CBS News Radio flashback: LBJ calls for equal voting rights after Selma march in 1965

Added: 2026-05-13

[00:00:00]Welcome back. We take you to the spring of 1965. It was a troubled time in America and President Lyndon Johnson fresh off the deeply disturbing images of Bloody Sunday in Selma. And for those of you not old enough to know about that, that refers to the beatings suffered by protesters crossing the Edund Pettis Bridge in Selma, Alabama in route they hoped for Montgomery. All this in pursuit of voting rights for African-Americans. A cause Johnson was about to make his own with a speech to a joint session of Congress.

[00:00:29]This is CBS News correspondent Dave Schumaser with a CBS News special report on President Johnson's speech to a joint session of Congress. Tonight's appearance by the president on Capitol Hill was at the invitation of congressional leaders, at least formally, and is considered somewhat unusual. It's taken as a sign of Mr. Johnson's concern with recent events in Alabama, his desire for quick action on voting rights, and also perhaps his sensitivity to criticism that the administration has not been doing all it could in this area.

[00:01:01]>> CBS News Radio continued its coverage, painting a portrait of a president about to lay down a rhetorical marker for the ages.

[00:01:08]>> You have just heard Housekeeper Fishbake Miller announce the president of the United States. The president comes down the aisle nodding to familiar faces, men that he's known most of his adult life here on Capitol Hill.

[00:01:23]He now mounts the podium, shake hand, shakes hands with those standing just to the side, reaches up to shake hands with the vice president and house speakers McCormick.

[00:01:33]>> CBS News Radio then carried the remarks which echo today as the nation assesses a new what voting rights mean.

[00:01:40]I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy.

[00:01:49]I urge every member of both parties, Americans of all religions and of all colors from every section of this country to join me in that cause.

[00:02:09]At times, history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom.

[00:02:26]So it was at Lexington and Concord.

[00:02:30]So it was a century ago at Appamatics.

[00:02:35]So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.

[00:02:40]There longsuffering men and women peacefully protested the denial of their rights as Americans.

[00:02:52]Many were brutally assaulted.

[00:02:56]One good man, a man of God, was killed.

[00:03:04]There is no cause for pride in what has happened in Selma.

[00:03:11]There is no cause for self-satisfaction in the long denial of equal rights of millions of Americans.

[00:03:22]But there is cause for hope and for faith in our democracy in what is happening here tonight.

[00:03:34]For the cries of pain and the hymns and protests of oppressed people have summoned into convocation all the majesty of this great government, the government of the greatest nation on earth.

[00:03:54]Johnson went on, as presidents do on rare occasions, to lift our sights above the day-to-day to something higher, something deeper.

[00:04:02]>> But rarely in any time does an issue lay bear the secret heart of America itself.

[00:04:13]Rarely are we met with a challenge not to our growth or abundance or our welfare or our security, but rather to the values and the purposes and the meaning of our beloved nation.

[00:04:32]>> The date March 15, 1965. Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, August 6, 1965.

[00:04:38]That was carried on CBS News Radio as