture in the so-called War on Terrorism.
All Americans should be concerned about his failure to disclose critical documents that could reveal the extent of his involvement in setting policies requiring or even encouraging the Defense Department and the CIA to cast aside laws and practices that could have prevented torture.
All Americans should be concerned about his involvement in shaping the civil rights record of this Administration. This includes the failure of the Justice Department - which he would lead - to break down existing barriers to equality in voting rights, racial profiling, sex discrimination, and police misconduct.
And all Americans should be concerned about his lackadaisical and deeply troubling role as counsel to the Governor of Texas, when he made minimal efforts to investigate and offer recommendations to George W. Bush on cases involving the ultimate penalty the state could impose - capital punishment.
Alberto Gonzales has served as counsel to the President of the United States and, before that, as counsel to the Governor of Texas. But the Attorney General of the United States of America is not the President's lawyer. He is the people's lawyer. And he should be guided by the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the laws of the land - not personal loyalty or political expediency. That is the standard by which Alberto Gonzales should be judged.
The future of the federal courts - and especially the nation's highest court - is also at stake. Chief Justice Rehnquist will administer the Presid
