Question: How long did it take LBJ to pass civil rights legislation?

I ask so I can get a historic perspective.

Thx in advance for any input.

that's what - 7 months?

...Thx, I thought for some reason that it was months after his first election but he wasn't elected the first time.

So the mandate wasn't his it was JKF's and like Obama, JFK was distancing himself somewhat from the issue where as LBJ took it straight on knowing they had the votes.

Obama can learn a thing or to from LBJ's success's and mistakes, it seems like Obama's admin parallels his more than any admin

And I don't mean that he wasn't personally predisposed to favor civil rights. I mean that as a very pragmatic and ambitious politician, LBJ spent much of the 1950s blocking effective civil rights legislation from reaching the floor of the Senate. He did pass an ineffective, watered down civil rights bill in 1957.

LBJ was perhaps the most powerful Senate Majority Leader in history. He was called by Robert Caro, "Master of the Senate." He had a New Deal agenda during much of the 50s, and to keep southern Democrats in line, he regularly killed every attempt to pass civil rights legislation. He didn't just not support it; he killed it in committee, watered it down or prevented it from getting to the floor. In the 1950s, as a southerner from Texas and Senate Majority Leader, he was widely considered to be the most serious enemy and obstacle to civil rights legislation before he was taken out of the Senate and into the Vice Presidency.

When Johnson wanted to get anything done in the Senate, he was an incredibly intimidating presence. He was known for getting "in your face," and if you want to see what that means, just google for pictures of "the johnson treatment," and you'll understand exactly why he could basically dictate to Senators how they would vote. Here's a biographer's description of the Johnson Treatment that is quoted in Wiki:



Johnson was a strange character. He was probably not personally prejudiced against African Americans, and one of his biographies said that close personal relationships with poor African Americans, poor Mexican Americans and poor whites in rural Texas shaped his political ambitions and world view.

So when you ask, how long did it take Johnson to get civil rights legislation passed, do you only mean during his presidency, or during his long control of the Senate, when he could have gotten civil rights legislation passed pretty easily?

Once he became president and was freed somewhat from the limitations of the Senate, Johnson used JFK's assassination to ram civil rights legislation through Congress. In fact, he did not really claim that it was something that was his agenda. He cleverly used the "matrydom" of JFK to get civil rights legislation passed -- he argued it was something Kennedy wanted and that he was fulfilling Kennedy's legacy.

Ironically, Kennedy had dragged his feet on civil rights, and it was LBJ who wanted it passed much more than JFK.

So there was a lot of Kabuki Theater going on and to this day it is pretty difficult to understand what motivated LBJ through his remarkably arcane political maneuvering. I think LBJ wanted to be the next FDR and civil rights was part of his much larger agenda of a new New Deal -- The Great Society -- that he wanted to be remembered for. Basically, he wanted to be the greatest president of all time, and the Vietnam War destroyed those ambitions.

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He is the one that Most Black People still give the most credit to for getting a bill to congress.
This is why you may find a portrait of JFK in a Black person's home, but not one of LBJ. It is not that LBJ doesn't deserve some credit, but the initiator of the bill, JFK gets more. I will also note that Black Folks supported JFK forcefully because of his views on Civil Rights during the 1960 election. However, into his 5th month, JFK had not fulfilled their desires. He was dealing with Cuba and stuff.

In fact: Now as president, Kennedy could either ignore discrimination or he could act. He had promised in his campaign speeches to act swiftly if elected.
....Regardless of his promises, in 1961 Kennedy did nothing to help and push forward the civil rights issue. Why? International factors meant that the president could never focus attention on domestic issues in that year. He also knew that there was no great public support for such legislation. Opinion polls indicated that in 1960 and 1961, civil rights was at the bottom of the list when people were asked "what needs to be done in America to advance society ?" Kennedy was also concentrating his domestic attention on improving health care and helping the lowest wage earners.
http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/john_kennedy_and_civil_rights.htm


The Civil Rights Act of 1964 (Pub.L. 88-352, 78 Stat. 241, July 2, 1964) was a landmark piece of legislation in the United States that outlawed racial segregation in schools, public places, and employment. Conceived to help African Americans, the bill was amended prior to passage to protect women, and explicitly included white people for the first time. It also created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

The bill was introduced by President John F. Kennedy in his civil rights speech of June 12, 1963,<1> in which he asked for legislation "giving all Americans the right to be served in facilities which are open to the public—hotels, restaurants, theaters, retail stores, and similar establishments," as well as "greater protection for the right to vote."



