An Accidental President Shifts the Political Paradigm

Big, bold, and brash, Lyndon Baines Johnson always made a strong impression. Though he drew criticism for his decisions about Vietnam and his cruder moments (such as holding meetings while he was seated on the toilet), his fight for civil rights changed the landscape of American politics for decades. Johnson spent his life angling for power, determined to become president. But when his dream came true, it was a nightmare. Johnson faced a nearly impossible job in the wake of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Thanks to the advent of television, news of Kennedy’s murder exploded across the country. By the time the new president landed in Washington, D.C., almost the entire nation knew what had happened. Johnson needed to reassure the country immediately. Not only was a popular president dead, but Cold War tensions were growing, Congress was gridlocked, and civil rights leaders were losing patience. To further complicate matters, the next presidential election was less than a year away. Johnson had to prove himself, and quickly.

Born in 1908 in rural Texas, Johnson grew up surrounded by politics and poverty. His father served as a member of the Texas House of Representatives, and Johnson often accompanied him on door-to-door campaigning days or on trips to the state capital. Young Johnson learned the power of persuasion, honing a skill he would use throughout his political career. When he was thirteen, Johnson announced to his classmates at recess: “Someday, I’m going to be President of the United States.” Johnson’s first political job came in 1930 when he began working on the congressional campaign of Texas Democrat Richard Kleberg. After Kleberg’s victory, Johnson followed him to Washington to serve as his legislative assistant. Over the next several years, Johnson focused on learning the secrets of politics in Washington: he discovered who had power and how they got it. He befriended doormen and offered to complete menial tasks in an effort to get closer to the powerful and study how they worked. His efforts paid off. In 1937, Johnson mounted a successful campaign for a seat in the House of Representatives. Instrumental to his victory was his wife, Claudia “Lady Bird,” whom he had married in 1934.

A 1941 bid for a Senate seat was unsuccessful, but Johnson remained in the House and tried again in the 1948 Senate race. The election was close, and there were accusations of wrongdoing on both sides of the campaign, but in the end, Johnson won by a margin of only eighty-seven votes. He progressed quickly through the ranks of the Senate, becoming minority leader in 1953 and majority leader in 1955. At age forty-six, he was the youngest majority leader in the history of the Senate.

During his first twenty years in Congress, Johnson voted against every piece of civil rights legislation introduced. That changed in 1957, when he worked to pass the first civil rights bill since Reconstruction. This shift in position likely came about from a combination of Johnson’s desire to win the support of northern Democrats in advance of a presidential campaign and a genuine concern for the poor and disenfranchised. Additionally, the Civil Rights Movement had been gaining strength throughout the 1950s, and it was becoming difficult to ignore the need for real change throughout the country, and especially in the South. Though the Civil Rights Act of 1957 was historic, by the time it made it through the House and the Senate, it was nearly toothless. It protected voting rights, but the means of enforcing it were weak. Sections banning segregation in housing, restaurants, and other public venues had been cut from the bill. In facilitating the compromise, Johnson angered both southern Democrats, for daring to pass civil rights legislation, and northern liberals, for watering it down.

In an effort to drum up liberal support in advance of the 1960 Democratic Convention, Johnson again took up the issue of civil rights in the Senate. But the 1960 Civil Rights Act disappointed activists again. Johnson retained the support of the southern Democrats, but lost the trust of liberals in the North, and with it, the Democratic nomination, which went to John F. Kennedy.

Kennedy invited Johnson to be his running mate, and Johnson accepted. The two won the 1960 Presidential election, defeating Richard Nixon by a small margin. Kennedy had campaigned on the slogan “Let’s get this country moving again”; however, his plans for domestic progress were hampered by the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, growing tension with the Soviet Union, and the escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

At home, the civil rights movement was gaining strength, momentum, and visibility. Freedom Riders took off on a bus tour of the South in the summer of 1961 in an attempt to desegregate rest areas; they were met with assault and a firebombing. President Kennedy sent in federal marshals to protect them, but the next month, Robert Kennedy, the Attorney General, met with civil rights leaders to try to persuade them to quit the Freedom Rides and focus on voting instead.

The assassination of John F. Kennedy in Dallas, Texas rocked the country, but Johnson was determined to maintain a sense of continuity by following through on Kennedy’s plans. In his State of the Union address in January of 1964, Johnson called for Congress to pass the civil rights legislation introduced by Kennedy the year before. It was not an easy sell. Southern lawmakers staunchly opposed the bill, which strengthened voting rights, prohibited discrimination in most public accommodation, and desegregated public schools. The House approved the bill, but only after defeating over one hundred amendments aimed at gutting it. Once the bill moved to the Senate, southern Democrats filibustered it for seventy-five days before supporters finally gathered the votes necessary to bring the bill to a vote. It passed, and on July 2, Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law. Its passage granted much-needed legal rights to minorities, but it also delivered the South to Republicans through to the present day.

Buoyed by the victory of the Civil Rights Act, Johnson garnered the support of black voters and won the 1964 election by a landslide, defeating Barry Goldwater. He went on to sign the Voting Rights Act in August of 1965, which banned literacy tests and gave the Justice Department the authority to supervise federal elections in certain southern states. The Voting Rights Act, though early in his second term, would be one of Johnson’s last political victories.

Johnson wanted to establish a “Great Society” through a collection of social programs and legislation designed to improve the lives of the poor and disadvantaged. Though much of this legislation vastly improved the lives of many through the establishment of the Head Start preschool program, Medicare, the Job Corps, and the expansion of Social Security, these accomplishments were overshadowed by the growing turmoil of the 1960s. Johnson’s second term saw an increase in race riots, protests against the war in Vietnam, and the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

By March of 1968, Senator Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy had both announced their intent to challenge Johnson for the Democratic nomination. Johnson responded by announcing on national television that he would not campaign for or accept the nomination. He knew that a win would be nearly impossible, and the thought of defeat was unbearable. At the end of his term, he retired to his ranch in Texas, where he died of a heart attack in 1973.

Leslie Gehring is a second-year dramaturgy student at the A.R.T./Moscow Art Theater School Institute for Advanced Theater Training at Harvard University.