林登·貝恩斯·約翰遜 (Lyndon Baines Johnson) 出生於得克薩斯州斯通威爾。1930年畢業於該州聖馬科斯西南師範學院，1935年畢業於喬治頓大學法律學院。1930年至1932年在休斯敦任教。
1935年至1937年任全國青年總署得克薩斯州公署署長。1937年國會補缺選舉中當選爲衆議員，並任衆議院海軍委員會委員。1941年至1942年在海軍服役。1948年當選爲參議員。1951年成爲參議院民主黨副領袖。1953年起任參議院民主黨多數派領袖，兼任參議院軍事委員會、財政委員會、撥款委員會等要職。1959年至1960年任參議院航空和空間科學委員會首任主席。1956年爭取民主黨總統候選人提名失敗。1960年與肯尼迪競爭民主黨總統候選人提名失敗，接受肯尼迪提名他爲副總統的.建議。1961年至1963年任副總統。1963年11月22日肯尼迪總統遇刺身亡後繼任總統。1965年連任總統。1969年1月退休。1980年被授予總統自由勳章。著有回憶錄《高瞻遠矚》。1973年1月22日在得克薩斯的聖安東尼奧因心臟病去世。
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.