LGBT Americans Honored in Obama’s Selma Address

Today President Obama addressed a crowd in Selma, Alabama to commemorate the 50^th Anniversary of Bloody Sunday, a historic milestone in the civil rights movement. The president said that there are places that define America’s destiny and Selma was one of those places.

“In one afternoon fifty years ago, so much of our turbulent history – the stain of slavery and anguish of civil war; the yoke of segregation and tyranny of Jim Crow; the death of four little girls in Birmingham, and the dream of a Baptist preacher – met on this bridge. It was not a clash of armies, but a clash of wills; a contest to determine the meaning of America.

“And because of men and women like John Lewis, Joseph Lowery, Hosea Williams, Amelia Boynton, Diane Nash, Ralph Abernathy, C.T. Vivian, Andrew Young, Fred Shuttlesworth, Dr. King, and so many more, the idea of a just America, a fair America, an inclusive America, a generous America – that idea ultimately triumphed,” President Obama said.

The president honored the legacy of Selma by talking about other groups that have benefitted from the clash on the Edmund Pettus Bridge. “Because of what they did, the doors of opportunity swung open not just for African-Americans, but for every American.  Women marched through those doors.  Latinos marched through those doors.  Asian-Americans, gay Americans, and Americans with disabilities came through those doors.  Their endeavors gave the entire South the chance to rise again, not by reasserting the past, but by transcending the past.” President Obama continued.

The president speaking of the progress that has been made said ask a “gay friend if it is not easier to be out and proud” than it was thirty years ago. Speaking of American exceptionalism and how the nation has been born from change, he said “We are the gay Americans whose blood ran on the streets of San Francisco and New York, just as blood ran down this bridge.”

President Obama has been the first American president to be so inclusive of the LGBT community in his speeches, as well as his administration’s actions. He frequently makes the link between civil rights struggles of African-Americans, women, LGBT, Asians and Latinos.