Obama’s 2015 Selma speech excerpts to be chiseled on Obama Center facade

WASHINGTON — The words to be chiseled on two sides of the museum tower in the Obama Presidential Center will be from the speech ex-President Barack Obama delivered in Selma to mark the 50^th anniversary of civil rights marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, the foundation announced Sunday.

Obama, the nation’s first Black president, delivered the remarks on March 7, 2015. The foundation chose to unveil a significant and defining architectural detail at the top of the high-rise structure, on the 56^th anniversary of what has become known as “Bloody Sunday,” a turning point in civil rights history.

The Selma marchers, including the late Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., who died in July, were beaten on the bridge by state troopers, with the protests eventually leading to the passage of the Voting Rights Act.

In the rendering provided by the foundation, the words appear to be ornamental, floating in a decorative filigree. A foundation official said the words will not be fully readable given the height of the tower.

The foundation posted what will be on the façade:

“You are America. Unconstrained by habit and convention. Unencumbered by what is, ready to seize what ought to be. For everywhere in this country, there are first steps to be taken, there is new ground to cover, there are more bridges to be crossed. America is not the project of any one person. The single most powerful word in our democracy is the word ‘We.’ ‘We The People.’ ‘We Shall Overcome.’ ‘Yes We Can.’ That word is owned by no one. It belongs to everyone. Oh, what a glorious task we are given to continually try to improve this great nation of ours.”

The Chicago Sun-Times compared the excerpt provided by the foundation with the actual speech; the excerpt combines two separate portions of Obama’s remarks.

During Obama’s primary battle with Hillary Clinton, the two rivals were in Selma on March 4, 2007, the 42^nd anniversary of the march. Speaking in a church, Obama talked about how he stood on the shoulders of the “Joshua Generation” before him.

In a video released Sunday, Obama reflected on the role Selma played in the voting and civil rights movement and why, of all the speeches he made during his two terms, he and Michelle Obama wanted to highlight his Selma speech in perpetuity.

“Part of the reason why we thought that this excerpt was appropriate to be etched in the building itself is because it speaks to the priorities of the foundation. Our goal is not to just create a monument to my presidency, but rather to describe for anybody who visits how Michelle and I and so many others stood on the shoulders of those who had fought the good fight before us,” he said.

“And hopefully, that then will inspire a new generation of activists. We want them to go through the exhibits and the stories and the images of my presidency and say, “Oh, this is a part of me. This belongs to me.”

Obama museum director Louis Bernard, in a statement on the foundation website, said the letters “will be carved into the structure in such a way that visitors will be able to look out through the words onto the South and West sides of Chicago,” a reference, perhaps, to the Black neighborhoods in the city.

The façade material has not yet been selected.

A foundation official told the Sun-Times, “Given the height of the building and the fact that the screen wraps the western and southern sides at the top of the building, the words/sentences are not intended to be fully “readable,” although certain words or phrases may stand out.

“The full excerpt of the text will be available for all to access at the Center, digitally, and presented in the historical context of Selma to Montgomery and the 50th anniversary of Bloody Sunday as told in the Museum’s core exhibits.”

Preserving and expanding voting rights is a priority of Democrats, and on Sunday, President Joe Biden, Obama’s vice president, also marking the Selma anniversary, signed an executive order instructing all federal agencies to increase access to voter registration.

Groundbreaking for the complex in Jackson Park will be sometime this year, the foundation earlier announced.