Long before he would become a respected Washington attorney (no, that is not an oxymoron!), Harry McPherson, as a young man, had recently graduated from his home-state University of Texas Law School and come to Washington and gone to work in 1956 on Capitol Hill for Senate Majority Leader Lyndon B. Johnson. Nine years later, McPherson, by then a White House counsel, was in the House chamber when President Johnson summoned a joint session of Congress to pass the nation's first voting rights act in order to enforce constitutional guarantees for black Americans to register and vote in the United States of America.
Johnson brought most of his audience to their feet and brought tears to the eyes of many when he said, "Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice."
The president paused dramatically for several seconds. Then, adopting the lyrics of the civil rights movement's anthem, he stated forcefully, "And ... we shall overcome."
On Aug. 6,1965, after the Congress had passed his Voting Rights Act, Lyndon Johnson, the master politician and son of the Confederacy, confided solemnly to Bill Moyers, then his young White House assistant, "Bill, I think we just delivered the South to the Republican Party for a long time to come."
He was right on both important counts: All Americans must strive to overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice, and the South has become for Republicans their most reliable regional source of both electoral votes and U.S. senators and House members.
Lyndon Johnson was no plaster saint. I will leave it to others to document his shortcomings in style and substance.
The tragedy that was his Vietnam policy forced his decision not to seek a second presidential term and, almost surely, hastened his early death barely four years after he left the White House.
But President Lyndon Johnson's commitment to equal rights and equal justice for all Americans was genuine. In October 1964, Johnson had made a speech quite unlike that ever given by any other presidential candidate. He reminded his New Orleans dinner crowd that he would enforce the new civil rights law, guaranteeing every American free access to all public accommodations, which had passed with Senate support from "two thirds of the Democrats" and "three-fourths of the Republicans."
Then, LBJ spoke of the words of an old and ailing U.S. senator from Texas who told Speaker Sam Rayburn how he just wished he felt better, because, "I would like to go back down there and make them one more Democratic speech."
Johnson continued, quoting the old senator: "Poor old state, they haven't heard a real Democratic speech in 30 years. All they ever hear at election time is Nigra, Nigra, Nigra."
There was a collective gasp in the room. Then, according to eyewitnesses, the Southern audience gave the Southern president a five-minute standing ovation.
Why is this relevant almost half a century later, during the apparently endless 2008 presidential campaign? Here is why. When Harry McPherson, today an authentic Washington wise man, went to cast his ballot in this year's Maryland Democratic presidential primary in his hometown of Kensington, the precinct official, whom McPherson did not know, apparently recognized the onetime LBJ aide and, without even mentioning the historic candidacy of the junior senator from Illinois, said simply, "Lyndon Johnson would be a happy man today."
As indeed he would be.
To find out more about Mark Shields and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.
COPYRIGHT 2008 MARK SHIELDS
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Mr. Shields;
I would like to thank you for your article, and your News Hour appearance in reference to Martin Luther King. When I was young, we did not have television in my house for a long time, and one of the reasons is that I managed to kill the one we had. When we did get a television it was just in time for the space race, and race riots. And I was still young enough to remember when a police dog was as big as a horse is now, snapping at the end of his chain, trying to scare me to death. Good doggy. I knew the fear close up of people with dogs put upon them, and I did not have blacks daily in my life, and still, I had no trouble sorting the good from the bad in the pictures on my television. Before integration, there was a respectable black middle class. My father went to a black barber, and brought me to that man for my first hair cut. It was a close shave, and I escaped from the ordeal with my life. And My father worked with a Black man, as a member of the International Ironworkers, and while the man was black, and able; no one called him black, but a Black Foot Indian, as they were not too proud to work with Native Americans. It seems we have covered so much ground only to become more entrenched than ever. And why is that? Why can't we see beyond the color to the human being suffering his want of respect and equality? To give anyone equality is to give him his due, and all the rest in life is open for discussion. So, why do we hate, and look with fear at every new wave of immigrant, and cannot manage to merge, blend, and mix in with the nations among us? I think it is because when we see more people coming to this land uninvited by the great majority of us, we know we will not only share rights, but resources with them. It is one thing to ask equality for the blacks and harder yet to compete with them for a place in a job, a school, or a neighborhood. I don't think we have a real problem with blacks, or any immigrant population. The problem is that we have so little to share. Our civil rights are a fraction of the rights we all should have, and do not, because in this country property has such a great share of all rights; and property, -what the nation is made of, has been privatized. Every nation should support itself, and must, if it is not going to live on the support of all other nations. But this nation is worked to the bone with nothing to show for it. It is not just the slums that are slums, but whole states. Infrastructure is neglected. Schools go begging. Healthcare is impossible, and some one in every neighborhood is losing their home and their future. I can understand if white people have an issue with black equality. It is they who have had to pay for it. It is they who have had to live on less so blacks could have a little more. We are quite justified in being angry even if the aim of our anger is incorrect. If we want liberty, rights, justice, and equality we have to worry less about making one man the equal of another, but worry more of making men the equal of property. No man with property, and no right of property can be accepted as making one greater than a man without property -and property rights. Property is a privilage so long as it serves the social purpose. The possession of property should not give one greater access to government, or more rights under the law; and property should support the people that defend it. Any person on the planet can have equal civil rights with me as their due. I object to property eating the rights and the life of this people so those who should be friends begin to seem as enemies.
Comment: #1
Posted by: James A, Sweeney
Sat Apr 5, 2008 7:48 AM
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Thanks for that column on LBJ and the telling of a historical civil rights occurrence. It was very telling. I don't know if Mr Shields reads these comments, but I am hoping he would consider a column on Senator Byrd. I sure would like some insights into this Senator from the south, who seems to have overcome his past. The only thing is, one hears some pretty outrageous statements concerning Senator Byrd's past, which as every one knows, included a stint in the KKK! If not, I will do my own research into the matter. Thanks, Mr Shields for you continued honest and compassionate perspectives. They are refreshing, in spite of fewer occurrences of such viewpoints.
Comment: #2
Posted by: Don Fitzgerald
Fri Apr 11, 2008 9:32 PM
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