The Years of Lyndon Johnson by Robert A. Caro.

Robert Cara wrote 4 books on L B Johnson  The part I was interested in was Civil Rights 

1865 Dec The 13th Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. This was the first of 3 Reconstruction Amendments.

1868 July, 14th Amendment This gave rights to citizens of every state including voting rights, this would mean that slave states had a bigger population and would get greater representation. Ex-slave states were thus not encouraged to register black voters. 14th Amendment of 1868 The amendment addresses citizenship rights and equal protection of the laws, later used to do with Same sex marriage. Amendment XV 1870 prohibits the federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote. 13, 14, 15 are known as the Reconstructionist amendments. Plessy v. Ferguson, (1896), was a landmark of the US supreme court decision upholding constitutionality of state laws requiring racial segregation in public facilities under the doctrine of "separate but equal".[1] In 1890, the state of Louisiana passed a law (the Separate Car Act) that required separate accommodations for blacks and whites on railroads, including separate railway cars. Homer Plessey was an octeroon but was required to be in the coloured car. The case went to the Louisiana high court and then the US Supreme court. This was the basis of all the Jim Crow Laws till 1954 1948President Truman abolished segregation in the US army. This took till 1963 to achieve. Earl Warren appointed to Supreme Court in 1952 by Eisenhower this led to the1954 April Brown vs Board of education Supreme court declares Segregation unconstitutional/ -------------------------------------------------- Many black soldiers opted to stay in the army after World War II. There were actually more opportunities for them in the service than back in the Southern states of the U.S.A. When the U.S.A. became involved in the Korean war 1950, thousands of African-Americans soldiers returned to the battlefield. Defense Directive 5120.36 1963 by McNamara --------------------------------------------------- 1949 The Felix Longoria Wake. the body of a conscripted soldier who died in the Philippines was returned to his family Three Rivers Southern Texas. The owner of the Funeral Palour refused to have the service at the Funeral Chapel as he said the whites wont like it. This controversy was in the press for 6 weeks till Senator Johnson arranged for him to be buried in Arlington and attended the service. “The enormous power held by each of the southern committee chairmen individually was multiplied by their unity, by what White called a “oneness found nowhere else in politics.” The symbol was the legendary “Southern Caucus,” the meetings of the twenty-two southern senators which were held in the office of their leader, Richard Brevard Russell of Georgia, whenever crisis threatened—meetings that were, White said, “for all the world like reunions of a large and highly individualistic family whose members are nevertheless bound by one bond.” In those meetings, the southern position was agreed upon, its tactics mapped, its front made solid.” The Southern Caucus used other bills against the CR bill

----------------------------------------- LBJ "No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long The Republican Party was Lincoln's old party and on the centenary of Lincoln Day LBJ wanted something to show. In LBJs first speech to congress he mentioned Civil Rights for all Americans and 4 days after the assassinations he met Civil Rights leaders, he met each separately and convinced them that he would support them and needed their help. Rowe Kennedy had style but Johnson had substance. Johnson said there are show horses and work horses you have to decide which you are. American liberalism period was from the New Deal until Reagan, that active government should improve American life. Both FDR and LBJ were more interested in accomplishments than principles. Under the New Deal the National Youth Administration was set up under Johnson in Texas where 24% of eligible blacks were enrolled compared to only 24% of eligible white youth. LBJ voted against Civil Rights bill as he depended on support of the oil industry, he always felt that economic growth would solve the race problem. When southern leaders signed a petition against the Brown decision Johnson did not sign it as he knew it would end his chances of becoming president. He felt that the Race question obsessed the south and diverted it from dealing with its economic and education problem. The watered down Civil Rights bill of 1957 was to speed up desegregation in school but it had a symbolic effect. JFK won as Johnson was able to get him the southern votes. One of the roles he worked at under Kennedy was the committee of Equal Employment opportunities.- Federal contracts could only go to companies that made an effort to combat racism. "Lets make it fashionable to end discrimination" by Civil Rights under Kennedy was completely stymied. 1963 a few month before Kennedy's assassination Martin Luther's march on Washington his " I had a dream' failed to move congress. On becoming President ,Johnson announced that he would be the custodian of Kennedys legacy, and he needed Kennedys aids for an image of continuity. He liked Dean Rusk because Bobby disliked him. Walter Heller had assembled the poverty program and made little head way with Kennedy but Johnson immediately said that is my kind of program give it top priority. Johnson decided that the Civil Rights issue was a time when a poker player puts everything on the stack. Some Southerners said they could support a Civil Rights bill without the Public Accommodation clause but Johnson said that was the substance of the bill. The bill passed the house and Hubert Humphrey worked getting it through Congress. When people stopped waiting for someone else to take care of their problem and formed their own movement. Between 1954 and 1965 the movements philosophy was non violence within the American Legal System. 11 years till the militants took over in 1965 mostly in the north.

