Were the Canadian Truckers Treated Worse than Martin Luther King, Jr? Jonathan Turley Made a Ridiculous Argument

Let’s talk about word games. Politically-minded people learn to say things that are literally true but completely misleading. Back in the 1960s, pop psychologists called this “speaking Martian.” Fox News legal analyst Jonathan Turley got on Fox News the other day to complain about what he thought was the horrible mistreatment of the demonstrators at the Canadian truckers blockade. Protesters had obstructed several border crossings. The police ticketed and sometimes towed the trucks for illegal parking. The more recalcitrant protestors were threatened with arrest. No one beat them with rubber hoses or baseball bats. The police did not burn their trucks. The protesters did not disappear to the back room of a jail, never to be seen again. Horrified that the police had suppressed the demonstrations, Turley told a Fox News reporter:

“By this rationale, they could have cracked down on the Civil Rights movement. They could have arrested Martin Luther King.”

You can well imagine how Twitter users responded. Martin Luther King, Jr. was, of course, arrested many times – sometimes brutally. He was not sipping tea in a diner when he wrote his famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” King repeatedly acknowledged that people who engage in civil disobedience should willingly accept legal punishment. In his famous “I Have a Dream,” King said:

“With this faith we will be able to work together, to pray together, to struggle together, to go to jail together, to stand up for freedom together, knowing that we will be free one day.” (Italics added)

Even Fox News has posted a complete transcript of “I Have a Dream.” Has Turley ever read that famous speech? Or listened to it? Okay, well, that’s fine. Even famous lawyers make mistakes. Unfortunately, instead of admitting his error, Turley doubled down with this tweet:

“Not to feed the trolls, but I never said that Dr. King was not arrested. I said that the Canadian policy could be used to arrest MLK for the same acts of civil disobedience. The point is that such acts of civil disobedience are not viewed as ‘terrorism’ or ‘insurrection.’...”

The first part of what Turley said in that tweet was, of course, literally true. He never specifically said the exact words that “Dr. King was not arrested.” He had, however, said that “they could have cracked down on the Civil Rights movement.” He showed no awareness of history, no awareness that the Civil Rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s had been brutally suppressed. No listener could miss what Turley meant. And, Turley did say, “They could have arrested Martin Luther King.” No one who was aware that King had, in fact, been arrested – dozens of times – would have said that. Additionally, Turley’s claim that King’s work was “not viewed as ‘terrorism’ or ‘insurrection’” is dubious. King wrote his "Letter from Birmingham Jail" only after a group of White pastors accused him of inciting “hatred and violence.”

The idea of speaking Martian is to say things that are literally true but completely deceiving. And so, in my opinion, Turley was speaking Martian. Turley said something that was literally true but indescribably absurd. As best I can tell from browsing social media, Turley’s conservative fans are deliriously happy with his ridiculous denial.

Just think – with Black History Month 2022 halfway done – too many conservatives take advantage of every opportunity to show how little they know about Black history. While hordes of parents try to shout down anyone who wants to teach Black history to their children, people like Turley (who, by his impressive credentials, should be well-educated) demonstrate that the American public knows all too little about Black history. Or, for that matter, about any history. Since the whole idea of being a conservative is to learn from the past, ignorance of history defeats the point. Doesn’t it?

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Earlier Post: Martin Luther King's Speech “Love, Law, and Civil Disobedience:” The Radical Tradition

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Historical Note: If you want to read about the brutal way that police treated the Freedom Riders during the Civil Rights movement, check this link. If you would like to learn about Martin Luther King, Jr.’s many arrests, here is an excellent summary.

Word of Rhetorical Advice: There is an old saying that, when you are digging yourself into a hole, stop digging. Turley might want to think about that. 

“What, They Demand, Is Your Christianity?" Rev. Theodore S. Wright’s 1837 Speech against Racial Prejudice

Of all the places that should (in principle) be open to everyone, rich and poor, regardless of background or race, should not Christian churches (and, indeed, all religious institutions) be foremost? Yet, almost two centuries ago, Rev. Theodore S. Wright complained bitterly when his fellow ministers locked out African-American worshipers.

