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April 11, 2014

Obama Pays Tribute to Civil Rights Act on 50th Anniversary 
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Obama paid tribute to the civil rights movement and President Lyndon
Johnson Thursday during an event at the Johnson Presidential Library in
Austin, Texas. Obama hailed the passage of social programs like Medicare
as well as the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which was gutted last year by
the Supreme Court. The event marked 50 years since Johnson signed the
landmark Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964.

President Obama: "I reject such cynicism because I have lived out the
promise of LBJ's efforts, because Michelle has lived out the legacy of
those efforts, because my daughters have lived out the legacy of those
efforts, because I and millions of my generation were in a position to
take the baton that he handed to us."

Outside the library, immigrant rights activists chained themselves to a
statue of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to protest the Obama
administration's record deportation of immigrants, two-thirds of whom
have committed minor infractions, like traffic violations, or had no
criminal record at all.

 

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