President Barack Obama was right: It wasn’t as good.
But, standing in the same spot at the foot of the Lincoln Memorial where Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech 50 years ago to the day, Obama defied the low expectations he set for himself and delivered a powerful oration underscoring the meaning of King’s vision for all Americans, regardless of race, and the nation’s next generation. King’s work, and that of other fallen civil rights heroes, is not done, Obama said.
“They did not die in vain. Their victory was great,” he said. “But we would dishonor those heroes, as well, to suggest that the work of this nation is somehow complete. The arc of the moral universe may bend towards justice, but it doesn’t bend on its own.”
Obama acted as the connective tissue joining a civil rights campaign that reached its apex in his childhood to the modern issues of voting rights and stand-your-ground laws that confront him as president. Starting slowly, he slipped into the familiar cadence and upward inflection of a preacher and movement leader that characterized his 2008 campaign speeches rather than his more staid presidential addresses.
(WATCH: Obama’s full remarks at 50th anniversary of March on Washington)
On Wednesday, the crowd remained flat for much of the speech, though it began to roar as Obama’s pitch intensified midway through the 28-minute address.
But the president never quite reached for, or attained, the impossible-to-match righteous indignation that animated King’s most famous oratory.
“No one can match King’s brilliance,” Obama said, a bit self-consciously.
Instead, Obama went to his political comfort zone, describing the universality of King’s vision for equality of opportunity in America in the post-racial terms that informed his first run for the presidency.
“Dr. King explained that the goals of African-Americans were identical to working people of all races: decent wages, fair working conditions, livable housing, old-age security, health and welfare measures — conditions in which families can grow, have education for their children and respect in the community,” Obama said. “What King was describing has been the dream of every American.”
(PHOTOS: 50th anniversary of MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech)
He quoted both King and scripture, drawing on the Book of Psalms to describe the foot soldiers of the civil rights movement as “people who could have given up and given in, but kept on keeping on, knowing that weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning.”
Earlier Wednesday morning, Obama had tried to set realistic expectations for his own speech — which, at roughly 3,000 words, nearly doubled the length of King’s address.
“Let me just say for the record right now, it won’t be as good,” Obama told radio host Tom Joyner. “Because when you’re talking about Dr. King’s speech at the March on Washington, you’re talking about one of the maybe five greatest speeches in American history. And the words that he spoke at the particular moment, with so much at stake, and the way in which he captured the hopes and dreams of an entire generation, I think is unmatched.”
Obama’s 2008 campaign manager, David Plouffe, nodded to a different historical standard, sending a Wednesday tweet recalling the president’s convention speech in Denver that year.
“Historic moment 5 yrs ago made more so by falling on anniversary of the March,” Plouffe Tweeted with a link to video of Obama’s acceptance.
(Also on POLITICO: Bill Clinton calls for action in speech)
Obama capped a daylong tribute that contrasted sharply in form, if not in basic message, with the 1963 March on Washington — and not just for the symbolic image of white park police holding umbrellas to keep black speakers dry in a light rain that fell intermittently during the ceremony.
It was generally presidents and performers, not preachers, who took center stage at Wednesday’s commemoration. Fifty years ago, a relative handful of civil rights leaders — King, A. Philip Randolph, Whitney Young, John Lewis and others — stepped to the microphones between Lincoln’s statue and the National Mall’s reflecting pool.
One notable exception to that rule was John Lewis, the Georgia congressman who got his start at the juncture of civil rights and politics as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee and was one of only a handful of featured speakers at the 1963 march.
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