Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 1010) celebrating the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the 30th anniversary of the Stevie Wonder…
Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the resolution (H. Res. 1010) celebrating the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. during the 30th anniversary of the Stevie Wonder song tribute to Dr.
King, ``Happy Birthday,'' and for other purposes.
Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material.
I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker and Members, I have been doing this for quite a number of years now, and I asked my chief of staff how many years specifically it's been. But we're here again with the ranking member, Lamar Smith; with John Lewis, the last remaining King disciple that worked with Dr. King longer than any of us. Today, we rise to salute not only Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., but also recalling those days when we were marching for a King holiday. We salute Dr. King and Stevie Wonder for the wonderful inspiration he gave us all with his musical tribute to Dr. King, ``Happy Birthday.''
On Monday, we observed for the 25th year the Federal Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday bill that started off 3 days after his assassination when I made this proposal. It also coincides with the 30th anniversary of Stevie Wonder's 1980 song tribute to Dr. King. Stevie's song became the rallying cry for those fighting for a holiday for Martin Luther King, Jr. He was one of our greatest advocates.
I just wanted to recall--I don't know if John Lewis remembers--the day at that march we got a call from the White House and they wanted Stevie Wonder to come to the White House. Stevie Wonder said, Well, how come they haven't invited you to come to the White House instead of me? I said, Stevie, that doesn't matter. They want you, and this is what we have been marching for. So you come to the White House. He said, No, I'm not going. And we went back and forth. Finally, he didn't come.
But later, shortly thereafter, we began the negotiations with Jack Kemp of New York, with the Republicans in the White House, and this agreement was struck: That if the House and the Senate could pass a King holiday bill, the President would sign it into law. We felt we could get it through the House, but the other body was another story entirely. Finally, it did happen.
I don't know if you remember the day that Coretta Scott King and all the kids, and Abernathy, Lowery, Julian Bond, we were all over in the other body and the speeches went on and on. Everybody was acclaiming King. You'd have thought he was a native son of all the speakers. It finally ended. They had far more time to consume than we did. A reporter asked me, What took you so long? Everybody seemed to have been for this bill all the time. Of course, I resisted losing my nonviolent disposition to respond to him, because
it took 15 years before that bill was finally taken up by the body. But it was because of the people, it was because of the spirit of the people in the public schools and the city councils, the counties. And the States even passed resolutions for us to do that.
Finally, the pressure built up so much throughout the country that we finally had the bill passed in the other body. The President then, true to his word, signed the bill. It was a great moment in history. I am still proud to say that we seriously honor King with this third Monday of every January. I will put the rest of my remarks in the Record.
House Resolution 1010 celebrates the work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and salutes Stevie Wonder for his song tribute to Dr. King, ``Happy Birthday.''
On Monday, we observed, for the 27th year, the Federal Martin Luther King Jr. Holiday. This particular commemoration of the King holiday coincides with the 30th anniversary of Stevie Wonder's 1980 song tribute to Dr. King.
Stevie Wonder's song became the rallying cry for those fighting for a Martin Luther King, Jr. Federal holiday, and he proved to be one of the holiday's greatest advocates.
And so, 30 years later, it is fitting that we consider a resolution both honoring Dr. King and saluting Stevie Wonder.
Today, I would like to touch on three significant points. First, having just observed the King Holiday, we are reminded of the more equal and just society that we live in today as a result of Dr. King's life work.
Dr. King's struggle led to the enactment of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and the 1968 Fair Housing Act. From buses to motels, his work brought an end to state-sanctioned segregation and discrimination in public accommodations that were the hallmark of the Jim Crow system.
Personally, and I'm sure like many, I pursue my own life's work in the spirit of Dr. King.
When I first ran to represent the 14th Congressional District of Michigan in 1963, it was with the endorsement of Dr. King that I won.
It was through Dr. King that I got to know Rosa Parks, the mother of the Civil Rights Movement, who would work in my Detroit office for over 20 years.
On my second point, despite the great contributions Dr. King made, the pursuit of a Federal holiday in Dr. King's honor was long fought.