Wright, an African-American Presbyterian minster, spoke against racial prejudice. In his 1837 speech to the New York Anti-Slavery Society, he said that it was not just slaves who faced intense discrimination. Even free African-Americans were forbidden to study trades, locked out of colleges, and, he added, “oppressed by a corrupt public sentiment.” Wright pointed out the mistreatment that African-Americans often received in churches, complained that prejudice affected their ability to save their souls, and proposed to rectify the problem by shaming racist clergy. He noted that in evangelical revivals, “which have been blessed and enjoyed in this part of the country, the colored population were overlooked.” Wright explained:

“But sir, this prejudice goes further. It debars men from heaven. While sir, slavery cuts off the colored portion of the community from religious privileges, men are made infidels. What, they demand, is your Christianity? How do you regard your brethren? How do you treat them at the Lord’s table? Where is your consistency in talking about the heathen, transversing the ocean to circulate the Bible everywhere, while you frown upon them at the door? These things meet us and weigh down our spirits.”

We can allow Wright a bit of hyperbole. Obviously, his own church welcomed African-American worshipers. It remained true, however, that African-American worshipers were, as was the custom, often consigned to the balcony. Even worse, they were, as he explained, sometimes excluded from churches entirely.

Having shown the problem, Wright offered a bold solution. His idea was to awaken the consciences of White pastors. On one occasion, Wright himself went around to other church elders to inquire about this failing of theirs. He literally went door to door:

“We went and they humbled themselves. The Church commenced efficient efforts, and God blessed them as soon as they began to act for these people as though they had souls.”

Yet, he noted that even when African-American worshipers were allowed into the churches, they were relegated to the balconies, as if “the value of the pews would be diminished if the colored people sat in them.”

Wright gave his speech at a time of religious upheaval. White and Black churches tended to separate in the 1800’s in The Southern Baptist Convention, for example, was originally created as an act of racial discrimination. My own Methodist denomination split in the 1800s, after African-American worshipers were often rejected or consigned to the balconies. For example, Rev. Richard Allen founded the African Methodist Episcopal (AME) Church in 1816. Like many African-American Methodist churches, the AME shares doctrines, rules, and rituals with other Methodist Churches. The AME church formed because church ushers in Philadelphia literally dragged Allen off of his knees in the middle of prayer. And yet, even today in 2022, churches sadly remain among the most segregated institutions.

Thank you, Rev. Wright, for pointing out the monstrous injustice and hypocrisy that afflicted the Christian churches in 1837. How lamentable that the issue has not disappeared. Yes, today, it is rare for White-majority churches to expel people of color. Not universal, however, is to welcome them, not as guests, but as brothers and sisters. Rev. Wright was correct when he complained that “These things meet us and weigh down our spirits.”

Indeed, we cannot say today that African Americans are generally debarred from Christian churches. Furthermore, I enthusiastically praise denominations like the AME Church or African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, which offer so much community and spiritual support. That is no excuse for churches that restrict themselves, however unconsciously. We might want to ask why churches, of all places, often remain highly segregated. 

Can speeches help with these problems? Speeches such as Wright’s might affect people’s attitudes and actions. Their effect is greatest if the message is repeated over, over, and over. Wright spoke a long time ago. Do we need to hear his message, updated to suit our times, repeated again?

Among their other functions, public speeches help people recognize social problems. We continue to recognize Black History Month because we look to the past for lessons. Wright complained about discrimination in employment, education, and most of all, religion. What has changed since 1837? What has not changed? If Wright spoke today, what would he say? Would he tell us that everything is fine? Would he complain that prejudice still restricts African-Americans? I think we all know the answer to that question. Don’t we?

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Earlier Posts:

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Sermon on the Power of Love

John Wesley’s Sermon against Bigotry

Pope Francis' Sermon for the World Day of Migrants and Refugees

Rabbi Cahana’s Sermon on the Power of Love

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P.S. Wright spoke in cosmopolitan New York City. More western parts of New York state were called the “burned over district” in 1837 because of all the fire and brimstone preaching. Wright’s speech was probably tame compared with what his audience may have heard around the state. I may look into New York’s historical evangelism in upcoming posts. What do you think?