He then sent a bill to Congress on June 19. Emulating the Civil Rights Act of 1875, Kennedy's civil rights bill included provisions to ban discrimination in public accommodations, and to enable the U.S. Attorney General to join in lawsuits against state governments which operated segregated school systems, among other provisions. But it did not include a number of provisions deemed essential by civil rights leaders including protection against police brutality, ending discrimination in private employment, or granting the Justice Department power to initiate desegregation or job discrimination lawsuits.<2>

The bill was sent to the House of Representatives, and referred to the House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Emmanuel Celler. After a series of hearings on the bill, Celler's committee greatly strengthened the act, adding provisions to ban racial discrimination in employment, providing greater protection to black voters, eliminating segregation in all publicly-owned facilities (not just schools), and strengthening the anti-segregation clauses regarding public facilities such as lunch counters. They also added authorization for the Attorney General to file lawsuits to protect individuals against the deprivation of any rights secured by the Constitution or U.S. law. In essence, this was the controversial "Title III" that had been removed from the 1957 and 1960 Acts. Civil rights organizations pressed hard for this provision because it could be used to protect peaceful protesters and black voters from police brutality and suppression of free speech rights.

The bill was reported out of the Judiciary Committee in November 1963, and referred to the Rules Committee, whose chairman, Howard W. Smith, a Democrat from Virginia, indicated his intention to keep the bill bottled up indefinitely. It was at this point that President Kennedy was assassinated. The new president, Lyndon Johnson, utilized his experience in legislative politics and the bully pulpit he wielded as president in support of the bill.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964

...on the back of my head stand up a lil'.

History is supposed to more rhyme than repeat itself verbatim

Thx for the time line that gives me a better perspective of what Obama is up against.

Prayerfully except for what happened in November of '63.

He really was the first one to actually run on the issues of Civil Rights for Black People,
and actually did something about it....even though it wasn't on the timetable hoped for.

In the 1960 presidential election campaign John F. Kennedy argued for a new Civil Rights Act. After the election it was discovered that over 70 per cent of the African American vote went to Kennedy. However, during the first two years of his presidency, Kennedy failed to put forward his promised legislation.

The Civil Rights bill was brought before Congress in 1963 and in a speech on television on 11th June, Kennedy pointed out that: "The Negro baby born in America today, regardless of the section of the nation in which he is born, has about one-half as much chance of completing high school as a white baby born in the same place on the same day; one third as much chance of completing college; one third as much chance of becoming a professional man; twice as much chance of becoming unemployed; about one-seventh as much chance of earning $10,000 a year; a life expectancy which is seven years shorter; and the prospects of earning only half as much."

Kennedy's Civil Rights bill was still being debated by Congress when he was assassinated in November, 1963. The new president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who had a poor record on civil rights issues, took up the cause.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAcivil64.htm

... and the Democrats have had the "black vote" ever since.

.... but I heard Bobby didn't write the memo himself. ;)

and LBJ too little for Civil Rights. The fact is I doubt Kennedy would have managed to pass Civil Rights even if he hadn't been murdered. Kennedy was a fundamentally conservative president who is vastly over rated. He deserves nearly as much blame for VietNam as Johnson does and had very few accomplishments as President. I will give him credit for running on Civil Rights but that is about all he deserves.

I guess the fact that JFK's bill was sent as legislation,
and that he was too dead to do anything more about it doesn't compute with you.

Good to know how you see things.

during that time he found the time to appoint segregationists to courts plus the anti woman and anti gay Justice White. He passed about the most regressive tax cuts in history. He authored the Bay of Pigs disaster. Sorry but he was not a great President. Had he been Republican instead of Democratic he would be reviled as a failure on this site even if his record hadn't changed an iota.

That's where JFK gets the most credit from me in his short tenure.

instead he kept caving to racist white America. Sorry, but that's the truth.

There were 63 Democrats in the Senate from 1963 to 1965, the 88th Congress.


Even still, that Civil Rights Bill was filibustered for 54 days, because some Southern Democrats refused to vote for cloture.

Back then, they needed 2/3 to break a filibuster instead of the current 60 votes.