Significantly, it was Stevie Wonder's song tribute to Dr. King, ``Happy Birthday,'' that played a large role in galvanizing public support for a Federal holiday.
Just four days after the assassination of Dr. King, on April 8, 1968, I introduced legislation to observe the life and work of Dr. King with a Federal holiday. Until it became law in 1983, there was a persistent legislative drive for the King Holiday.
Stevie Wonder was one of the leading advocates at the helm during this fight. On September 29, 1980, he released the album, ``Hotter than July,'' containing a song he wrote in honor of Dr. King ``Happy Birthday.''
Mr. Wonder dedicated the album sleeve for ``Hotter than July'' to Dr. King with an inscription, and also encouraged the establishment of a Federal holiday in recognition of Dr. King.
Right on the album cover, he wrote, ``I and a growing number of people believe that it is time for our country to adopt King Holiday legislation, both in recognition of what he achieved and as a reminder of the distance which still has to be traveled.''
That growing number of people equated to 6 million signatures in support of the King Holiday, which Stevie Wonder and Coretta Scott King presented to Congress in 1982.
On the 15th anniversary of Dr. King's assassination, and the 20th anniversary of the March on Washington, Congress passed King Holiday legislation in 1983, with a vote of 338 to 90 in the House and a vote of 78 to 22 in the Senate. That November, it was signed into law.
At the first King Holiday observance, on January 20, 1986, Stevie Wonder headlined a concert in honor of Dr. King. And his commitment to advance the King legacy did not stop there.
Stevie Wonder has gone on to address such social and racial ills as apartheid in South Africa, hunger in Africa, and HIV/AIDS. In fact, his musical and social contributions are so significant that I feel Stevie Wonder is deserving of a Congressional Gold Medal.
Finally, we must continue the legacy of Dr. King--not just on the third Monday in January each year, but every day. It is each and every day that we should work to advance the ``Beloved Community'' that Dr. King envisioned.
Dr. King said, ``Life's most urgent and persistent question is: What are you doing for others?'' Let us ask ourselves this question, and act; and not just today, but every day.
I would like to commend my colleague, the gentleman from Georgia, John Lewis, for joining me in introducing this bipartisan resolution.
I would also like to acknowledge the many Members of the Judiciary Committee that join us in supporting this resolution--in particular, the gentleman from Texas, our Ranking Member, Lamar Smith.
I urge my colleagues to support this important resolution.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Madam Speaker, I thank my friend Lamar Smith for his significant contribution and his work as a co-leader on the Judiciary Committee for all the other things that we work on as well.
I now yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Lewis), a gentleman whom I knew before he was a Member of Congress, and he knew me before I was a Member of Congress as well.
Madam Speaker, I just want to tell our colleague from Tennessee, Mr. Zach Wamp, that that was the most amazing recapitulation of what happens to people when they go and trace these incredible moments in history that many of us have lived through. I particularly appreciate his recollection and his feelings and how they have impacted on his work here in the Congress. I just wanted to thank him for that myself.
And for all of our colleagues, many of whom are submitting statements, I'm going to put into the Record the remarks of President Obama on January 17 as he recalled that day of celebrating the life and legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr., and the article in Politico that also recapitulated the history of the struggle that King led, which is not over.
And although the raw violence that accompanied that struggle in those days--remember, the men, women and children who were in the struggle were risking their lives. This wasn't a philosophical discussion or a theoretical examination of where they were in history. This was an unbelievably brutal period of our history.
We recall that not in bitterness, but in honest reflection. I remember the trilogy written on King. Taylor Branch wrote three volumes on King, and I recommend it strongly to anybody who wants to read it. There have been many, many other records of this part of our history, but to John Lewis and me, Taylor Branch seemed to capture it with the detail and passion that few others were able to summon up.
[From the White House, Jan. 17, 2010]
Remarks by the President in Remembrance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Praise be to God. Let me begin
by thanking the entire Vermont Avenue Baptist Church family
for welcoming our family here today. It feels like a family.