Johnson knew that symbolism was important and took on a black secretary Gerri Whittington and arranged for her to appear on a TV program. 1964 On New Years Eve LBJ was invited to the University of Austin faculty club which was segregated and walked in with Gerri Whittington on his arm and after that the club declared it was no longer segregated. When Gerri had asked him if he knew what he was doing he said "sure half the people will think you are my wife and that is fine by me" Walter Lipman -In the senate debate and discussion were replaced by delay and stultification Till he became president he had voted against all Civil Rights bills including that under Truman. Johnson had never been a segregationist and had quietly made efforts on behalf of poor blacks and Latinos but supporting Civil Rights in Texas was political suicide After the Brown case southern members sign a petition against the implementation , Johnson did not sign it as this southern manifesto would end his chances for the presidency. Mc Pherson – Johnson felt that the race question obsessed the South and diverted its attention from economic and education problems. UNDER Kennedy he said "let's make it fashionable to end discrimination" Soon after coming to office Johnson met the civil rights leaders and explained the challenge. He got George Meany of the trade Union to give support as well as the steel, electrical workers and auto workers unions. He knew that a new president could get legislation through while the momentum lasts. --------------------------------- LBJ said that Dickson the head of the Republicans is a man who thinks of the country before he thinks of his party. Dirksen the Civil Rights Act would pass because it was an idea whose time had come. The National Interreligious Convocation was taking place and Washington and they supported civil rights. Senators who wanted aid for sparkly populated states wanted aid for dams irrigation projects and the earthquake that struck Alaska were prepared to vote for cloture. Elections were coming up for the Senate and they wanted to start campaigning. Johnson But the times also called for a leader who could subdue the vast political and administrative forces arrayed against change. “We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. We have talked for 100 years or more. It is time now to write the next chapter, and to write it in the books of law.” The best hope of moving the civil-rights bill from the House Rules Committee—whose segregationist chairman, Howard Smith of Virginia, had no intention of relinquishing it—was a procedure called a “discharge petition.” If a majority of House members sign a discharge petition, a bill is taken from the committee, to the chagrin of its chairman. Johnson made the petition his own personal crusade. Even Risen credits his zeal, noting that after receiving a list of 22 House members vulnerable to pressure on the petition, the president immediately ordered the White House switchboard to get them on the phone, wherever they could be found. Johnson engaged an army of lieutenants—businessmen, civil-rights leaders, labor officials, journalists, and allies on the Hill—to go out and find votes for the discharge petition. He cut a deal that secured half a dozen votes from the Texas delegation. He showed Martin Luther King Jr. a list of uncommitted Republicans and, as Caro writes, “told King to work on them.” He directed one labor leader to “talk to every human you could,” saying, “if we fail on this, then we fail in everything.” As a leading southern senator put it, “You know, we could have beaten John Kennedy on civil rights, but not Lyndon Johnson.” The pressure worked. On December 4—not two weeks into Johnson’s presidency—the implacable Chairman Smith began to give way. Rather than have the bill taken from his committee, he privately agreed to begin hearings that would conclude before the end of January, and then release the bill. Smith looked set to renege on his agreement in the new year, but reluctantly kept his word, allowing the bill to be sent to the full House on January 30, 1964. Risen credits others with this development, suggesting that it was Representative Clarence Brown of Ohio, a Republican member of the Rules Committee, among