Speeches

Opening Remarks by U.S. Ambassador Cesar Cabrera
at the Video Discussion:  “The March”

Wednesday, January 30, 2008
Human Rights Center

Honorable Rama Valayden, Attorney General, Minister of Justice and Human Rights;

Distinguished guests,

Welcome.  I am very pleased that you have accepted our invitation to join us this afternoon for a discussion on today’s film, “The March.”  I’d like to express my appreciation to Minister Valayden and the staff of the Ministry of Human Rights for allowing us to view the film “The March” here at the Human Rights Center

Today we are watching and discussing the film, “The March” in commemoration of Dr. Martin Luther King.  We celebrate Dr. King as an ordinary American who did extraordinary things.  We remember him as a powerful speaker, a civil rights activist, and a leader who changed – for the better - American society.

Dr. King lived in a very different world from the America of today.  The law declared that Americans of different races should be “separate but equal” – white Americans and black Americans attended different schools and churches, received treatment in different hospitals and rode in different parts of the bus.  Dr. King recognized that this policy of segregation amounted to discrimination and made people’s lives unequal.  He resolved to fight this injustice in a nonviolent way, and to work for the freedom of all peoples. 

 He embraced nonviolence as a method of social reform after being introduced to the nonviolent philosophy of Mahatma Gandhi while doing graduate work at Pennsylvania’s Crozer Seminary.  Dr. King became “convinced that Gandhi’s was the only moral and practical way for oppressed people to struggle against social injustice.”

Americans recognize Dr. King’s enduring legacy.  Since the civil rights movement, other groups facing discrimination in America – and in the world -- have taken inspiration from Dr. King’s ideals, life, and writings, and have successfully used them to improve the lives of other disadvantage groups.  American women, ethnic minorities, people living with disabilities, people living with HIV/AIDS, and other groups have used Dr. King’s methods – powerful rhetoric and nonviolent protest – to enact legislation to protect their rights and make American society a more just and open one.
 
The film we are about to watch concerns the march on Washington, D.C. on August 31, 1963.  The high point of the day was Dr. Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech.  The March involved hundreds of thousands of civil rights marchers who gathered on the Washington Mall near the Lincoln Memorial.  The activists intended the March to help convince Congress to pass a civil rights bill.  The Civil Rights Bill was later signed by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965.

The legacy of Dr. King lives on.  He believed in the power of ideas and took risks to help turn those ideas into reality.  Many people around the world today emulate him in their own work for social justice.

Once again, thank you very much for accepting our invitation and joining us today.