Thank you for making us feel that way. (Applause.) To Pastor
Wheeler, first lady Wheeler, thank you so much for welcoming
us here today. Congratulations on Jordan Denice--aka
Cornelia. (Laughter.)
Michelle and I have been blessed with a new nephew this
year as well--Austin Lucas Robinson. (Applause.) So maybe at
the appropriate time we can make introductions. (Laughter.)
Now, if Jordan's father is like me, then that will be in
about 30 years. (Laughter.) That is a great blessing.
Michelle and Malia and Sasha and I are thrilled to be here
today. And I know that sometimes you have to go through a
little fuss to have me as a guest speaker. (Laughter.) So let
me apologize in advance for all the fuss.
We gather here, on a Sabbath, during a time of profound
difficulty for our nation and for our world. In such a time,
it soothes the soul to seek out the Divine in a spirit of
prayer; to seek solace among a community of believers. But we
are not here just to ask the Lord for His blessing. We aren't
here just to interpret His Scripture. We're also here to call
on the memory of one of His noble servants, the Reverend Dr.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Now, it's fitting that we do so here, within the four walls
of Vermont Avenue Baptist Church--here, in a church that rose
like the phoenix from the ashes of the civil war; here in a
church formed by freed slaves, whose founding pastor had worn
the union blue; here in a church from whose pews congregants
set out for marches and from whom choir anthems of freedom
were heard; from whose sanctuary King himself would sermonize
from time to time.
One of those times was Thursday, December 6, 1956. Pastor,
you said you were a little older than me, so were you around
at that point? (Laughter.) You were three years old--okay.
(Laughter.) I wasn't born yet. (Laughter.)
On Thursday, December 6, 1956. And before Dr. King had
pointed us to the mountaintop, before he told us about his
dream in front of the Lincoln Memorial, King came here, as a
27-year-old preacher, to speak on what he called ``The
Challenge of a New Age.'' ``The Challenge of a New Age.'' It
was a period of triumph, but also uncertainty, for Dr. King
and his followers--because just weeks earlier, the Supreme
Court had ordered the desegregation of Montgomery's buses, a
hard-wrought, hard-fought victory that would put an end to
the 381-day historic boycott down in Montgomery, Alabama.
And yet, as Dr. King rose to take that pulpit, the future
still seemed daunting. It wasn't clear what would come next
for the movement that Dr. King led. It wasn't clear how we
were going to reach the Promised Land. Because segregation
was still rife; lynchings still a fact. Yes, the Supreme
Court had ruled not only on the Montgomery buses, but also on
Brown v. Board of Education. And yet that ruling was defied
throughout the South--by schools and by States; they ignored
it with impunity. And here in the Nation's capital, the
Federal Government had yet to fully align itself with the
laws on its books and the ideals of its founding.
So it's not hard for us, then, to imagine that moment. We
can imagine folks coming to this church, happy about the
boycott being over. We can also imagine them, though, coming
here concerned about their future, sometimes second-guessing
strategy, maybe fighting off some creeping doubts, perhaps
despairing about whether the movement in which they had
placed so many of their hopes--a movement in which they
believed so deeply--could actually deliver on its promise.
So here we are, more than half a century later, once again
facing the challenges of a new age. Here we are, once more
marching toward an unknown future, what I call the Joshua
generation to their Moses generation--the great inheritors of
progress paid for with sweat and blood, and sometimes life
itself.
We've inherited the progress of unjust laws that are now
overturned. We take for granted the progress of a ballot
being available to anybody who wants to take the time to
actually vote. We enjoy the fruits of prejudice and bigotry
being lifted--slowly, sometimes in fits and starts, but
irrevocably--from human hearts. It's that progress that made
it possible for me to be here today; for the good people of
this country to elect an African American the 44th President
of the United States of America.
Reverend Wheeler mentioned the inauguration, last year's
election. You know, on the heels of that victory over a year
ago, there were some who suggested that somehow we had
entered into a post-racial America, all those problems would
be solved. There were those who argued that because I had
spoke of a need for unity in this country that our nation was
somehow entering into a period of post partisanship. That
didn't work out so well. There was a hope shared by many that
life would be better from the moment that I swore that oath.
