Lyndon Johnson and the Civil Rights Act

http://www.mslaw.edu

A life-long racists, how did Lyndon Johnson manage to procure political power based the passing of the historic 1957 Civil Rights Act. Dean Lawrence R. Velvel interviews William H. Chafe, Professor of History and former Dean of the Faculty at Duke University about his new book Private Lives/Public Consequences, Personality and Politics in Modern America, in this episode of The Massachusetts School of Laws Books of our Time.

The full interview is available at http://tinyurl.com/265obf . The Massachusetts School of Law also presents information on important current affairs to the general public in television and radio broadcasts, an intellectual journal, conferences, author appearances, blogs and books. For more information visit mslawledu.


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Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• civil rights
• us history
• race
• race in america
• lbj
• politics
• martin luther king
• john kennedy

[esb84]

What a joke of an interview, "LBJ decided he could become President by supporting Civil Rights". LBJ handed over the south to the GOP by signing the CIvil Rights Bill. Wasn't a smart politcal move by the brillian politician, now was it? LBj did everything based on principal (as President), not what was smart politically. Remember Vietnam......

[game3525]

LBJ may have been alot of things, but he was no racist.

[fransciscoau]

There is ample evidence that he "was" in fact a cultural racist throughout his entire life. The fact that he was involved in the Civil Rights Legislation does not erase his personal racism. Why not acknowledge the complexities and live in reality, not in "fantasy". LBJ in Kessler's "Inside The White House" Lyndon B. Johnson to two governors on Air Force One I'll have those niggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.

[fransciscoau]

Civil Rights placed him at the very centre of the national political debate between left and right, North and South, liberal whites and white racists. Those Southern Whites (like LBJ) who were fact cultural racists were willing to compromise in order to wedge the GOP on the issue of race i.e. Goldwater in 1964. They could take a political hit in the South in the knowledge that should it work (in real politik terms) that Southern and Northern blacks would vote in larger numbers for the Democrats.

[luvs2teach00]

He was a Southerner, of course he had racist beliefs and tendencies. He do things to keep the democratic party happy.

[huckstered]

Yep, the history put him in the top five ever. I agree. Few rankings put him there

where he belongs. Too many myths about this misunderstood man exist, but this is certain the country changed it was a watershed administration the country

changed completely after his administration.

[huckstered]

Friend, excess to explain here; LBJ betrayed many on his way to

the prize, politicians are chamelions, and he was strictly the best. LBJ did nothing by principal but all by pragmatism. He wasn't smart- he was brilliant. (The South is identical, far right, regardless of the party).Dems were already becoming the left-party by the fifties, Kennedy, Humphrey etc. LBJ did a complete 180 on the south when he backed civil rights. Only as pres did he vote his

principles.

[esb84]

Ignorant how? Are you going to explain yourself, or just leave it at a four-word insult..?

[huckstered]

You are totally ignorant