James Baldwin's 1963 Speech Ripped Away Two American Myths

Best-selling author James Baldwin started a brief 1963 speech with this sentence: “The beginnings of this country have nothing whatever to do with the myths we have created about it.” One reason people create myths is to make us feel comfortable about our uncomfortable past. Yet, Baldwin’s first sentence startles the conscience, for his speech sought to rip apart the comforting myths that substitute for history. Baldwin attacked two myths: the glorification of the Mayflower settlers and the minimization of slavery.

Baldwin did not just say that the myths distort history or that we should rethink the past. He went far beyond that. “Nothing whatever” is an absolute. Baldwin said that the myths were utterly wrong.

Making this argument, Baldwin gave his audience a new way to think about white supremacy and African-American history. He did not speak for a policy; instead, he smashed myths. His only weapons were common sense and powerful language. His claims seem self-evident once he explained them. Yet, Baldwin was right that we too often refuse to face obvious truths.

While other African-American leaders of the 1960s engaged in social activism, Baldwin undertook to make America recognize realities that myths had buried. He attacked two myths. The Mayflower Pilgrims soon became a symbol of white America’s greatness. Slavery was shoved into history’s background. These myths created a vision of America, a vision that Baldwin shattered like glass.

No, the Mayflower itself was no myth. Neither was slavery. What Baldwin meant is that American history twists them: the Pilgrims were desperate refugees, but myth turned them into triumphant heroes. Slavery was not, as history often teaches, an afterthought of American society. It was, Baldwin said, basic to early America’s economic triumphs.


Mayflower Myths

Descendants of the Mayflower’s Pilgrims can join a club that, by reputation, includes New England’s blue bloods. “Our members," the Mayflower Society says, “have formed lifelong bonds together while honoring the sacred legacy of our ancestors.” American history often teaches that the early settlers were heroes. We know, of course, that they were white heroes. That is so obvious that it goes unsaid. Baldwin explained:

“The people who settled the country, the people who came here, came here for one reason – no matter how disguised – they came here because they thought it would be better here than where they were. That’s why they came, and that’s the only reason that they came.”

Once he said that, it was just common sense. Nobody risks a sea voyage to go to an unsettled nation with an uncertain future because everything was going well at home. We knew that, did we not? And Baldwin’s inescapable corollary is that the Mayflower’s Pilgrims had struggled in England:

“Anybody who was making it in England did not get on the Mayflower. [Laughter and applause.] This is important. It is important that one begin to recognize this because part of the dilemma of this country is that it has managed to believe the myths it has created about its own past.”

As Baldwin pointed out, the English settlers succeeded because they massacred Massachusetts’s native people:

“We did several things in order to conquer the country. There was, at the point we reached these shores, a group of people who had never heard of machines, or as far as I know, of money, and we promptly eliminated them. We killed them. I’m talking about the Indians.”

So, that was the first myth. (As Nick Bryant points out, the Pilgrims set up an active trade to export Native American slaves and import African slaves. Is that horror the “scared legacy of our ancestors” of which the Mayflower Society boasts?) Having summarily dispatched the myth of the noble Pilgrims, Baldwin moved on to the myths that underestimated African slavery.


Myths about Slavery

Instead of dwelling on the evils of slavery – which he took as obvious – Baldwin pointed out that slavery is inherently an economic and political tool. America’s economic triumphs only occurred, he said, because Africans were kidnapped and brought to the New World to perform unpaid labor. It was on the backs of their work, he reminded his audience, that the American economy came to flourish:

“Now slavery, like murder, is one of the oldest human institutions. So we cannot quarrel about the fact of slavery; that is to say we could, but that’s another story. But we enslaved him because in order to conquer the country, we had to have cheap labor. And the man who is now known as the American Negro, who is one of the oldest of American citizens, and the only one who never wanted to come here, [applause] did the dirty work.”

America needed, Baldwin said, to recognize the people who did the involuntary, unpaid hard work to make its founding possible.

Why Baldwin Is Important Today

Baldwin did not speak for any particular policy. He did not commemorate anything. Instead, his speech ripped away the myths, exposing the reality behind them. We need to see clearly before we can solve our problems.

It is no wonder that book-banning campaigns sometimes target Baldwin’s work. His first novel, Go Tell It on the Mountain, has been banned from Virginia to New York. A documentary film about Baldwin was banned in central Pennsylvania. The ban was reversed after student protest.