Of course, as we meet here today, one year later, we know
the promise of that moment has not yet been fully fulfilled.
Because of an era of greed and irresponsibility that sowed
the seeds of its own demise, because of persistent economic
troubles unaddressed through the generations, because of a
banking crisis that brought the financial system to the brink
of catastrophe, we are being tested--in our own lives and as
a nation--as few have been tested before.
Unemployment is at its highest level in more than a quarter
of a century. Nowhere is it higher than the African American
community. Poverty is on the rise. Home ownership is
slipping. Beyond our shores, our sons and daughters are
fighting two wars. Closer to home, our Haitian brothers and
sisters are in desperate need. Bruised, battered, many people
are legitimately feeling doubt, even despair, about the
future. Like those who came to this church on that Thursday
in 1956, folks are wondering, where do we go from here?
I understand those feelings. I understand the frustration
and sometimes anger that so many folks feel as they struggle
to stay afloat. I get letters from folks around the country
every day; I read 10 a night out of the 40,000 that we
receive. And there are stories of hardship and desperation,
in some cases, pleading for help: I need a job. I'm about
to lose my home. I don't have health care--it's about to
cause my family to be bankrupt. Sometimes you get letters
from children: My mama or my daddy have lost their jobs,
is there something you can do to help? Ten letters like
that a day we read.
So, yes, we're passing through a hard winter. It's the
hardest in some time. But let's always remember that, as a
people, the American people, we've weathered some hard
winters before. This country was founded during some harsh
winters. The fishermen, the laborers, the craftsmen who made
camp at Valley Forge--they weathered a hard winter. The
slaves and the freedmen who rode an underground railroad,
seeking the light of justice under the cover of night--they
weathered a hard winter. The seamstress whose feet were
tired, the pastor whose voice echoes through the ages--they
weathered some hard winters. It was for them, as it is for
us, difficult, in the dead of winter, to sometimes see spring
coming. They, too, sometimes felt their hopes deflate. And
yet, each season, the frost melts, the cold recedes, the sun
reappears. So it was for earlier generations and so it will
be for us.
What we need to do is to just ask what lessons we can learn
from those earlier generations about how they sustained
themselves during those hard winters, how they persevered and
prevailed. Let us in this Joshua generation learn how that
Moses generation overcame.
Let me offer a few thoughts on this. First and foremost,
they did so by remaining firm in their resolve. Despite being
threatened by sniper fire or planted bombs, by shoving and
punching and spitting and angry stares, they adhered to that
sweet spirit of resistance, the principles of nonviolence
that had accounted for their success.
Second, they understood that as much as our Government and
our political parties had betrayed them in the past--as much
as our nation itself had betrayed its own ideals--Government,
if aligned with the interests of its people, can be--and must
be--a force for good. So they stayed on the Justice
Department. They went into the courts. They pressured
Congress, they pressured their President. They didn't give up
on this country. They didn't give up on Government. They
didn't somehow say Government was the problem; they said,
we're going to change Government, we're going to make it
better. Imperfect as it was, they continued to believe in the
promise of democracy; in America's constant ability to remake
itself, to perfect this union.
Third, our predecessors were never so consumed with
theoretical debates that they couldn't see progress when it
came. Sometimes I get a little frustrated when folks just
don't want to see that even if we don't get everything, we're
getting something. (Applause.) King understood that the
desegregation of the Armed Forces didn't end the civil rights
movement, because black and white soldiers still couldn't sit
together at the same lunch counter when they came home. But
he still insisted on the rightness of desegregating the Armed
Forces. That was a good first step--even as he called for
more. He didn't suggest that somehow by the signing of the
Civil Rights that somehow all discrimination would end. But
he also didn't think that we shouldn't sign the Civil Rights
Act because it hasn't solved every problem. Let's take a
victory, he said, and then keep on marching. Forward steps,
large and small, were recognized for what they were--which
was progress.
