Lyndon Johnson蘑菇视频 legacy lives on
Have you heard that r-r-r-r-r-ing sound lately? It’s Lyndon Johnson spinning in his grave.
His greatest presidential achievement, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, was honored last week at the LBJ Library in Texas.
All five of the living U.S. presidents made their pilgrimage to pay their respects to the law, and the man who fearlessly shepherded it through Congress. It was, indeed, a landmark piece of legislation that outlawed the evil practices of discrimination and segregation.
These days, it seems odd that it took a federal law to force some Americans to stop them from preventing other Americans from enjoying the fruits of this great country.
Freeing the slaves wasn’t quite enough. The descendants of those slaves were still shackled by deliberate attempts to keep them separate but inconsequential. Lyndon Baines Johnson called a halt to that.
He hadn’t done it single-handedly. He needed to aggressively twist the arms of southern Democrats and Republicans to get his way in Congress. Dixie was hard to budge. In the end, Johnson won.
“There are no problems we cannot solve together and very few that we can solve by ourselves,” he once said.
Much of Johnson’s legacy has been built around his steadfast insistence that the ever-growing civil rights movement had to be addressed directly.
On the weekend of that fateful day in November of 1963, and before John F. Kennedy was buried, Johnson began making good on Kennedy’s promises. He personally called his old friends, and political enemies, in Congress, and he cajoled them into supporting new civil rights legislation.
At the time, that wasn’t exactly a popular move. But Johnson made it without hesitation.
“If the American people don’t love me, their descendants will,” Johnson also said.
Last week in Texas, he fully got his due.
The celebration of Johnson’s legacy, though, is ironic, considering the toxic political environment today. Johnson’s Civil Rights Act seems quite logical these days. But not to some Republicans.
Potential presidential candidate Rand Paul once appeared on MSNBC, and he indicated the federal government shouldn’t engage in the area of public accommodations.
In other words, if he would have been around during the passage of the Civil Rights Act, he would have had serious qualms about the federal government getting involved in the wishes of private business owners, even if they decide to refuse service on account of a person’s race. That’s exactly why Sen. Barry Goldwater voted against the law.
That was in 1964. Rand Paul could take those sentiments to the White House, if he’s elected.
There are even more recent examples of how some Republicans have attempted to ignore the Civil Rights gains of the 1960s.
Back in February, Arizona’s Republican governor, Jan Brewer, vetoed SB-1062, a Republican-backed piece of legislation that would have allowed the state’s business owners to refuse service to gay and lesbian customers. Only after a national outcry and some very specific threats from Delta Air Lines, Major League Baseball and the Super Bowl host committee.
Even as the the Civil Rights Summit was kicking-off last week, U.S. Senate Republicans unanimously blocked the Paycheck Fairness Act, which would have given the nation’s women legal recourse in seeking information that could determine pay inequities.
Republicans have called the Democratic effort “political.” But inaction in the face of inequality is something President Johnson, and now, 50 years later, something President Obama has had to face.
In recent years, there have been attempts across the country to curb voting rights, but under the transparent guise of preventing “voter fraud” — despite any real proof that it’s a burgeoning practice.
Those new laws don’t fly in the face of Johnson’s Civil Rights Act, but of his Voting Rights Act of 1965, which sought to guarantee every American has the ability to have a voice in this great democracy.
Not surprisingly, each of those efforts has occurred in states with Republican governors and legislatures. They know what they’re doing.
But to them, a few more words from Lyndon Johnson: “Doing what’s right isn’t the problem. It is knowing what’s right.”
Edward A. Owens is a three time Emmy Award winner and 20 year veteran of television news. Email him at freedoms@bellatlantic.net