Ep 5: Give us the Ballot CRA Newsreel 7/4/64 ​ ​ ​ Now, in this summer of 1964, the Civil Rights Bill is the law of the land. Congress passes the most sweeping Civil Rights Bill ever to be written into the law and thus reaffirms the conception of equality => for all men that began with Lincoln and the Civil War 100 years ago. July 2nd, 1964, was a good day for Lyndon Johnson. Before an audience of legislators and civil rights leaders who have labored long and hard for passage of the bill, President Johnson calls for all Americans to back what he calls a turning point in history. The landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 was indeed a turning point in the country's long and bloody struggle for racial justice, and a hard-won feather in LBJ's cap. But important as it was, for the civil rights movement, it was only a beginning. Rhonda Williams African-Americans were under no illusion that the Civil Rights Act was going to be sufficient. Rhonda Y. Williams teaches American History at Vanderbilt University. Williams For them, it was not merely about integration -- about being able to sit in a restaurant, to ride on a bus, to get an equal education. It was also about how one could access political power to challenge the white political systems in the South, to make sure that African-Americans had the vote, that they had the ability in the political realm to make decisions about who represented them. This is something that Lyndon Baines Johnson, coming off of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, understood. In fact, LBJ had understood it for a long time. Humphrey 3 19:40 Johnson used to tell me just simply this. He'd say, "Let me tell you something, Hubert. All this civil rights talk," he said. "The thing that we've got to do is get those blacks the right to vote. Hubert Humphrey, LBJ's vice president, had served with Johnson in the Senate in the 50's. Humphrey 3 1 He'd say, "Now you fellows are trying to get them public accommodations. You want them to ride in a bus," he said, but what they need is the vote." He said, "That's what I'm gonna get 'em. When they get the vote power, they got the power." But understanding this idea was one thing, and acting on it was quite another. Johnson was the most powerful majority leader of modern times. But as long as southern segregationists maintained their iron grip on key senate committees, serious voting rights reform was simply not in the cards. And LBJ was never one for tilting at windmills. Virginia Durr As a bill would come up in the Senate, Lyndon was always on the other side. Virginia Durr and her husband were friends of the Johnsons in LBJ's senate days, and members of the small band of southern whites actively working for civil rights in the fifties. Virginia Durr I would write him very indignant letters, and then when I saw him, he'd say, ''Why, Honey, you know I'm for you, I'm with you, but you just ain't got the votes." Now this is the essence of Lyndon's political philosophy. He's not going to be for you until you've got the votes because he thinks that just wasting your breath and your energy and your time in a hopeless cause doesn't do very much good. He's a very practical politician. Very practical, and very ambitious. McPherson 6 Most people who had any interest in Lyndon Johnson--and that was a lot of people seemed to understand what he was trying to do. Harry McPherson was a senior Johnson aide and speechwriter from the Senate days on. McPherson 6 To advance himself as a national political figure, he had to be at least open and relatively friendly toward the civil rights forces, at the same time, he had been hoisted into a position of leadership in the Democratic Party by southerners. His effectiveness in the Senate and hence in the country rested on his ability to make it work on the central riveting question of the day, which was certainly, in the domestic field, civil rights. On one occasion, in 1957, Johnson had an unexpected opportunity to "make it work," on a bill proposed by President Eisenhower, to help southern blacks gain access to the ballot box. 2 The bill was not all that strong to begin with, but Johnson gave it his all. McPherson 6 It was a long debate, the filibusters, and then the great struggle over the passage of that bill, which was the first civil rights bill in eighty years. Harry McPherson watched LBJ struggle to put the votes together, one-by-one, across a cavernous divide. McPherson 1 I heard him at one end of the cloakroom talking to Paul Douglas one day... Paul Douglas was an influential liberal Senator from Illinois. McPherson 1 He’s saying "Paul, the amendment to the Civil Rights Bill is coming up and I need your support." And he went to the other end of the room and was talking to Sam Ervin and said Sam, “why don’t you all let this [bleep] bill pass?” The word we just bleeped is the n word. McPherson 1 That language was not the language that he would ever employ later on, and I've never heard him use the word. But at that time he was down in the trenches with guys who were determined not to let the bill pass, and he was doing his damnedest to bring them around. He warned them that much worse would come unless they would pass this modest bill, and he would tell some of the Northerners that if they would only let this modest bill go through, they would get a better bill later. So he was playing it out of both sides. In the end, LBJ managed to line up the votes for passage, but the bill that finally made it through was largely stripped of enforcement muscle -- a condition demanded by opponents in exchange for their support. Still, the Civil Rights Act of 1957 was a small step forward, and an early indication that Lyndon Johnson might be more than the typical southern obstructionist that many had supposed. Humphrey 3 I could not be for the compromises that he wanted at that stage. This again is Hubert Humphrey. Humphrey 3 3 But it told me one thing above all. First of all, I knew he was sincere. It was not just parliamentary tactics. He and I talked many times about it, and I knew that he was not a segregationist. I knew he didn't want to classify himself in those days as a Southerner. McPherson 6 Had he been a passionate southern liberal on the race question he would have won the tremendous affection of a very small group of people in the North and been utterly ineffectual in the Senate. Had he been merely smooth and content to bargain out the lowest common denominator as some of his predecessors he would have been inconsequential. But he was different, and you could watch him and you knew that he was different, that he wanted a bunch of things done for poor people, wanted the government to be in there, had that New Deal streak, but without I suspect any huge agenda in his own head at the time. He was offended by the injustices visited on blacks, no doubt about that. And he had no patience with that racism. But it took a long time to kind of convert it, I think, into the agenda of the Great Society legislation, all that big agenda I don't think was really burning in him at the time. It would be another seven years before the breakthrough battle on voting rights was joined in earnest. When the moment came, the forces arrayed on the other side were as powerful and deeply entrenched as ever. But by then, LBJ had the power of the presidency going for him, and just as important, a grassroots movement that would keep his feet to the fire. WH 7671 Reuther 5/14/65 I’m not going to be president long, but while I am president, brother, I’m going to take care of voting in this country, and everybody’s going to be able to vote.” I’m Melody Barnes. And from PRX this is LBJ and the Great Society. ​ ​ SERIES BUTTON Episode Five: Give Us the Ballot --- PRE-ROLL BREAK --- WH6239 MLK ll/5/64 K: Hello? J: Doctor? MLK: yes, Mr. President! J: Well I just wanted to tell you... It's November 5th, 1964 -- just two days after his landslide win over Barry Goldwater -- and LBJ is working the phones from his Texas ranch. 4 WH6239 MLK ll/5/64 Hubert Humphrey left here about 30 minutes ago, and I still haven’t shaved or got off my bathrobe. Now elected in his own right, Johnson has a lot of people to thank, and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., is among the first. WH6239 MLK J: I thought I’d call half a dozen or so folks and tell them how much I appreciated their confidence, and what a good job I thought they’d done, and how many more now we’ve ​ ​ got to help get out of their bondage. MLK: Yes, well, we’re certainly all very happy about the outcome, it was just such a great victory.