Happy six-month anniversary of the Iran war to all who celebrate. Happy Thursday.
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We Shall Overcome Again
by William Kristol
The news can get you down these days. We have a demagogue and megalomaniac in the Oval Office and grifters and fanatics in high office, supported by a movement for whom cruelty is the point and a political party complicit in that cruelty.
But then something happens to remind you that all is not lost. That sooner or later—hopefully sooner!—we shall prevail.
Yesterday I was at Terminal 1 at Reagan National Airport in D.C. The gates were jammed with passengers looking forward to a late summer getaway weekend, or eager to get back home from work, or bringing kids to college. It was a familiar airport scene of busy and preoccupied travelers.
Then a couple of Honor Flights arrived. The Honor Flight Network brings veterans from around the nation to Washington, free of charge, as a way of showing them the appreciation and honor they deserve. The program was originally designed for World War II-era veterans but now includes Korean War and Vietnam vets. These veterans visit the monuments on the Mall and Arlington National Cemetery to honor the fallen and to have a chance to share their stories and experiences with comrades.
There was no loudspeaker announcement that the flights had arrived. But as the veterans deplaned, and the word spread to neighboring gates, travelers throughout the terminal rose in a spontaneous and sustained standing ovation. People reached out to shake hands with the veterans, some in wheelchairs. Many of them had tears in their eyes. And so did many of us.
There were others on the incoming flights who had traveled to Washington for another reason. They were here for a commemoration of the anniversary of the 1963 March on Washington. The march was organized by the great Bayard Rustin and A. Philip Randolph, who built an alliance of civil rights, labor, and religious organizations that brought some 250,000 people to D.C. Its purpose was to tell our political leaders—and the nation—that the time had come to move forward, at last, on civil rights, on political equality, and on economic opportunity for black Americans.
The rally on the Mall, 63 years ago today, had many highlights, including Joan Baez leading the crowd in the civil rights anthem, “We Shall Overcome.” But the rally culminated in its final speech, delivered by the 34-year-old Martin Luther King Jr.
Standing in front of the Lincoln Memorial, King explained, in the spirit of Lincoln, that
When the architects of our Republic wrote the magnificent words of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence, they were signing a promissory note to which every American was to fall heir. This note was a promise that all men—yes, black men as well as white men—would be guaranteed the unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
King emphasized that “we must forever conduct our struggle on the high plane of dignity and discipline.” He discussed the challenges black Americans—and their white allies—faced in the current struggle.
And he concluded with the famous peroration:
I say to you today, my friends, even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream. I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up, live out the true meaning of its creed . . .
This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning. “My country, ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountain side, let freedom ring.” And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true. . . .
When we allow freedom to ring—when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual, “Free at last, Free at last, Great God a-mighty, We are free at last.”
We made progress towards King’s dream—toward the American dream—over the subsequent half century. But we’ve regressed in the last decade. And our current president and administration are trying very hard to accelerate that regression. They have the levers of power, and they’re using them against our rights, against our freedoms, and against the principles and promise of the Declaration.
But the moment at the airport yesterday, when the veterans of the fight for democracy against fascism and communism united with the veterans of the fight for freedom against racist oppression, somehow reassured me about our nation. We can renew our progress toward living out the true meaning of our creed. We can get back on course to being a great nation. We shall once again overcome, someday.
AROUND THE BULWARK
MAGA’s 2028 Civil War Is Already Here… JD Vance’s allies believe there is a mysterious plot underway to thwart his prospective 2028 run, writes JAKE LAHUT. Are they right—or just paranoid?
The Autocrat’s Guide to Purging Your Inner Circle… Elite purges are a hallmark of authoritarian politics. But as autocracies multiply worldwide, those internal disruptions threaten to spill over into global crises, observes JULIAN G. WALLER.
How Copyright Law Is Being Used to Squelch Speech… On The Bulwark Goes to Hollywood, ERIQ GARDNER