Beck Honors Civil Rights Pioneer Booker T. Washington in Latest Oval Office Speech

For the last month, Glenn Beck has been delivering the kinds of speeches he believes President Obama should have done since taking office. This Wednesday evening, the topic focused on the contributions of Civil Rights pioneer, Booker T. Washington, who believed that through establishing industry, practicing thrift and investments, owning property and developing intelligence through education, members of the black community could lift themselves out of the degradation they suffered in the worst moments of the segregation-era and realize their full civil rights.

Beck chose the lessons of Booker T. Washington to highlight the Declaration of Independence passage which states: “All men are created equal, [and] are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights.” This means that God endows man with rights.

Believing that it is the "duty of America" to defend those rights, Beck also noted that Booker T. Washington knew that civil rights are "not bestowed by man" and are also "earned." And they are earned not once in a generation, but "every day, by "every generation."

"Every American must understand that the strength and durability of their civil rights --  all of us -- depend on what we do with our life," Beck said.

"That’s how this country became great. That’s how black Americans won what was their right. And that is how we will see better tomorrow. Much, much better than today."

Watch Beck's latest Oval Office speech below.

For those unfamiliar, Booker T. Washington began his life in 1856 in what was considered at the time to be one of the lowest rungs of society. His mother was a slave and his father was a white plantation owner. Somehow, despite the tribulations his day and age presented, he lifted himself out of inequity and grew to become a leader in the very first Civil Rights movement, fighting Jim Crow laws and eventually founding the Tuskegee Institute. Indeed, Booker T. Washington was the predecessor and inspiration for Martin Luther King Jr. and set the tone for Civil Rights across the country.