Next level communicators understand words are actions
Next level communicators understand words are actions.
Nowhere is this more true than on the evening of March 15th, 1965. By the time President Lyndon Johnson stood to speak, the issue of voting rights was front and center, brought to the fore by the tireless efforts of the civil rights movement, specifically in Selma, Alabama. Just beginning his first full term as president, and eligible to run again in 1968 (which he famously declined), the easy thing for Johnson would have been to delay, to put things off until his final term. Why risk his political future, especially when there were so many in the audience that evening who would be standing in his way? Obviously, Johnson felt otherwise; that the time was now. He knew if he was going to bring about the right kind of actions, he had to use the right words. Here are some of those words:
I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy…At times, history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man’s unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama.
There is no cause for pride in what has happened in Selma…But there is cause for hope and for faith in our democracy in what is happening here tonight. For the cries of pain, the sound of clubs, the protests of oppressed people- like some great trumpet- have summoned into convocation all the majesty of this government of the greatest nation on the earth…
Rarely in any time does an issue lay bare the secret heart of America itself. Rarely are we met with a challenge, not to our growth or abundance, for our welfare or our security, but rather to the values, and the purposes, and the meaning of our beloved nation. The issue of equal rights for American Negroes is such an issue…
There is no Negro problem. There is no southern problem. There is no northern problem. There is only an American problem. And we are met here tonight as Americans- not as Democrats or Republicans…we are met here as Americans to solve that problem…
Many of the issues of civil rights are very complex and most difficult. But about this there can and should be no argument. Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote…
Wednesday I will send to Congress a law designed to eliminate illegal barriers to the right to vote…
There is no constitutional issue here. The command of the Constitution is plain. There is no moral issue. It is wrong- deadly wrong- to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country. There is no issue of States rights or national rights. There is only the struggle for human rights…
But even if we pass this bill, the battle will not be over. What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches in every section and state of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life. Their cause must be our cause too. Because it’s not just Negroes, but really it’s all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice…
AND…WE…SHALL..OVERCOME.
Dr. King, watching from Alabama, cried. Five months later the voting rights bill was signed into law.
As growing communicators, I want to draw our attention to a few takeaways from President Johnson’s speech:
Clear. You’ve heard me say it again, and you’ll hear me say it many more times in future posts: Clarity is the best friend of the next level communicator, and LBJ models this. He is clear in calling out the problem, and he is clear as it relates to what he needs his audience to do in order to solve the problem. Next level communicators befriend clarity in every talk to bring their audience to a place of action.
Anticipatory. In the future, I will come back to this point, but please notice that exceptional communicators always anticipate their audience's objections to their argument, and answer them before they can raise their critiques. Johnson understands there are people in his audience who are from the north who would be tempted to look down on the southern representatives, and vice versa. Notice he calls this out when he says in essence that this isn’t a southern or a northern issue, but an American one. Brilliant! His ability to anticipate, helps him to unify and bring about his objective. Every time you put a message together, ask what the major objections to your points may be, and build into your talk, where appropriate, responses to those critiques.
Honest. Notice the line when President Johnson admits, “Many of the issues of civil rights are very complex and most difficult”? See what he’s doing here? He’s keeping his audience focused on the task at hand. It would be so easy to allow the subject of voting rights to get held hostage by other important but complicated issues, that it becomes a distraction. LBJ honestly admits the complexities surrounding the civil rights movement, and uses his honesty to help keep his audience focused.
Courageous. I mean this is just throughout this whole speech, which puts it in the genre of the prophetic (not foretelling but forth or truth telling). He ends by quoting the anthem of the civil rights movement, “We shall overcome”. He also calls out the injustice of voter registration discrimination on the basis of color. Do the research and you’ll discover history’s most profound speeches share the common denominator of courage.
Hopeful. Courageous should never mean dour, sullen or gloomy, though. I mean think how easy it would have been to just get up and guilt people with the truth. If President Johnson had taken this approach he would not have accomplished his objective. Instead, if you both read and watch the speech, you will sense a hopefulness, a we-can-do-this posture, which I believe was the key to the bill getting signed into law. In the same way, if people don’t leave your talk feeling a sense of hope that the change you’re calling for can legitimately happen, then you’ve just weighed them down with a tremendous burden. Let’s take a page out of Johnson and be hopeful communicators.
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