29/52 - Political Courage
I just finished Doris Kearns Goodwin’s An Unfinished Love Story: A Personal History of the 1960s (https://www.amazon.com/Unfinished-Love-Story-Personal-History-ebook/dp/B0CFMBQSBW). For anyone who lived through the '60s, has ever heard of the '60s, loved someone, or loves inside politics, it's a good read. Especially now.
The chapters describing how everything fell apart for America in 1968 are particularly timely. It is stunning to think that Eugene McCarthy's primary "victory" in New Hampshire (not really, but perceived as such), LBJ's decision to stop the bombing and open peace talks with North Vietnam, and his decision not to run for reelection, the assassination of Martin Luther King and the riots that followed, and the shooting of Robert Kennedy all occurred within THREE months from March through June. And then the disaster of the Chicago convention.
Goodwin's husband Richard was in the middle of so much of this history, a role I was largely unaware of. In my defense, I was 13, but still.
However, the part of the book that grabbed me most was the description of the LBJ of 1964-65. I've written before about how my memory of LBJ (he was an old guy) was so different from reality (he was 56 in 1964. 56!) (https://www.searchformygrandparents.com/home/952-living-inside-historical-fiction).
But it wasn't just how he looked; it was the person he was.
My primary takeaway from reading the long, long, long Robert Caro bio of LBJ a gazillion ago was that LBJ was often insufferable, conniving, and inordinately focused on accumulating power. That and the tendency to grill subordinates from unusual locations (from bed, from the toilet, naked in the White House swimming pool).
All true.
But missing from this impression -- and the aspect of LBJ that is so moving in Goodwin’s account -- is what LBJ tried to DO with his power when he had the chance.
Create a list of the most significant pieces of legislation over the past 100 years, and odds are that list includes the following:
Civil Rights Act of 1964: This landmark law prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. It ended segregation in public places and banned employment discrimination.
Voting Rights Act of 1965: This act prohibited racial discrimination in voting, removing barriers such as literacy tests that had been used to disenfranchise African American voters.
Medicare and Medicaid (1965): These programs provided health insurance for the elderly and the poor, respectively, significantly expanding access to healthcare.
Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965: This law provided federal funding to K-12 education, emphasizing equal access to education and aiming to narrow the achievement gaps between students.
Higher Education Act of 1965: This act increased federal money given to universities, created scholarships, and provided low-interest loans for students.
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965: This law abolished national origin quotas in immigration policy, significantly changing the demographic makeup of immigrant populations in the United States.
Fair Housing Act of 1968: This prohibited discrimination in housing sales, rentals, and financing based on race, religion, national origin, or sex.
None of this would have been possible without LBJ.
LBJ's interactions with Richard Goodwin -- who crafted many of the speeches associated with these accomplishments -- revealed to me a commitment to racial justice and the poor and a willingness to use political capital for social justice that is inspiring in the current environment of political cowardice.
The chapter in the book focused on the events in March 1965 in Selma, which made me tear up. The incident at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama, known as "Bloody Sunday," occurred on March 7, 1965.
On this day, approximately 600 civil rights marchers attempted to march from Selma to Montgomery to demand voting rights for African Americans. As they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge, they were met by state troopers and local law enforcement, who violently attacked them with billy clubs and tear gas. The brutality was captured by television cameras and shocked the nation.
LBJ addressed a joint session of Congress about this incident and the need for voting rights legislation on March 15, 1965, just EIGHT DAYS after Bloody Sunday. In this historic speech, Johnson called for the passage of a voting rights bill and famously declared, "We shall overcome," adopting the anthem of the civil rights movement.
Listen to the speech if you can and imagine ANY current politician making a similarly courageous speech (or anyone as gifted a speechwriter as Richard Goodwin). And further, imagine that you are a politician from the deep Jim Crow South likely alienating political allies and friendships going back decades. Make sure to listen to the part at the end about LBJ's first job as a teacher among poor students from migrant families in Cotulla, Texas.
Here are the long and the highlight versions:
Long - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvPCKyABeIg
Highlights - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1-C2miztRfw
Here’s what Martin Luther King had to say about the speech: “Your speech was the most moving, eloquent, unequivocal, and passionate plea for human rights ever made by any president of this nation.” After the Voting Rights Act passed, he said, “Never before has a President articulated the depths and dimensions of racial injustice more eloquently and more profoundly.”
Of course, political half-lives are indeed short.
In Johnson’s personal case, the hubris of trying to simultaneously implement the Great Society and the Vietnam War -- without a tax increase -- would sink his presidency and his legacy. In less than two years, crowds went from cheering LBJ enthusiastically to chanting, “Hey, hey, LBJ. How many kids did you kill today?”
And those who showed courage in passing the Voting Rights Act paid a political price. In the 1968 presidential election, nearly 10 million voters cast their ballots for George Wallace, who carried five states, handing the election to Richard Nixon.
Sad.