No, people don’t try to ban James Baldwin’s books because they mention sexual practices. They would also have to ban the Holy Bible. The Bible, after all, tells how Lot’s daughters got him drunk so he could get them pregnant (Gen. 19). Are book-burners banning the Bible? No. Baldwin’s books get banned because he tore down comfortable myths and exposed raw reality. Were Baldwin’s truths inarguable? Of course. That is precisely why people fear him.

Amazing, isn’t it? It becomes so easy for people to ignore the obvious, and sometimes so unpleasant to face reality. Myths comfort us, but truth frees us. That’s in the Bible, by the way: “the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32).

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In "The FIre Next Time," Baldwin Warned America Not to Hide from Evil

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Research Note: When I say that history twists the past, I don’t meant to disparage the work of professional historians. Most of them know and report the truth. I mean, instead, history as taught in schools, covered in high school textbooks, and discussed on television. The issues I describe are covered accurately in any number of excellent history books. As a straightforward starting point, I recommend the New York Times 1619 Project, which gives a disturbing account of American heritage, and which really should not be controversial.

In "The Fire Next Time," James Baldwin Warned America Not to Hide from Evil

James Baldwin’s book The Fire Next Time, a 1963 bestseller, attacked American racism in devastating language. Eschewing moderate expressions, Baldwin lashed out against a country that closed its eyes to racial discrimination.

Yet, the fire still burns – even today. The book-burning, book-banning campaigns of 2022 echo the evils against which Baldwin wrote. As people across the United States attack the teaching of Black history, they repeat the evils that Baldwin condemned. Yet, Baldwin argued that people who ignore evil – who refuse to see evidence of evil – are just as guilty as any criminal. He forced the United States of 1963 to face itself. By blaming the entire nation, he forced people to think about American racism in a new way.

And here is Baldwin's accusation:

“…this is the crime of which I accuse my country and my countrymen, and for which neither I nor time nor history will ever forgive them, that they have destroyed and are destroying hundreds of thousands of lives and do not know it and do not want to know it.

“But it is not permissible that the authors of devastation should also be innocent. It is the innocence which constitutes the crime.”

“It is the innocence which constitutes the crime,” Baldwin said. When many parents in 2022 want to shield their children Black history, they are protecting their child’s innocence. But not in a good way. They continue to commit the crime, for they refuse to face truth.

That sounds like a paradox, but Baldwin does not mean that Americans should be found “not guilty.” When Baldwin wrote that they are innocent, he meant that they were deliberately naïve. It was a crime precisely because Americans, on purpose, refused to know the truth.

Baldwin taught a basic lesson: it is our duty not to be naïve. It is our duty to inform ourselves. Germany’s 1933 voters, who convinced themselves that Hitler was not evil – were they not guilty? Was it not their duty to recognize what Hitler intended? It’s not as if he kept it a secret. Was it not the duty of 1963’s white racists to understand the dreadful effects of sending Black children to bad schools? Of forbidding Black people to sleep in the best hotels or to apply for good jobs, while restricting their right to vote and denying them the basic justice of a fair trial before being punished for a crime? Baldwin did not just accuse America of being guilty. He accused the nation of being unaware.

Hitler's Christian Nationalist Speech

Yet too many Americans still prefer to be unaware. The book-banners, the screaming mobs at school board meetings who seek to keep their children unaware of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Jim Crow are protecting their children from things that they need to know. Several states, including Idaho, Oklahoma, Iowa, and Tennessee, have already passed obviously unconstitutional laws to restrict the teaching of race relations. In Texas, librarians are responding to political pressure by pulling books that discuss race. The Florida legislature is, even as I write, contemplating a law that would make it illegal to teach history that makes people feel uncomfortable. Around the United States, some people are celebrating Black History Month by suppressing Black history. These acts of deliberate ignorance can only have one purpose: to make people unaware. To protect their deliberate innocence. 

Baldwin did not accuse individual people. He did not merely accuse the Ku Klux Klan, George Wallace, or any other particular group or person. Long before anyone invented the term “systemic racism,” Baldwin’s searing language accused the entire country: “my country and my countrymen.”

