President Barack Obama’s speech yesterday in Selma, Alabama to mark the 50th anniversary of “Bloody Sunday,” when Alabama state troopers shocked much of the nation and generated more support for the civil rights movement by beating people marching for voting rights, is being hailed as a historic one. CNN reports:
One presidential historian called it President Barack Obama’s “I Have A Dream Speech.”
Another historian called it “powerful” and “moving.”
….”I think this is President Obama’s “I Have a Dream” speech for the 21 century,” said CNN Presidential Historian Douglas Brinkley. “It was brilliantly written and he delivered it in a flawless fashion as if he was from the church pulpit. It reminded me a lot of a Walt Whitman poem, or a Carl Sandberg (work), or Archibald MacLeish. There was a poetic integrity to the words.”
Julian Zelizer, a historian from Princeton University, said it had similar characteristics to Rev. Martin Luther King’s 1963 speech in Washington where the civil rights icon called for the end of racism.
“It was a very powerful speech and moving speech and a beautifully written speech,” Zelizer said.
Here’s the full video of the speech:
GO HERE to read the full text.
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.