I’ve been voting for 50 years—Johnson was my first Presidential pick in 1964. And yes, I’ve learned much about that strong-arming, deal-making, womanizing, self-agrandizing, Vietnam-failing President over the years. He had all of those negative qualities and more, and he wasn’t the first or last president to use questionable tactics or to cash in on the exalted position for personal satisfaction.
But Lyndon Johnson used strength and guile, twisted arms, shamed, compromised, made deals with the NAACP and other Civil Rights leaders, House members and Senators from both parties, to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He did so knowing that Democrats would lose the South for the foreseeable future, hoping that it would mark his legacy for sure, but knowing also that it was the right thing to do (his own gut thoughts about civil rights went back to pre-political school-teaching days):
“On June 19, exactly one year after President Kennedy’s proposal, the compromise bill passed the Senate
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