There is much good in the United States. I’m sure that Baldwin knew that. And the Civil Rights Movement accomplished much. The nation has made progress since 1963. That doesn’t mean that things are right today. It doesn’t mean that the reactionary forces at work across the land have suddenly become less dangerous.

So, when many people complain about “woke culture,” we should remember that Baldwin wanted to wake us up. Let us remember history. Let us learn, so we will not repeat the horrors of the past. Let us never protect our innocence by pretending that we do not see. Baldwin’s sharp accusation – “it is the innocence which constitutes a crime” – reminds us that we have a duty to know what is happening around us. It was not just that the United States practiced the evils of racism, but also that, as Baldwin said, the people “do not know it and do not want to know it.” Are the book-banning hordes of today any different? 

Baldwin, who was one of our nation’s greatest writers, was also known as an orator. Indeed, The Fire Next Time itself stands as powerful rhetoric. In 1963, while Martin Luther King, Jr. was organizing his nonviolent protests and Malcolm X threatened revolution, Baldwin made it his task to tear off the curtain and reveal what lay beyond. 

Rhetoric serves many purposes. Baldwin sought to make the nation aware of the horrors that African Americans faced daily. He changed the way the nation thought about civil rights. His writing demanded awareness. His words were so powerful that they could not be ignored. To forget what he said is to risk falling back into the abyss. 

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Previous Posts for Black History Month:

Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Sermon about the Power of Love

Oprah Winfrey's Eulogy for Rosa Parks

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P.S. If the Muses cooperate, I intend to post some comments about one of Baldwin's speeches. Stay tuned!

Image: copyright 2022, William Harpine

“Somebody Must Have Sense Enough to Dim the Lights:” Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Sermon about the Power of Love

Strength comes from love.

In November 1957, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. gave a sermon at Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. His theme was Jesus Christ’s commandment to “love your enemies.” King applied that moral precept to the growing Civil Rights movement, insisting that hate must be met with love, and violence with peace. King laid out many of the themes that would come to mark the movement. He warned that hate endangered everyone. He advocated nonviolent resistance and called for the Western democracies to uphold their noble values. Centrally, he insisted on an attitude of compassion and love toward one’s enemies. His sermon delved deeply into Christian theology and political theory. His practical application – the philosophy of civil disobedience – would arise from moral imperatives.

King’s proposition must seem like a massive paradox: for he taught that true strength comes from love and goodness, never from violence and hatred.

King’s eloquence and depth of thought belies the fact that, defying his physician’s orders, he dragged himself out of a sickbed to give this speech. Like most good preachers, he based his sermon on a text, in this case, Matthew 5:43-45 from the Bible.

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“Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you; That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.”

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King felt that his argument was not only moral, but practical. To King, love overpowers hate by its very nature. He explained that by “love,” he meant what the ancient Greeks called agape, which is unselfish love. Such unconditional love often runs against our impulses. Instead, our impulses often drive us to respond harshly when someone wrongs us. This inclination, King told the congregation, only makes things worse:

“Hate for hate only intensifies the existence of hate and evil in the universe. If I hit you and you hit me and I hit you back and you hit me back and go on, you see, that goes on ad infinitum. It just never ends.”

King told a story about when he and his brother were driving across Tennessee. The other drivers were not dimming their lights. King’s brother threatened to shine his brights at the next car. But King protested that this could only cause an accident:

“Somebody must have sense enough to dim the lights, and that is the trouble, isn’t it? That as all of the civilizations of the world move up the highway of history, so many civilizations, having looked at other civilizations that refused to dim the lights, and they decided to refuse to dim theirs.”

That simple analogy led King to a powerful point. If nations respond to anger with more anger, if people respond to hate with more hate, we enter the down-ramp to mutual destruction. That is why King insisted that hate must be confronted with love. Hate does not defeat hate. That never works, he said. Instead, love was the universe’s greatest power:

“Somewhere, somebody must have some sense. Men must see that force begets force, hate begets hate, toughness begets toughness. And it is all a descending spiral, ultimately ending in destruction for all and everybody. Somebody must have sense enough and morality enough to cut off the chain of hate and the chain of evil in the universe. And you do that by love.”

