Surrounding President Obama’s[sup]1[/sup] inaugural was much talk of heroes of the Civil Rights movement. Pioneers who took on the system, even at the cost of their lives. Much talk of Dr. King’s dream coming alive.
But just yesterday it occurred to me that there is one person who was crucial to making the historic events of 11/04/08 and 01/20/09 come to pass who was not mentioned at all - President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
He signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, even though as he told an aide, “We have lost the South for a generation.” He worked for passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, and signed that as well. That’s right, an American politician not only did something that caused his party short term harm, he did something that he knew would cause his party long term harm, and he worked very hard to do it because he knew it was right. A very rare event in our history.
Oh, and 1964 to 2008 is closer to two generations where the South was pretty much lost to the Democratic Party.[sup]2[/sup]
So here’s to you, LBJ! Thank you for your role in these events.[sup]3[/sup]
(Mods - I mean this as more IMHO than GD, but please move as desired.)
[sup]1[/sup]I lurrves writing that phrase!
[sup]2[/sup]Looking at the electoral maps, except for 1976, most of the South is still lost to the Democratic Party. We’ll see how that plays out over the next election or two.
[sup]3[/sup]If only you could have gotten out of 'Nam …
No, really, this is what’s so frustrating about LBJ. He was both a great president and a terrible president at the same time. A person capable of great compassion, and a world-class son of a bitch at the same time. So in that conflicted spirit, I’ll chant “Hey! Hey! LBJ! How many black presidents did you make today? Hey! Hey!”
I’ll agree with this! Years ago, a friend took a course on Black American History. The professor started by asking about which president signed more civil rights legislation than any other, which president signed the legislation that outlawed segregation, which outlawed discrimination in voting, etc… She was the only person in the class to answer “Johnson” for each question.
People forget that JFK had become so ineffective in pushing civil rights legislation that Malcolm X was able to say what he did about his assassination. Not that I’m saying it was Kennedy’s fault though. It took a Southern president to get civil rights legislation passed in America.
Well, while we were staying home and watching the inauguration, we were praising LBJ again and again. He was an important help in all this working, and seems to have gotten nowhere near the praise and love he should have for this.
Unwanted wars are a pretty tough thing to take in stride.
When mobile phones were devices that occupied most of the trunk of your car and a great status symbol, a fellow Senator called Johnson from one mobile to another. Johnson interrupted him, “I have a call on my other line.”
George Wallace begged a political favor of President Johnson, who responded in the affirmative if Wallace would be photographed in Alabama with Johnson and “a little Colored girl”.
Johnson would corner Congressmen naked in some Congressional swimming pool dressing room and berate them until they would vote in his favor.
My favorite Johnson quote is, “Son, do you know why a dog licks his dick? Because he can.”
In a Senate race, he proposed accusing his opponent, a pig farmer, of bestiality. An aide pointed out that was ridiculous. Johnson responded, “Yes, Son, but let’s make him deny it.”
He died within months of Nixon killing the Great Society programs.
Regarding the OP, he certainly contributed to the success of the Civil Rights movement and Obama’s election.
From all that, carnivorousplant, and from everything else I’ve ever heard about Johnson, he was the classic Texan: not without compassion, but he could be ruthless and cunning and completely up front all at once. For his civil rights work, he is one of my favorite presidents, though it is hard to look past Vietnam and he is – only somewhat unfairly – demonized for it.
I spent some time with a woman who was a history major and greatly concerned with LBJ. As he confronted cowering nude freshmen Congressmen in the dressing room and convinced them to vote his way, he felt, while limiting the bombing on North Vietnam, about Ho Chi Min, “If I could just sit down with him and talk to that boy…”
Regarding Vietnam, it might be worth noting that the Johnson presidency was bookended by JFK’s and Nixon’s; both were bigger hawks than he was. Until he was president, Johnson spent his political career expanding on the New Deal (and skimming a little off the top.) Vietnam landed in his lap, and to order the United States to back off from a fight in a third world country would have been suicide for any mid-1960s president.
Meh, I still think he shouldn’t be let off too easy for the Gulf of Tonkin. His civil rights work was indeed heroic-but Vietnam wasn’t any better than Iraq is today. (In many ways it was worse, considering you had the draft.)
Johnson was clearly willing to back up the fight in Vietnam; you can’t really try to turn him into a peacenik.
But, yes, he was instrumental in getting Civil Right legistation passed. It also helped that JFK was assassinated, since there was a big push among the public to get behing Kennedy’s programs afterwards.
Not from what I remember from Johnson’s taped conversations. (You thought Nixon invented taping?) LBJ knew what a mess Vietnam was, he just couldn’t find a way out. I don’t know why he couldn’t invite some of the conservatives to his ranch to hash things out, but he couldn’t or wouldn’t, and frankly didn’t. I shudder to think how many lives could have been saved had the war ended.
LBJ - one of the best AND worst presidents. Civil Rights - HUGE win. Vietnam - EPIC fail. Same guy.
Now Nixon, I remember when he ran in '68 and had a secret plan to end the war. What is the plan, prey tell, so we might evaluate it? Can’t tell you, its a SECRET. I was nine years old at the time, you know - this many: ||||| ||||, and even I saw thought this. Whatever the heck Nixon’s plan was, it didn’t work out. What had been Mr. McNamara’s War and then Mr. Johnson’s War became Mr. Nixon’s War. And, after peace was “at hand” days before the 1972 election, ended under the next President’s watch. Great plan there, Dickie.
Not a Nixon fan - can you tell? Not entirely an LBJ fan either, but he did some big things right.
Amazing - I was having this conversation with a colleague over dinner a few nights ago. He was particularly passionate about LBJ’s accomplishments, and I agreed with him. Turns out he was his nephew.
Nah, cats lick their ass. I like cats, but we are discussing a Johnson thing. His analogies are limited to dogs, pigs, George Wallace, and Republicans.
I’m a big LBJ fan – it helps that I wasn’t born until the draft ended. But I wouldn’t say he was unsung – in the commentary on this election from the left, his name is ever-present. As it should be – as Phillip Klinkner and Thomas Schaller observe in their recent article LBJ’s Revenge: The 2008 Election and the Rise of the Great Society Coalition, LBJ pushed through not only the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts, but the Immigration Act and the Higher Education Act, which provided additional prongs of the Obama coalition – namely, Latinos and the highly educated (whites and non-whites alike) who weren’t from old money patrician families.
Oh, also, if you get a chance, listen to the LBJ tapes (C-Span Radio used to broadcast them a lot.) It’s great listening to him jaw people into submission on the civil rights stuff.
The most recent Newsweek gives LBJ props for supporting and signing the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, which led to the significantly more ethnically and racially diverse nation which elected Obama - still, alas, only the third Democrat elected President since Johnson left the White House forty years ago this month: Voices of Obama's America: Who We Are Now
LBJ stayed in Vietnam because he feared that a lost would undermine his Great Society. Safe to say he got in way over his head on that one.
In domestic policy, he knew exactly what he was doing. He might have been the only one with the skills to push through Civil Rights reform at that time.
For all his faults he was a true believer in equality. He did more than any other President to help both poor and black Americans.
Well, think of it this way. Since 1969, Republican won the presidential election cycles of 1972, 1980, 1984, 1988, 2000* and 2004. Democrats won the cycles of 1976, 1992, 1996 and 2008. That’s 6:4.
