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johnson realized that if he wanted to be president of the united states he had to
have a national base and he had to appeal to people in the north
and the only way he could do that was by basically
appealing on an issue of race
%uh and appearing to be different from the hard-core southern %uh
%uh supporters of
always had cultivated
so he decides that the fifty seven civil rights act is going to be the occasion for his doing this
now johnson is someone who on civil rights issues
voted against the fair employment practice commission voted against the anti lynching bill voted
against
%um abolition of the poll tax
johnston is someone who called his driver the n_-word all his life
%uh he told him that's the way it's going to be if you want to get along in this world you better accept it exactly
yeah
and now johnson is reaching out and he's trying to find
ways of
wheeling and dealing with individuals in order to get himself as the sole instrument
by which the civil rights act can pass
and so he vitiates the most powerful segments of the bill
gets those defeated
then goes one-on-one to various people in the south and in the north
makes the case to the south
that if you don't
go along with this the north will get more goes to the north and says
%uh unless you accept this the south will block the whole thing
makes deals with people from the west who want canyons and water dams and stuff like that
%uh and essentially
gets this fifty seven civil rights bill passed
no one knows what he's promised to everybody
they don't know 'cause it's not public discourse what the issues are
but they all come together and
eventually pass this bill
and it's the first civil rights bill that's been passed since eighteen seventy-five now the problem with the bill is that it
doesn't do anything
and yet symbolically it is a major break and that is what allows johnson to be
%uh make the segue and transition into being a national political figure
and it gives him to some extent the
%uh legitimacy when he becomes president after kennedy's assassination
to wrap himself in the mantle of civil rights
%uh and to use this as Kennedy's legacy
this excerpt is brought to you by the massachusetts school of law
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