oh and i don t want to die for you with congress out this week for spring recess, we re featuring american history tv and prime time. this month marked the 150th anniversary commemoration of president lincoln s second inaugural address. thousands gathered to hear the speech on march 4, 1865 several weeks before the end of the civil war and lincoln s assassination n. partner thip with national park service, the group this d.c. hosted air reenact nlt of the speech this month. it featured chuck todd of meet the press. this is an hour and 20 minutes. good morning. i am the regional director good morning. my name is bob voguele. i m the regional director of the national capitol region of the national park service. it s my great pleasure to welcome you this chilly march morning to the lincoln memorial as we commemorate the 150th anniversary of abraham lincoln s second inauguration as president of the united states. abraham lincoln s first inauguration was held be beneath
it s hard to keep connecting with people for a long time. people stop listening after a while. is there a duration? that people are willing to give you these days? to me the most interesting speech obama gave was when he accepted the nobel peace prize. he has that picture in his office of king and gandhi and i m not sure who else was in the picture, but it s some obviously something that s very close to him. he writes about this in his books, about how influenced he was by king and gandhi. when he gets the prize what does he have to say? well, i m president now. and i remember for myself being very critical of him because he said well, they didn t have to deal with terrorism. which i thought was laughable. king died because of terrorism and gandhi what is colonialism other than terrorism? so what he was basically saying is that if king had been elected president in some miracle, he would have had to make the same kinds of compromises. and that may be true. it may well be
seems, he made it that way. he did this with all of his writings that i ve been able to track. he also liked to he didn t think it was done until he had read it to somebody opinion you would think he could get that by reading it to himself, but he said no, that doesn t work. one time he got senior statesmen, old man blair or somebody like that, tell me what you think of this. but one time he had to send it off. it was a letter, it was summertime. he sat down with the clerk in his office and the clerk said, do you want me to comment on it mr. lincoln? he said no, just listen to it. i have to have somebody just listen to it. so what i m trying to say is he was a very, very deliberate writer, far more deliberate than people think. thinking ahead not buying taken by surprise. ready with a phrase ready with one of his wonderful antithesis. without it, i cannot fail kind of thing. when you start tracking it, he spent a lot of time just writing. no visitors this week. i m working
to create the just and fair america that lincoln had envisioned could be seen in selma alabama s bloody sunday. the violent response of law enforcement officials, to peaceful demonstrations for black voting rights reminds us of the hatred that lincoln felt. selma, as difficult as it was to those who suffered through it, also reminds us of a tenacity of the people of unassistance and inequality and great personal risk. sadly, we have yet to turn the corner on bigotry and racial prejudice that has damaged the entire nation. our failure is reflected in both the individual and collective violence that is disproportionately decisioned against people of sclor. and from justice that is incomp incomprehensible and not reflective of who we say we are as a nation. today, as we commemorate the political and personal triumph of a great lead er leader let us pledge to commit ourselves to the principles he commanded in his lifetime. plauz [ applause ] in case anyone is wondering, it does
This week on Maui, there’s major tribute concerts to Jimmy Buffet with Jake Shimabukuro and songwriter Mac McAnnaly, and a Willie K Tribute by Makana. There’s also events celebrating Mardi Gras, Valentines Day, Chinese New Year and a football viewing for the weekend.