African Americans in the 1950s suffered from horrible injustices. Especially in the states of the former Confederacy, African Americans lacked the most basic rights that other people took for granted. They could not stay in nice hotels or even drink at a cold water fountain. Laws excluded them from the best schools. A Black person in the South registered to vote only at the risk of her life. Emmitt Till had been lynched a scant two years before King’s sermon, and the Mississippi Burning murders awaited the future. By no stretch of the imagination was United States of 1957 a free country for African Americans.

Fannie Lou Hamer’s Voting Rights Speech, "Sick and Tired of Being Sick and Tired"

Yet, King insisted that monstrous injustices must be met by love.

King’s sermon gives us much to think about in 2022. Recently, people have been going to school board meetings, screaming in rage to stop their children from learning Black history. King’s message would be to confront such hatred with love, not anger.

Similarly, when people in 2022 give in to fear and vote for the angriest, meanest politician because they think that person is strong, do they not contradict King’s teaching? And was King not right? Strong leaders like Napoleon, Hitler, and Stalin did not keep their people safe. Did they?

King’s speech taught a powerful lesson. Isn’t that the best reason to give a speech? And will we listen to his lesson? Can we, as a nation, as a human species, learn that love truly is more powerful than hate? Or will we succumb to fear and ignorance? Can Christian believers find the courage to love their enemies? Not to give in to evil; that’s not what King meant, but to love their enemies? To face down evil with good? Many years later, King said that, “the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” Can people summon the courage to believe that this is true?

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Martin Luther King, Jr. Said, "The Law Can't Change the Heart, but It Can Restrain the Heartless"

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Speech, "Love, Law, and Civil Disobedience"

Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Mountaintop in Memphis, Tennessee: A Speech for the Ages

Rabbi Cahana's Sermon about the Summer of Love: Is Love the Answer to Nazism?

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P.S.: Dexter Avenue Baptist Church is now on the National Register of Historic Places

Oprah Winfrey's Eulogy for Rosa Parks: A Speech about Opposing Traditions

With Black History Month underway, let’s look back at Oprah Winfrey’s eulogy for Rosa Parks. Parks is the woman who refused to give up her seat to a white man, triggering the Montgomery bus boycott. Parks came to symbolize the heroism of ordinary people who inspired the civil rights movement. Speaking in 2005 at the Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church in Washington DC, Winfrey compared and contrasted two different kinds of tradition. We had, on the one hand, a southern tradition that Black people should defer to white people. But, on the other hand, Rosa Parks started a new tradition. Although her actions shocked southern racists in the 1950s, Parks’ new tradition inspired generations to come.


The Old Tradition: Racial Oppression

We often think that things are good just because they are old. Well, many old things are good. Time and tradition have tested Shakespeare’s plays, homemade ice cream, and the First Amendment. When something works for many years, we think that is good.

At the same time, however, tradition can never excuse injustice or wrongful deeds. A long tradition, enshrined in Alabama law, had deprived African Americans of basic rights. One of those was the simple right to occupy a bus seat that one has paid for. Indeed, just because we have done a wrong thing for a long time does not mean that we should continue to do it. Winfrey explained:

“So I thank you again, Sister Rosa, for not only confronting the one white man whose seat you took, not only confronting the bus driver, not only for confronting the law, but for confronting history, a history that for 400 years said that you were not even worthy of a glance, certainly no consideration. I thank you for not moving.”

Yes, time had tested a 400-year tradition. But when that tradition proved to be wrong, over, and over, and over, it was time to change. Rosa Parks, in her turn, started a new tradition.


A New Tradition Arose

Yes, when Rosa Parks refused to leave her seat, she rejected the old tradition. What she did was new. In Jim Crow Alabama, it was almost unprecedented. But Oprah Winfrey thanked Rosa Parks for making possible new opportunities and new traditions:

“That day that you refused to give up your seat on the bus, you, Sister Rosa, changed the trajectory of my life and the lives of so many other people in the world. I would not be standing here today nor standing where I stand every day had she not chosen to sit down. I know that. I know that. I know that. I know that, and I honor that.”

