Historian Discusses President Johnson’s Role in Civil Rights

Historian Discusses President Johnson’s Role in Civil Rights
BY PHILIP MONTGOMERY
Rice News Staff
April 23, 1998

Lyndon B. Johnson began his political career in Texas as a staunch supporter
of segregation, but slowly evolved into a national leader for civil rights,
said one of the leading historians on the 20th-century United States during
a recent lecture at Rice.

William E. Leuchtenburg, a leading authority on the New Deal and its effects
on U.S. politics, described how Johnson rose above regional politics and the
racism of good-old-boys to lead&emdash;or drag, as in the case of some die-hard
segregationists&emdash;the United States into a new era of civil rights
for all Americans regardless of race.

Leuchtenburg spoke as part of the Lecture Series on Ethics, Politics and Society
on April 16. The lecture was the last in the series for the 1997-98 academic
year.

Critics of Johnson say that when the political climate of the country shifted
from wide-spread support of segregation to a national clamor for civil rights,
Johnson then became a supporter of the civil rights of African Americans because
it was in his political interest, Leuchtenburg said.

"One never knows about those things," Leuchtenburg said at the conclusion
of his speech. "But I don’t think that is altogether true. He repeatedly
said that he never forgot the year he spent as a young high school teacher in
a small Hispanic community in Texas and the pain that he saw in the faces of
the children that discrimination and poverty caused."

Johnson may be one of the nation’s great presidents, Leuchtenburg said. Johnson
saw segregation as an issue that threatened to tear his beloved nation apart,
and as a Southern politician he was in the unique position of being able to
effectively attack segregation as no Northern or Eastern president could do.

Leuchtenburg is the William Rand Kenan Jr. Professor at the University of North
Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences and has served as president of the American Historical Association.

He is the author of numerous articles and books including "The Perils
of Prosperity, 1914-32" (University of Chicago Press, 1958) and "Franklin
D. Roosevelt and the New deal, 1932-1940" (Harper and Row, 1963).