Fourth, at the core of King's success was an appeal to
conscience that touched hearts and opened minds, a commitment
to universal ideals--of freedom, of justice, of equality--
that spoke to all people, not just some people. For King
understood that without broad support, any movement for civil
rights could not be sustained. That's why he marched with the
white auto worker in Detroit. That's why he linked arm with
the Mexican farm worker in California, and united people of
all colors in the noble quest for freedom.
Of course, King overcame in other ways as well. He remained
strategically focused on gaining ground--his eyes on the
prize constantly--understanding that change would not be
easy, understand that change wouldn't come overnight,
understanding that there would be setbacks and false starts
along the way, but understanding, as he said in 1956, that
``we can walk and never get weary, because we know there is a
great camp meeting in the promised land of freedom and
justice.''
And it's because the Moses generation overcame that the
trials we face today are very different from the ones that
tested us in previous generations. Even after the worst
recession in generations, life in America is not even close
to being as brutal as it was back then for so many. That's
the legacy of Dr. King and his movement. That's our
inheritance. Having said that, let there be no doubt the
challenges of our new age are serious in their own right, and
we must face them as squarely as they faced the challenges
they saw.
I know it's been a hard road we've traveled this year to
rescue the economy, but the economy is growing again. The job
losses have finally slowed, and around the country, there's
signs that businesses and families are beginning to rebound.
We are making progress.
I know it's been a hard road that we've traveled to reach
this point on health reform. I promise you I know.
(Laughter.) But under the legislation I will sign into law,
insurance companies won't be able to drop you when you get
sick, and more than 30 million people--(applause)--our fellow
Americans will finally have insurance. More than 30 million
men and women and children, mothers and fathers, won't be
worried about what might happen to them if they get sick.
This will be a victory not for Democrats; this will be a
victory for dignity and decency, for our common humanity.
This will be a victory for the United States of America.
Let's work to change the political system, as imperfect as
it is. I know people can feel down about the way things are
going sometimes here in Washington. I know it's tempting to
give up on the political process. But we've put in place
tougher rules on lobbying and ethics and transparency--
tougher rules than any administration in history. It's not
enough, but it's progress. Progress is possible. Don't give
up on voting. Don't give up on advocacy. Don't give up on
activism. There are too many needs to be met, too much work
to be done. Like Dr. King said, ``We must accept finite
disappointment but never lose infinite hope.''
Let us broaden our coalition, building a confederation not
of liberals or conservatives, not of red states or blue
states, but of all Americans who are hurting today, and
searching for a better tomorrow. The urgency of the hour
demands that we make common cause with all of America's
workers--white, black, brown--all of whom are being hammered
by this recession, all of whom are yearning for that spring
to come. It demands that we reach out to those who've been
left out in the cold even when the economy is good, even when
we're not in recession--the youth in the inner cities, the
youth here in Washington, D.C., people in rural
communities who haven't seen prosperity reach them for a
very long time. It demands that we fight discrimination,
whatever form it may come. That means we fight
discrimination against gays and lesbians, and we make
common cause to reform our immigration system.
And finally, we have to recognize, as Dr. King did, that
progress can't just come from without--it also has to come
from within. And over the past year, for example, we've made
meaningful improvements in the field of education. I've got a
terrific Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan. He's been
working hard with states and working hard with the D.C.
school district, and we've insisted on reform, and we've
insisted on accountability. We we're putting in more money
and we've provided more Pell Grants and more tuition tax
credits and simpler financial aid forms. We've done all that,
but parents still need to parent. (Applause.) Kids still need
to own up to their responsibilities. We still have to set
high expectations for our young people. Folks can't simply
look to government for all the answers without also looking
inside themselves, inside their own homes, for some of the
answers.
Progress will only come if we're willing to promote that
ethic of hard work, a sense of responsibility, in our own
lives. I'm not talking, by the way, just to the African
American community. Sometimes when I say these things people
assume, well, he's just talking to black people about working
hard. No, no, no, no. I'm talking to the American community.
