From Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. in his famous "I Have A Dream" speech in Washington:
"The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom."
From President Barack Obama's inaugural address today:
"We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths – that all of us are created equal – is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.
It is now our generation's task to carry on what those pioneers began."
The Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution promises to all people equal protection under the law, but we, the people, have had to organize to secure that promise for women, for people of color, for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Seneca Falls, Selma, and Stonewall are stories of organizing and the power that collective action has to move the world forward.
Organizing in Seneca Falls, New York was spontaneous. Lucretia Mott visited her friend Elizabeth Cady Stanton in Seneca Falls. They and three other women that afternoon decided that it was time for a convention "to discuss the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman." Stanton drafted a Declaration of Sentiments, a call for action including the right to vote for women. The convention, organized within the week, on July 19 and 20, 1848 drew approximately 300 people, and the Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions, signed by 100 attendees, generated broad public attention. From the text of the Declaration, the attendees vowed:
"Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one-half the people of this country, their social and religious degradation,—in view of the unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which belong to them as citizens of these United States."
The women's rights movement catapulted forward from Seneca Falls.
Organizing in Selma, Alabama was planned. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) decided to make Selma a focus of voter registration drives, and on March 7, 1965 a group of six hundred lead by SCLC leaders, Hosea Williams and John Lewis, now a Member of Congress. The organizers could not have anticipated the incredible violence by Alabama state troopers and vigilantes at Pettus Bridge. "Bloody Sunday" as the event came to be known was captured on television, and the nation was moved. The SCLC with Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. returned two days later to march again despite a court injunction. They obeyed the injunction and turned back to Selma when the road was blocked by troopers. President Lyndon Johnson announced his support for the Selma marchers and introduction of the Voting Rights Act on March 15. Said President Johnson at the time:
"Their cause must be our cause too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome."
On March 21, marchers, escorted by the US Army and the National Guard, finally completed the historic Alabama Freedom March from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.
The events at the Stonewall Inn in Greenwich, New York on June 28, 1969 were not organized at all. Four police raided the nightclub to arrest the gay and transgender patrons. The abuses of power and brutality by police sparked a spontaneous and disorganized resistance, and the riots that day were the catalyst for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) rights movement. The personal was suddenly political. A few weeks after the Stonewall riots, activists organized the Gay Liberation Front whose purpose was:
"We are a revolutionary group of men and women formed with the realization that complete sexual liberation for all people cannot come about unless existing social institutions are abolished. We reject society's attempt to impose sexual roles and definitions of our nature."
Gay pride marches to commemorate the events at Stonewall now take place all over the world every year, more than 40 years after Stonewall, and gay pride has facilitated one of the most rapidly successful human rights movements of our time.
Through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall, our forebears advanced the cause of freedom and equality for all. President Barack Obama went on to make a call to action to all of us today, a call to action that is at the heart of the mission of the ACLU. Said the President today:
"It is now our generation's task to carry on what those pioneers began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers, and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts. Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law – for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well. Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote. Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity; until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country."
Pay equity for women. Marriage equality for gay and lesbian couples. Equality of opportunity for immigrants. This is the ACLU's work over the next four years. Because our freedom is inextricably bound in freedom and equality for all. Happy Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