In part because of Parks’ actions, the Civil Rights movement of the 1960s has now been enshrined in law and (often, but not always) in the way Americans treat one another today. What was once new has become accepted. Every tradition started with an innovation. In her brief eulogy, Oprah Winfrey acknowledged the courage and wisdom of the woman who started the new tradition.


Will We Forget?

This does not mean that the battle has ended. Across large parts of the United States of America, angry people – white people – attend school board meetings to scream in rage because their children are being taught Black history. Many schools are backing down, removing essential parts of American history from their bookshelves for fear of offending white people who don’t want to remember people like Rosa Parks. So, the danger still exists that the evil tradition against which Parks protested could rise like a murderous zombie. Yes, racism can be violent. Black people who confronted law enforcement in the 1950s South often disappeared into jail, never to be seen again. Never underestimate Parks’ courage.

A eulogy’s purpose is to honor a person’s life by showing how that person can inspire us today. It is not enough to honor Rosa Parks. People today need to find the courage and wisdom to stand up against the forces of wickedness, no matter how old – how traditional – those forces might be. That is why Winfrey ended her speech with these defiant words:

“I owe you – to succeed.

“I will not be moved.”

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Barack Obama’s Eulogy of Clementa Pinckney

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s Speech, "Love, Law, and Civil Disobedience"

Frederick Douglass’ 1852 Fourth of July Speech and the Christian Right

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P. S. “I will not be moved” referred to the old Christian hymn, “I Shall Not Be Moved.” Winfrey’s audience surely picked up the illusion instantly.

The Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church was also the home church of Frederick Douglass. Located a few blocks north of the White House, it is on the National Register of Historic Places.

I continue to express my gratitude to my graduate school classmate, the late Martin Medhurst, and the other good people at Americanrhetoric.com who assembled such a treasure house of American public speeches.

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Research Note: Howard Kahane’s book, Logic and Contemporary Rhetoric, introduced the idea that it is a fallacy to appeal to tradition. In contrast, Boyd and Richerson’s book, Culture and the Evolutionary Process, argues that people are not very good at reasoning and are often wise to rely instead on tradition. I’m on the fence: I think that tradition is often valuable – if you click on “William D. Harpine’s Publications” above, you’ll see that I’ve often written that tradition helps us make decisions. At the same time, Kahane is right that something is not necessarily good just because it is old. Racial oppression is traditional, but it is always wrong.

Image: Ahmer Jamil Khan, via Wikimedia

Stephen Breyer's Retirement Speech Reminded Us That the United States Is an Experiment. Will Our Experiment Succeed or Fail?

Stephen Breyer

Has the United States become a failing experiment? When Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer announced his retirement on January 27, 2022, public attention focused on the search for his replacement. As so often happens, people missed his point. Breyer taught an important lesson. Let’s not overlook it. He warned the United States about its political peril, while pointing to all of us to find a solution. He told us to be optimistic, but he also said that the nation’s success was up to all of us.

In his speech announcing his retirement, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer called the United States of America “an experiment.” What an interesting word. Experiment. After almost two and a half centuries, we are an experiment? If we listen between the lines, however, we hear that Breyer’s speech offered a warning tempered by optimism. We only deserve to be optimistic if we heed his warning. That’s the irony. Was he right? After all these years, is United States still an experiment? Will our experiment succeed or fail? That is up to us, the experiment’s citizens. That was his message.


What Did Breyer Mean? An Experiment?

First, the United States was the first major nation in many centuries to establish itself as a constitutional republic. It was indeed, at its founding, an experiment. The nation’s Founders did not think about the United States Constitution as a sacred document. They considered it an experiment. That was, as we will see, Breyer’s first point.

Second, however, experiments can fail. That is the scary part. Breyer alluded, however indirectly, to the United States’ ongoing political crisis.


Is the United States Constitution an Experiment?

Breyer faced a rhetorical challenge As a judge, he wanted to rise above the political fray. Yet, he gently reminded the nation of its political crisis. To show that the United States is indeed an experiment, Breyer quoted Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. During the Civil War, Lincoln saw that the United States itself, the very idea of constitutional government, was on trial:

“And we are now engaged in a great civil war to determine whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.”

Breyer continued:

“See, those are the words I want to see: an experiment. And that’s what he thought. It’s an experiment.”

