The Rhetoric of LBJ: Speech Addressing Discrimination and Voting Right Legislation

Over Come we Shall

On March 15, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson addressed a session of

Congress to urge the passage of new voting rights legislation. President

Johnson’s speech was in response to the unjustly attack of African Americans

preparing to march in Montgomery. In his address Johnson confronted the problem

of racism and racial discrimination. He declared that “every American citizen

must have an equal right to vote. In order for Johnson to handle the American

crisis and simultaneously settle into his new position as chief executive, his

rhetorical debut as president would have to be one that offered Americans the

confidence to believe he was not simply a political figure, but instead a man of

principle, with a value system that would advance the interests of peace,

freedom, and social justice.

There is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right.” Johnson

reminded the nation that the Fifteenth Amendment, which was passed after the

Civil War, gives all citizens the right to vote regardless of race or color.

Similar to, civil rights activist, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Johnson takes a

different approach for the promotion of civil rights. “In the I Have Dream”

speech, King strayed away from the traditional civil rights argument, which

relied mainly on the morality of pre-justice, and attacked the injustice imposed

in not granting civil rights.

“In the process of gaining our rightful place, we must not be guilty of

wrongful deeds. Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking

from the cup of bitterness and hatred. We must forever conduct our struggle on

the high plane of dig...

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...mes needs its president to ascend to the bully pulpit to exhort it

toward a public good that would not be realized without moving, inspiring

oratory. But finding a shared moral language out of which a president can

fashion a persuasive appeal is difficult. President Johnson effectively grounded

his appeals in a potent narrative that focused on public morality—his listeners'

civic duty to keep and fulfill the sacred American Promise. But as the citizenry

continues to become more religiously and culturally diverse, less schooled in

the narratives of the nation's history, more aware of how such narratives can be

used to justify depraved causes as well as honorable ones, and perhaps less

influenced by the moral authority of the presidency, presidents may find it

especially tricky to build moral consensus through oratory.