After a chance encounter at an airport, Tennessee Rep. Justin Jones and music legend Joan Baez sing, "We Shall Overcome," a key anthem of the Black Civil Rights movement.
Always there have been men who had contempt for the "word" although words have survived better than any other man-made things. St. John says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God." When you have finished using a weapon, someone is dead or injured, but the product of the word can be life and hope and survival. All of the greatness of our species rests on words -- Socrates to his judges -- the Sermon on the Mount, the introduction to Wyclif's Bible, later taken by Lincoln for the Gettysburg Address. And all of these great and irretrievable words have the bravery of fear and hope in them. There must have been a fierce but hollow feeling in the members of the Continental Congress when the clerk first read the words, "When in the course of human events --." Lincoln must have dwelt with loneliness when he wrote the order of mobilization.
In our history, there have been not more than five or six moments when the word and the determination mapped the course of the future. Such a moment was your speech, Sir, to the Congress two nights ago. Our people will be living by phrases from that speech when all the concrete and steel have long been displaced or destroyed. It was a time of no turning back, and in my mind as well as in many others, you have placed your name among the great ones of history.
And I take great pride in the fact that you are my President.
Yours in admiration,
John Steinbeck
-- Letter from John Steinbeck to President Lyndon B. Johnson on March 17, 1965, two days after LBJ's monumental "We Shall Overcome" speech to a Joint Session of Congress urging the passage of the Voting Rights Act in the wake of "Bloody Sunday" in Selma, Alabama
This is a message for all of my USAmerican mutuals and followers, as well as those I follow (and all of their mutuals and followers, and so on a so on) -- I know things seem hopeless now, I know you're scared, I know you think the extremists have won. I'm sitting here sobbing and shaking myself.
But NOTHING IS DECIDED YET -- you still have the opportunity to pull your country back from the abyss. YOU HAVE A DUTY TO DO SO.
Luckily, you can still vote in the November election -- you still have that right.
BUT YOU NEED TO REMEMBER THAT THE US HAS A TWO-PARTY SYSTEM!!!
Voting for ANYONE else besides the two main presidential candidates WILL result in your vote going to waste!
JOE BIDEN is the lesser of the two evils, if you stand for progress.
VOTE FOR HIM, OR TRUMP GETS IN.
There's no other choice.
And make no mistake -- Trump will absolutely use your nuclear arsenal to destroy the planet, just because. Just like a comic-book supervillain.
So please, please, please vote. I'm begging you. The world is begging you.
Otherwise we really are on the Eve of Destruction.
And in the meantime (and if worst comes to worst), DO WHATEVER YOU HAVE TO TO KEEP YOURSELF AND YOUR LOVED ONES SAFE. After all, fascist regimes haven't lasted all that long -- Nazi Germany, Mussolini's Italy, Franco's Spain, Peron's Argentina, Pinochet's Chile ... ALL of them were toppled, either by the people themselves, or by the rest of the world. It may take a few decades, but so long as the orange man keeps his finger off the button, it'll happen eventually.
Bruce Springsteen Re-releases “We Shall Overcome” to Mark MLK Day in United States
- Seeger Sessions Band performance hails from 2006 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage festival
Bruce Springsteen re-released his 2006 performance of “We Shall Overcome” to mark Martin Luther King Day in the United States.
Backed by the Seeger Sessions Band at the 2006 New Orleans Jazz & Heritage festival, Springsteen wrote an all-American arrangement featuring acoustic and pedal-steel guitars; brass; dual violins; upright bass and light percussion; and a chorus of male and female backgrounds to create a celebratory version of the often-a capella song of somber perseverance.
It’s a slow build, from Springsteen solo to full-band participation that seems a deliberate message within a message. For anyone who missed the point, Springsteen elaborated.
“There’s the beautiful quote by Dr. King that says the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice,” he said in a statement.
“I’ve lived long enough to see that in action and to put some faith in it. I’ve also lived long enough to know that arc doesn’t bend on its own. It needs all of us leaning on it, nudging it in the right direction day after day.”
95 years ago today, a King was born. He was a dreamer…and so much more. He was a defender of those being oppressed and a challenger of oppressors. He was a student of the human condition and a strategist for humane change. He was a teacher, a thinker, a truth teller. King.
My Hero, The Great Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. You paved the way for all of us. To be Free at last. As you envisioned us to be able to be one with each other and to make a brighter future for our children. When I was little reading a children's book about you. You inspired me by your actions of peace through the words of love and kindness of what we shall be from what we are now. Your Dream Lives On In Me and Billions of others who follow your teachings that have shaped our way of living and our way of life itself. I am honored to make a artwork of you as I hope you know that you made me dream too and 1 day, I hope that we shall be free at last.
For I Too Have A Dream.
Free at last, Free at last, Thank God Almighty. Free at last.
HAPPY 95TH BIRTHDAY 🎂 😇TO YOU IN HEAVEN ABOVE
THE MAN, THE TEACHER, THE LEADER, THE LEGEND, THE HERO