Because somewhere along the way, we, as a nation, began to
lose touch with some of our core values. You know what I'm
talking about. We became enraptured with the false prophets
who prophesized an easy path to success, paved with credit
cards and home equity loans and get-rich-quick schemes, and
the most important thing was to be a celebrity; it doesn't
matter what you do, as long as you get on TV. That's
everybody.
We forgot what made the bus boycott a success; what made
the civil rights movement a success; what made the United
States of America a success--that, in this country, there's
no substitute for hard work, no substitute for a job well
done, no substitute for being responsible stewards of God's
blessings.
What we're called to do, then, is rebuild America from its
foundation on up. To reinvest in the essentials that we've
neglected for too long--like health care, like education,
like a better energy policy, like basic infrastructure, like
scientific research. Our generation is called to buckle down
and get back to basics.
We must do so not only for ourselves, but also for our
children, and their children. For Jordan and for Austin.
That's a sacrifice that falls on us to make. It's a much
smaller sacrifice than the Moses generation had to make, but
it's still a sacrifice.
Yes, it's hard to transition to a clean energy economy.
Sometimes it may be inconvenient, but it's a sacrifice that
we have to make. It's hard to be fiscally responsible when we
have all these human needs, and we're inheriting enormous
deficits and debt, but that's a sacrifice that we're going to
have to make. You know, it's easy, after a hard day's work,
to just put your kid in front of the TV set--you're tired,
don't want to fuss with them--instead of reading to them, but
that's a sacrifice we must joyfully accept.
Sometimes it's hard to be a good father and good mother.
Sometimes it's hard to be a good neighbor, or a good citizen,
to give up time in service of others, to give something of
ourselves to a cause that's greater than ourselves--as
Michelle and I are urging folks to do tomorrow to honor and
celebrate Dr. King. But these are sacrifices that we are
called to make. These are sacrifices that our faith calls us
to make. Our faith in the future. Our faith in America. Our
faith in God.
And on his sermon all those years ago, Dr. King quoted a
poet's verse:
Truth forever on the scaffold
Wrong forever on the throne . . .
And behind the dim unknown stands God
Within the shadows keeping watch above his own.
Even as Dr. King stood in this church, a victory in the
past and uncertainty in the future, he trusted God. He
trusted that God would make a way. A way for prayers to be
answered. A way for our union to be perfected. A way for the
arc of the moral universe, no matter how long, to slowly bend
towards truth and bend towards freedom, to bend towards
justice. He had faith that God would make a way out of no
way.
You know, folks ask me sometimes why I look so calm.
(Laughter.) They say, all this stuff coming at you, how come
you just seem calm? And I have a confession to make here.
There are times where I'm not so calm. (Laughter.) Reggie
Love knows. My wife knows. There are times when progress
seems too slow. There are times when the words that are
spoken about me hurt. There are times when the barbs sting.
There are times when it feels like all these efforts are for
naught, and change is so painfully slow in coming, and I have
to confront my own doubts.
But let me tell you--during those times it's faith that
keeps me calm. (Applause.) It's faith that gives me peace.
The same faith that leads a single mother to work two jobs to
put a roof over her head when she has doubts. The same faith
that keeps an unemployed father to keep on submitting job
applications even after he's been rejected a hundred times.
The same faith that says to a teacher even if the first nine
children she's teaching she can't reach, that that 10th one
she's going to be able to reach. The same faith that breaks
the silence of an earthquake's wake with the sound of prayers
and hymns sung by a Haitian community. A faith in things not
seen, in better days ahead, in Him who holds the future in
the hollow of His hand. A faith that lets us mount up on
wings like eagles; lets us run and not be weary; lets us walk
and not faint.
So let us hold fast to that faith, as Joshua held fast to
the faith of his fathers, and together, we shall overcome the
challenges of a new age. (Applause.) Together, we shall seize
the promise of this moment. Together, we shall make a way
through winter, and we're going to welcome the spring.
Through God all things are possible. (Applause.)
May the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King continue to
inspire us and ennoble our world and all who inhabit it. And
may God bless the United States of America. Thank you very
much, everybody. God bless you. (Applause.)
Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
