Jackson advocate., 1963-06-08
Remarks Of Vice President Lyndon
B. johnson Memorial Day At
Gettysburg, Pa.

lowing as our eQlCOrlal or the week because we see
in it for the first time, second to Lincon'S great
Gettysburg Address)
On this hallowed ground, heroic deeds were per-
formed and eloquent words were spoken a century
ago.
We, the living, have not forgotten-and the
world will never forget-the deeds or the words of
Gettysburg. We honor them now as we join on this
Memorial Day of 1868 in prayer for permanent
peace of the world and fulflment of our hopes for
universal freedom and justice
We are called to honor our own words of rev.
erent prayer with resolution in the deeds we must
perform to preserve peace and the hope of freedom
We keep vigil of peace around the world
Until the world knows no aggressors, until the
arms of tyranny have been laid down, until free
dom has risen up in every land, we shall maintain
our vigil to make sure sons who died on foreign
fields shall not have died in vain.
AS we maintain the vigil of peace we must
remember that justice is vigil, too-a vigil
must keep in streets and schools & among
the lives of all our people-so that those who died
here their native soil shall not have died in vain.
One hundred years ago, the slave freed
One hundred years later the Negro remains in
bondage to the color of his skin.
The Negro today asks justice.
We do not answer hinl-we do not answer those
who lie beneath this soil-when reply to the Ne
gro by asking, Patience
1t is empty to plead that the solution to the
dilemmas of the present rests on the hands of the
clock The solution is in our hands Unless we are
willing to yield up destiny of greatness among
the civilizations of history, Americans-whte and
Negro tOgether-must be about the business of re-
solving the challenge which confronts now.
Our nation found it's soul in honor on these
fields of Gettysburg one hundred years ago. We
must not lose that soul in dshonor the fields
of hate.
To ask for patience from the Negro is to ask
him to give more of what he has already given
enough. But to fail to ask of him-and of all Amer
icans-perseverance within the processes of free
and responsible society would be to fail to ask what
the national interest requires of all its citizens.
The law cannot save those who deny it but
neither can the law serve any who do not use it.
The history of injustice and inequality is history
of dsuse of the law. Law has not failed-and is
not failing. We as nation have failed ourselves
by not trusting the law and by not using the law to
gain sooner the ends of justice which law alone
serves
If the white over-estimates what he has done
for the Negro without the law, the Negro may
underestimate what he is doing and can do for
himself with the law
If it is empty to ask Negro or white for pa
tience, it is not empty-it is merely honest-to ask
perseverance. Men may build barricades - and 9TH
ers may hurl themselves against those barricades-
DuC WnaC would happen at Lne DarrlcaueS WOulu
yield no answers. The answers will only be wrought
by perseverance together 1t is deceit to prom
ise more as it would be cowardce to demand less.
In this hour, it is not our respective
which are at stake - it is our nation. Let those
who care for their country come forward North
and South, white and Negro to lead the way through
this moment of challenge and decision.
The Negro says, "No." Others say, Never"
The voice of responsible Americans - the voice Of
those who died here and the great man who spoke
here-their voices say, Together" There is no
other way.
Until justice is blind to color, until education is
unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned
with the color of mems skins, emancipation will be
proclamation but not fact. To the extent that
the proclamation of emancipation is not fulfilled in
fact to that extent shall have fallen short of
suring freedom to the free.