others, who got Smith to move. Risen is particularly sharp on the evolution of the Republicans during these tumultuous years, but here he accords them too much clout. Brown had to answer to House Republican Leader Charles Halleck of Indiana, whose support Johnson likely bought by proposing, and then personally securing, a NASA research facility at Purdue University, Indiana in Halleck’s district. And the entire Republican caucus in the House was wilting under Johnson’s relentless and very public campaign to portray “the party of Lincoln” as obstructing civil rights by opposing the discharge petition. Johnson kept the bill moving in the Senate by dislodging President Kennedy’s tax-cut bill from the Finance Committee. As vice president, Johnson had advised Kennedy not to introduce civil-rights legislation until the tax cut had cleared Congress. Kennedy didn’t listen, and now both bills were stuck. (Like House Rules, Senate Finance had a wily segregationist for a chairman: Harry Byrd of Virginia.) Risen minimizes the significance of this problem, writing that the tax bill “presented no procedural obstacle to the civil rights bill, only a political one.” (And when does politics ever derail legislation?!) As Caro explains, the tax bill was a hostage. By holding it in committee, the South pressured the administration to give up on civil-rights legislation, with the implication that the withdrawal of the latter might produce movement on the former. But Johnson and Byrd were old friends, and during an elaborate White House lunch they came to an understanding: if Johnson submitted a budget below $100 billion, Byrd would release the tax bill. Johnson then personally bullied department heads to reduce their appropriations requests, and delivered a budget of $97.9 billion. The Finance Committee passed the tax bill on January 23, 1964, with Byrd casting the deciding vote to allow a vote, then weighing in against the measure itself. The Senate passed the tax bill on February 7, mere days before the civil-rights bill cleared the House. Finally, Johnson helped usher the bill to passage in the Senate by working to break the southern filibuster, which was led by his political patron, the formidable Richard Russell of Georgia. In light of the Senate’s fiercely guarded independence, the president could not operate in the open; he had to use proxies like Humphrey, who was his protégé and future vice president, as well as the bill’s floor manager. Johnson impressed upon Humphrey that the vain and flamboyant Senate Republican Leader Everett Dirksen of Illinois was the key to delivering the Republican votes needed for cloture: “You and I are going to get Ev. It’s going to take time. We’re going to get him. You make up your mind now that you’ve got to spend time with Ev Dirksen. You’ve got to let him have a piece of the action. He’s got to look good all the time. Don’t let those [liberal] bomb throwers, now, talk you out of seeing Dirksen. You get in there to see Dirksen. You drink with Dirksen! You talk with Dirksen! You listen to Dirksen!” Johnson demanded constant updates from Humphrey and Majority Leader Mike Mansfield, and always urged more-aggressive tactics. (“The president grabbed me by my shoulder and damn near broke my arm,” said Humphrey.) Even though Senate Democrats did not deploy all those tactics, Johnson’s intensity nevertheless set the tone and supplied its own momentum. He kept up a steady stream of speeches and public appearances demanding Senate passage of the strong House bill, undiluted by horse-trading. And he personally lobbied senators to vote for cloture and end the filibuster. Risen contends that Johnson “persuaded exactly one senator” to change his vote on cloture. Given that it is of course impossible to know what motivated each senator’s final decision, this lowball figure is expressed with too much certitude. Evidence presented by Purdum and Caro suggests that Johnson’s importuning, bribing, and threatening may have made an impact on closer to a dozen. The Senate invoked cloture on June 10, breaking the longest filibuster in the institution’s history. The full Senate soon passed the bill. Johnson signed it into law on July 2, 1964, ). The provisions of this civil rights act