This blog post is going to be a little bit different then my other posts  (I’ll explain that later).

In my PLP class, we were given the task of finding a past civil rights event that mirrors one of the near present.

What came to my mind immediately is Barrack Obama. On November 4, Obama won the American presidency with 365 electoral votes to 173 received by his opponent, a caucasian American. Obama won 52.9% of the popular vote and became the first African American to be elected president.

I also thought about former president Lyndon B. Johnson and his “We Shall Overcome” speech.

Now the reason this is so interesting is that in 2015 Obama made a speech to honour the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery marches. In case you did not know, this was a very important march. Throughout March of 1965, a group of demonstrators faced violence as they attempted to march from Selma, Alabama, to Montgomery, Alabama, to demand the right to vote for black people. One of the pivotal days was March 7, when 17 people were injured by police. After these marches, Johnson addressed the American public, appealing to their sense of right and compassion and assuring them that as a people, they would “overcome” the violence and separation that was characterizing the times.

I find it interesting that it took another 50 years before America elected an African American president and even then, this president, Obama, was appealing to the American people in a similar way.

In the link below, I will demonstrate how Obama’s 2015 speech to honour the 50th anniversary of the Selma to Montgomery marches mirrors former President Lyndon B. Johnson’s “We Shall Overcome” speech.

I hope you find it as interesting as I do and that it makes you think about how much time it takes for a nation to begin to change its mindset around things like civil rights.

Now, you may be wondering why I said this would be different from my other posts. Well, the answer to that is that I will be doing the rest of this post in as an I book!!!