Breyer then reached farther back into history to cite the nation’s first president, George Washington:

“And I found some letters that George Washington wrote where he said the same thing: It’s an experiment. That experiment existed then because even the liberals in Europe, you know, they’re looking over here, and they’re saying that great idea in principle, but it’ll never work. But we’ll show them it does. That’s what Washington thought. And that’s what Lincoln thought. And that’s what people still think today.”

By mentioning today, Breyer asked his listeners to think about the American experiment in the present time.


Breyer Said That It’s All up to Us, the Americans of Today

It is indeed at the present time, generations after the nation’s founding, that people need to protect the American experiment. All of us, he said. Breyer continued:

“It’s us, but it’s you. It’s that next generation and the one after that. My grandchildren and their children. They’ll determine whether the experiment still works. And of course, I am an optimist, and I’m pretty sure it will.”

 
Yet, Not Everyone Believes in Our Republic

In polls, most Republicans still falsely claim that the 2020 election was stolen and that Trump actually won. Legislatures across the country are passing laws that put up absurd obstacles to restrict voting. In Texas, where I live, a mail-in ballot application has to list the Social Security number, driver’s license number, or voter number that the person used to register. Yet, in the news we learned that a World War II veteran registered many years ago, when none of those numbers were required. He therefore cannot obtain a mail-in ballot. The 95-year-old man promises that he will drag himself to the polls in person if necessary.

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Earlier Post: Liz Cheney Reminded Us of Our Values in Her Speech about Trump's False Election Claims 

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You don’t have to be 95 years old to have a problem. What if you don’t remember which number you used? Texas counties are rejecting as many as half of the ballot applications. What legitimate purpose can those mysterious voting rules serve? None, obviously. Their only purpose is to keep people from voting. Unfortunately, similar stories can be told across the nation.

In January 2021, for the first time in our nation’s history, we did not have a peaceful transfer of power. Seeking to overthrow the 2020 election, a raging mob, egged on by Republican leaders, ransacked the United States Capitol to overthrow the election’s results. After fleeing – fleeing from their own supporters! – many Republicans in the Congress bowed to the rioters and voted not to certify the election results. The United States’ constitutional system, which once seemed so secure, nearly collapsed. Is our experiment failing?

Yes, in much of the United States, the Constitution is still an experiment. The people who try to suppress American voters do not believe in the American experiment. They think that we will be better off if the experiment fails. Driven by fear – the fear of change – they seek to replace our republic with government by an arrogant minority.


What Can American Citizens Do about It?

Knowing all of this, Breyer still felt optimistic. For our American constitutional experiment to succeed, however, people have to care enough to fight for it. I don’t mean that they should fight with guns or knives. I mean to fight by voting and raising one’s political voice. That’s what Justice Breyer intended. When Abraham Lincoln himself ran for president in 1864, voter turnout ran over 73%. That was in the middle of the Civil War. Voter turnout in 2020 was less than 67%. And politicians boasted about the high turnout! Few of my university students could name the three branches of the federal government or remember who represented them in Congress. Too many gullible people believe whatever they hear on the television. Will our experiment succeed? Or fail? Let’s hope that Justice Breyer was right. Let’s hope it succeeds.

If our experiment is to succeed, people need to look for ways, big and small, to contribute to communities, and, indeed, the entire nation. Being an American means more than just to get a good job and make a lot of money. And, please, no matter what your political views might be, overcome any obstacles, register to vote, and participate in every election. A citizen’s most basic duty is to vote. Everything else is secondary.

We often blame our leaders when we have problems. Nevertheless, in a healthy republic, the people are the final authority. Let’s all take responsibility to heal our nation. As William Jennings Bryan once said, “We have submitted the issue to the American people and their will is law.” 

Was Justice Breyer’s speech too mild-mannered for our angry times? Maybe. Yet, is it not long overdue for us to tone down our political anger? Breyer was hopeful that the American people’s basic goodness will triumph. Let us all hope that he was right.

Justice Breyer was right. Our nation is an ongoing experiment. The experiment’s success is up to us. It rests on our shoulders. It rests on the shoulders of every generation.

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Earlier Post: Fannie Lou Hamer's Voting Rights Speech

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Image: US Supreme Court Webpage