The following is an excerpt from Tulsi Gabbard's new book, For Love of Country: Leave the Democrat Party Behind, published by Regnery and out April 30.
As we sat on the bus traveling through Alabama, stopping at several historically significant sites of the Civil Rights Movement in Alabama, John Lewis and some of his fellow Freedom Riders shared firsthand accounts of what they experienced.
About 600 people, most of them Black, lined up on one side of the Edmund Pettus Bridge, named after the last Confederate general to serve in the U.S. Senate, who was also the leader of the Alabama Ku Klux Klan. Their plan was to march more than 50 miles to the Alabama state capitol in Montgomery and demand that Governor George Wallace protect Black Alabamans' right to vote. Wallace had gotten wind of this plan ahead of time, however, and declared that "a march cannot and will not be tolerated," adding that it was his duty to ensure "the protection of the lives and property of our citizens and those traveling through our state."
Standing in Selma and staring across the bridge to the other side, John Lewis and his fellow marchers saw "a sea of blue-helmeted, blue-uniformed Alabama state troopers, line after line of them, dozens of battle-ready lawmen stretched from one side of U.S. Highway 80 to the other."
John Lewis knelt on the ground and prayed. Hundreds of other marchers did the same. Writing in Walking with the Wind, he remembers "the clunk of the troopers' heavy boots, the whoops of rebel yells from the white onlookers, the clip-clop of horses' hooves hitting the hard asphalt of the highway..."
Most people would have turned and run. Not John Lewis. Grounded in his faith in God, he remained kneeling, as did nearly everyone who had come to march with him that day. And then, he writes, "they were upon us."
John suffered a skull fracture, retreating on wobbly legs to Brown Chapel. That night the nation was horrified to see the footage of what had happened on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The brutality used against the Freedom Riders by law enforcement at the order of the governor shook Americans across the country out of their complacency.
The awakening that occurred that day, which became known as Bloody Sunday, made it possible for President Lyndon Johnson to win the support necessary to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965. For years, similar legislation had been blocked by Southern Democrats in Congress. But after the events of Bloody Sunday, President Johnson, himself a Southern Democrat, stood up to members of his party and led the effort to ensure that all Americans, regardless of race, were respected and guaranteed their right to vote.
On March 25, 1965, less than three weeks after Bloody Sunday, Martin Luther King Jr., speaking from the steps of the state capitol in Montgomery, Alabama, declared that segregation was "on its deathbed."
As I stood on one side of the Edmund Pettus Bridge with John Lewis and a few dozen other members of Congress, I felt the gravity and weight of what those who had come before us endured. I was inspired by the courage and strength of character of those who had stood in this very spot and chosen to kneel in prayer to God instead of running away from their attackers and oppressors. A flood of emotion washed over me as we slowly began our walk across the bridge. It was an experience I will never forget. A hundred-plus people, walking arm in arm, honoring those who sacrificed their own well-being so others could walk free. Someone in the crowd started to sing, impromptu, "this little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine" and, one by one, people began joining in, until the vibration from over a hundred voices reverberated through the air.
As we walked across that bridge, I felt immense pride to live in a country where such transformational change had come about because of a courageous movement of peaceful protest and civil disobedience. I was struck not only by what the leaders of the Civil Rights Era had achieved, but how they had achieved it. They did not claim to have special rights; they asserted their equal rights. They did not denigrate the Founders of this nation or our founding documents; rather, they cited them in their defense. They did not claim that the United States was an irredeemable, hopeless place; instead, they dedicated their lives to make it better. They did not think America was defined by racism; they believed it was defined by its ideals—that all men are created equal and endowed by our Creator with unalienable rights. They chose to see the good in their fellow citizens. They knew that peaceful demonstrations would win more hearts and minds than violent riots ever could. In August 1963, in his famous "I Have a Dream" speech, Dr. King called the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution "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."
So-called progressives roll their eyes and summarily dismiss the sentiments that the Reverend King expressed. They see his dream as passé. They reject or ignore the truth that we are all children of God. They do not believe we are all created equal. They openly advocate for anti-white racism and insist that anyone who refuses to support their plan to turn Americans against one another is a racist himself. They believe we must judge each other by the color of our skin and segregate our society based on two classes: the oppressed (all people of color) and the oppressor (all white people).
It is astounding and deeply disturbing to see these influential leaders in the Democrat Party betraying the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream, fomenting divisiveness and discrimination and hate based on race.
If things keep going on this way, we should not be surprised to see a rise in race-based violence in America.
Tulsi Gabbard is a former U.S. Congresswoman from Hawaii and a former presidential candidate. Her new book For Love of Country: Leave the Democrat Party Behind, is out this week.
The views expressed in this excerpt are the writer's own.