forbade discrimination on the basis of sex as well as race in hiring, promoting, and firing. The word "sex" was added at the last moment Representative Howard W. Smith (D-VA) added the word. His critics argued that Smith, a conservative Southern opponent of federal civil rights, did so to kill the entire bill. The Bill was passed 8 days before the Republican Convention. and immediately turned his energies to what would become another landmark statute: the Voting Rights Act of 1965. LBJ understood that the desegregation would not happen until blacks became voters, in the south any black who applied to register would be beaten. LBJ needed this bill because there was no way that the Civil Rights could be a reality in the South until the Negro population could vote and finally change the statue quo. The march on Selma Alabama was declared illegal by Governor George Wallace, at the Edmund Pettus Bridge was the incident called "Bloody Sunday" Johnson wanted to send Federal troops to deal with this but that can only be done at the request of the State. However Wallace ask for a meeting with the president to get into the limelight, and saying he needed Federal funds to handle the situation. This was sufficient excuse for LBJ to send troops to protect the marchers. Johnson convened a prime time joint session of Congress and gave the American Promise Speech to introduce an immediate voting rights bill " no delay no hesitation and no compromise "and we shall overcome. He totally aligned himself with the civil rights cause and dispatched Federal inspectors to offending counties.----------------- A march from Selma to Montgomery organized by King for the right to register as voters was declared Illegal by the state governor George Wallace. The marchers were attacked at the Petrus bridge and this was all shown live on TV What became known as "Bloody Sunday.. Johnson wanted to send Federal troops but to do this needed the request of the governor. Wallace wanted to get into the limelight and requested a meeting with LBJ suggesting that Georgia could not handle this alone and wanted federal funds for help. Wallace's request was the excuse Johnson needed to send Federal troop to protect the marchers. Johnson convened a Prime Time joint session of the Congress and gave The American Promise speech to introduce an immediate voting rights bill, "no delays no hesitation no compromise " and we shall overcome. Federal inspectors would be dispatch to offending counties. the Voting Rights Act of 1965. came with the Selma struggle at the Edmond Petrus Bridge that followed Johnson speech "We shall overcome" Voting rights bill of 1965 Other general provisions specifically outlaw literacy tests. In 1968 when King was assassinated this was used to pass the "Open House Law" ---------------- 5 Days later the Black Rioting started at Watts California. "Abraham Lincoln struck off the chains of black Americans, but it was Lyndon Johnson who led them into voting booths, closed democracy’s sacred curtain behind them, placed their hands upon the lever that gave them a hold on their own destiny, made them, at last and forever, a true part of American political life.” ------------------ Walter Heller had assembled a poverty program and he presented it to Johnson who said "that is my kind of program, give it the highest priority. Unconditional war on poverty led to the 1964 Equal opportunity act. In the 1964 election Johnson won by 61.1% better than FDR had done and he now tried to bring about the Great Society. But the war in Vietnam and the Great Society could not be pursued at the same time. Just like Wilson and FDR domestic reform had to be abandoned to lead the nation to war. "" shall overcome" the other tune that plague Johnson's presidency was Hey hey LBJ. How many We kids have you killed today." When a Besides person has enough power to do what they want to then "power reveals" ------------------------------------------ Other bills included ending discrimination in public accommodation , education employment even in private housing . A century after Lincoln, LBJ became the most important codifier of compassion.. During his final years, Wallace recanted his racist views and asked for forgiveness from African Americans.

