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| Vivian Malone |
"Humiliating" is probably too tame of a word to use when describing the experience. My students
shifted uncomfortably in their seats as I pressed forward with the story of how George Wallace blocked two African-American students from entering the University of Alabama. Everyone avoided making eye contact with me as I told them that President Kennedy sent in the National Guard to escort Vivian Malone and James Hood past the Governor, past the police, and into the school. I was choked up, I couldn't help it!
We were honestly all relieved when the story was over.
Today's lesson discussed the bully pulpit, the power of the president to speak directly to Americans. This phrase was first coined by Theodore Roosevelt when he discovered that the president has a unique ability to speak to the American people. He realized that when the president speaks, people listen. We tune in to hear President Obama speak on the Syrian crisis. We tune in to hear how President Bush is going to respond to the attacks on 9-11. We make sure to listen when President Clinton addresses the nation regarding the Oklahoma City bombings. We listen, and we listen to the president far more than we listen to any other person in Washington.
In order to emphasize this power, I showed my students the speech that President Kennedy gave in response to the aforementioned incident at the University of Alabama. I have shown this video to my students for two years, and even after my ninth viewing, I still find it incredibly moving.
President Kennedy delivered one powerful indictment after the other, each one accusing Americans of blatant hypocrisy and cowardice. One particularly moving excerpt reads:
If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he can not send his children to the best public school available, if he cannot vote for the public officials who represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place? [Emphasis mine]
As I watched Kennedy's speech today and as I lectured my students regarding the unique power of the president to influence the minds and attitudes of Americans, I wondered to myself when we will have a president who is courageous enough to use his bully pulpit to plead for the rights of America's forgotten generation. President Kennedy didn't give his address at the end of the battle. President Kennedy gave his address in the days and months following some of the most aggressive and assertive acts of discrimination in the 20th century. He acted in a manner that displayed the courage of his convictions and demonstrated boldness because he believed so firmly in the rightness of his cause.
When will we have a president who shows that much courage?
There were an estimated 1,212,400 abortions in the United States in 2011.
An estimated 22% of all U.S. pregnancies end in abortion.
In 2011, North Carolina had approximately 26,192 abortions performed state-wide.
In 2010, there were approximately 3,302 abortions performed in Wake County.
According to World-O-Meters, there have been 35,635,026 abortions performed in 2013.
I want a president who uses his unique power and position to plead for the lives of the unborn in the United States. I want a president who is willing to endure the angry words and accusations that will certainly come because of his stance protecting the lives of the unborn. I want a president, a governor, a congressman/woman, a senator who uses their unique position to ardently defend the rights of children whose lives are cut short by abortion.
Kennedy said, "We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the Scriptures and is as clear as the American Constitution." Kennedy was right in 1963 and his sentiment is just as poignant today.
Sources:
Transcript of Kennedy's Civil Rights Address- PBS
World-O-Meter Abortion Statistics
Abortion Statistics- Guttmacher Institute
Graham to Introduce Abortion Bill- Politico
