AUSTIN, Texas — For three days, the veterans of a long-ago movement reunited and drew together their spiritual heirs to explore the legacy of the Civil Rights Act a half-century after it transformed America. And then the legacy walked onstage.
President Obama presented himself Thursday as the living, walking, talking and governing embodiment of the landmark 1964 law that banned discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, or national origin.
In a speech that stirred an audience of civil rights champions here at the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum, Obama acknowledged that racism has hardly been erased and that government programs have not always succeeded. But, he added, “I reject such cynicism because I have lived out the promise of LBJ’s efforts, because Michelle has lived out the legacy of those efforts, because my daughters have lived out the legacy of those efforts.”
Thanks to the law and the movement that spawned it and the progress made after it, Obama said, “new doors of opportunity and education swung open for everybody,” regardless of race, ethnicity, disability or sexual orientation. “They swung open for you, and they swung open for me,” he said. “And that’s why I’m standing here today, because of those efforts, because of that legacy.”
The president’s speech marking the 50th anniversary of the law Johnson signed in July 1964 was one more moment for Obama to address his own role in history. Although Obama often seemed reluctant to be drawn into discussions of race relations in his first term, insistent on being the president of everyone, he has been more open in talking about it since winning reelection.
Obama made unusually personal comments after the case of Trayvon Martin, the Florida teen whose death two years ago set off a roiling national debate about race, saying the slain young black man “could have been me.” He recently created an initiative called My Brother’s Keeper to help young men of color, and he has been more vocal about voting rights and equal pay for women. His administration has become more active in looking for ways to curb racial profiling by law enforcement and disparities in criminal sentencing. On Friday, he will address the Rev. Al Sharpton’s organization.
“The second election and final election is behind him, so he’s free,” Representative John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia, the civil rights icon who introduced Obama, said in an interview afterward. “There’s something about not having to run again that frees you. He’s liberated, and I do think he’s speaking out more.”
Still, Obama used most of Thursday’s address to extol Johnson in what could be the most generous speech by any sitting president about the Texan since his funeral, one that all but ignored the Vietnam War. Obama offered little of his own personal journey on race .
Nor did Obama use the speech to advance his policy priorities. He did not mention overhauling immigration, perhaps his biggest legislative goal, and did not say anything about same-sex marriage, which has been the most expansive social change during his presidency.
“He did a kind of inspiration and that’s important,” the Rev. Jesse Jackson, said in an interview. “But beyond inspiration, we need the legislation, the budget, and the policies to protect Johnson’s legacy.”
Obama was one of four presidents to address the conference. Jimmy Carter spoke Tuesday and Bill Clinton on Wednesday. George W. Bush spoke Thursday evening.
Bush used an evening speech to call the achievement gap between white and black children “a national scandal” and to urge both parties to address it as the central civil rights issue of the modern era.
Bush, who as president signed the No Child Left Behind education law, lamented that “gains have stalled” and noted that a typical 17-year-old African-American student reads at the same level as a 13-year-old white student. Addressing critics of No Child Left Behind, he said he did not object to adjustments.
“But the problem comes when people start to give up on the goal,” he said. “Some have ideological objections to any federal role in education. Some are too comfortable with status quo. The alliance between ideology and complacency seems to be getting stronger. I fear that the soft bigotry of low expectations is returning.”