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Sweet Sunday by John Lawton 2002  351 pgs.   10/12/24

This is a novel about the 1960s with a mystery.

The author was in  High school with Buddy Holly in class of 55 in Lubbock, West Texas. He shook hand with LBJ and met Norman Mailer twice.

1954 Dien Blen Fhu the Vietnamese brought heavy weapons in pieces on bicycles and completely surprised the French by destroying their garrison there and resulted in the French leaving Vietnam.

1969 Norman Mailer ran for Mayor unsuccessfully and wanted to make the city a separate State. Mailer had fought in WW2 so was not part of this generation. This was the year Apollo 10 landed on the moon. "Moon Summer" The moon walk followed with Apollo 11. At a talk to be given by Norman Mailer a Viet Cong flag was up and said if it is not removed he won't speak. He did not like beards and was against dope.

WW2 we had won the good fight and owned the 20th Century, and wanted to make a kinder gentler place.

Pentagon march of 1967. Jerry Rubin was head of the Yippies, he was not the Brightest but was born to lead. Yippie a Hippie who has his head busted by a cop.

1934 to 2020 Gloria Steinem is an American journalist and social-political activist who emerged as a nationally recognized leader of second-wave feminism.

His family had settled in Texas high plains soon after  the Comanches last rout 1877. His mother died the day Japan surrendered Sept 7 1945. 

1967 He got a licensee as a Private Eye PI, and got a gun license with the job but never carried a gun. He helped blue collar people who could not get out of the draft and fled to Canada. Many a parent felt their sons were cowards and some hardly knew their sons. Wealthier kids could avoid the  draft by studying.

His father hated lawyers - to breed one of his own seemed the obvious solution. This Vietnam vet had died of "natural causes"  Cancer induced by Agent Orange.

His brother Huey got drafted and so fell out with his father a WW2 vet. There was a war between the generations. The draft board saw so many faking to be weird they couldn't tell who was faking.

"War makes men" that's crap all it does is make dead boys.  This colonel Feaver arrived and wanted 10 volunteer and this group all went and they committed a massacre's at the village afterwards the lieutenant shot himself in the head from what he saw. Welcome to Nam I finally killed somebody. Later on we discover that Colonel Feaver was without orders from Saigon and doing this on his own. The 9 soldiers were unwitting renegades and he had chosen them as they were greenhorns and there was no paramedic. (fictional part perhaps the My Lai was the real example) The 5 left of the group of 9 were given honorable discharges purple hearts and full pension. This was the first television war, but it was not live. The book The Quiet American by Graham Green 1955 already understood American in Vietnam.  Feaver was could not be discharged from the army as then they could no longer charge him.

William Wyler's The Best Years of Our Lives (1946) tells the story of three veterans returning from World War II

They return from Vietnam to a segregated America even Washington was clearing blacks out under the guise of urban renewal. "Vietnam was getting colored folk to kill colored folk"

1776 was no a revolution it was a change of ownership. HG Wells gave The Men in the Moon - if you don't like the world change it.

1950 Interstate travel was officially desegregated. Schools were desegregated in 1954 but in 1957 troops had to be sent to Little Rock to enforce it. 1957 the Supreme court desegregated bus terminals. The Freedom Riders the first bus in Aniston, Alabama was firebombed. LB Johnson was the greatest horse trader in Washington.

Howard was a University in Washington for blacks established in 1867 after the Civil War initially as a school of Divinity.

1962 with the Cuban missile crises the world changed forever. Cuba is only 90 miles from Florida. MAD stand for Mutually Assured Destruction. No one can win. To get to Cuba from America you had to fly to Austria cross into Hungary to get your flight.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee SNCC had a badge of a white and black hand holding each other.

1963 Paul Simon song about counting the cars on the New Jersey Turnpike, a quarter million people coming to look for America. Civil Rights March on Washington.   Peyote cap a hallucinating  mushroom.

Alice Babette Toklas 1877 to 1967 was Gertrude Steins companion in Paris and wrote a biography of Gertrude she is also famous for a cooking book.

1969 Woodstock is described in the book with free love, Many came to see Bob Dylan but he had, had a motorbike accident. This was part of the Civil Rights and the anti Vietnam war protest mood.

1974 Trick Dicky( Richard Nixon) told thousands of lies and got kicked out of office.

1936 to 1989 Abbie Hoffman died of drug overdose suicide.

1938 to 1994 Jerry Rubin Died in LA after being struck by a motorist. He had studied for a while at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem.

1977 Under Carter the draft dodgers were given an amnesty.