They still had to -->> COMPROMISE <<-- on a weaker version of the bill to get cloture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964

<snip>
The bill came before the full Senate for debate on March 30, 1964 and the "Southern Bloc" of southern Senators led by Richard Russell (D-GA) launched a filibuster to prevent its passage. Said Russell "We will resist to the bitter end any measure or any movement which would have a tendency to bring about social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our (Southern) states."<5>

After 54 days of filibuster, Senators Everett Dirksen (R-IL), Thomas Kuchel (R-CA), Hubert Humphrey (D-MN), and Mike Mansfield (D-MT) introduced a substitute bill that they hoped would attract enough Republican votes to end the filibuster. The compromise bill was weaker than the House version in regard to government power to regulate the conduct of private business, but it was not so weak as to cause the House to reconsider the legislation.<6>

On the morning of June 10, 1964, Senator Robert Byrd (D-W.Va.) completed an address that he had begun 14 hours and 13 minutes earlier opposing the legislation. Until then, the measure had occupied the Senate for 57 working days, including six Saturdays. A day earlier, Democratic Whip Hubert Humphrey of Minnesota, the bill's manager, concluded he had the 67 votes required at that time to end the debate and end the filibuster. With six wavering senators providing a four-vote victory margin, the final tally stood at 71 to 29. Never in history had the Senate been able to muster enough votes to cut off a filibuster on a civil rights bill. And only once in the 37 years since 1927 had it agreed to cloture for any measure.<7>

Shortly thereafter, the substitute (compromise) bill passed the Senate by a vote of 73-27, and quickly passed through the House-Senate conference committee, which adopted the Senate version of the bill. The conference bill was passed by both houses of Congress, and was signed into law by President Johnson on July 2, 1964. Legend has it that as he put down his pen Johnson told an aide, "We have lost the South for a generation." <8>

<snip>


So, there you have it. The great LBJ wasn't able to use his great Progressive Presidential powers to strong-arm the Senate into voting for Civil Rights. It was filibustered for about two months and only passed when the Senate considered a compromised, weaker version.

...had southern democrats though.

LBJ was a decent prez outside of Nam, damn....who in the hell got him into that crap?!!?

Since he was a Commie-hating Texan it didn't take much convincing.

...told him that the WMD excuse was a "slam dunk".

I think the CIA is doing their best but they shore know how to make a mess of some of the bigger issues of our times.

The CIA and the Federal reserve seem to be marchin by the beat of their own drummers no doubt

That's where they got a lot of the secondary funding for their operations.

Read up on what Air America meant back in the 1960s. It wasn't Progressive radio like now.

Just like with the Bay of Pigs, the CIA, as part of the Air America program, tried to overthrow several Southeast Asian governments (namely Laos and Cambodia) and replace them with USA-friendly puppets that would allow them to conduct their drug trade.

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5890

<snip>
General Vang Pao, a CIA “cutout”, led a guerrilla army of CIA-backed Hmong tribesmen in the secret Laos proxy wars in the 1960s, and in the 1970s as a general in the Royal Army of Laos. When the US finally left Vietnam in 1975, Pao, with assistance from the American intelligence community, fled to the United States, with many of his associates in a mass exodus. The former general, 77, has been a resident of Orange County, California, but has reportedly “never given up the fight” to retake Laos. Pao heads various Hmong “liberation” groups, such as Neo Hom and the United Laotian Liberation Front, which have been recipients of money from Hmong expatriates and exiles, designated for guerrilla activities, and the eventual overthrow of the communist government in Laos.

The CIA’s Air America military/intelligence/narco-trafficking operation, and Vang Pao, are richly detailed in two definitive histories, Alfred McCoy’s The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade and Peter Dale Scott’s Drugs, Oil and War: The United States in Afghanistan, Colombia and Indochina.

Air America was one of the most notorious of CIA proprietary airlines and a key component in the US government’s notorious Golden Triangle heroin trafficking operations in the 1960s and 1970s. Air America began in 1950 as CAT (Civil Air Transport), and was the largest CIA proprietary in Asia. CAT itself was a proprietary with roots to the OSS-China and joint US-Kuomintang operations during World War II. According to Scott, “the CIA owned 40 percent of the company; the KMT bankers owned 60 percent. The planes had been supplying the KMT opium bases continuously since 1951.

The CIA, primarily through Air America, owned a monopoly over this traffic until 1960 (after which an expansion took place, behind many CIA proprietary fronts, including Air America, and, according to Scott “the opium-based economy of Laos continued to be protected by a coalition of opium-growing CIA mercenaries, Air America planes and Thai troops.”). Air America was involved in various aspects of the Indochinese war and clandestine operations, including (but not limited to) narcotics trafficking, false flag operations, logistics, tactical support, troop (guerrilla) transport and defoliation.

<snip>

so that it could pass which is intriguing because clearly as time passed new laws prevent such discrimination. So it seems the moral of the story is that for Health care reform you try to choose and pass a bill that comes closest to Single Payer and in time move in baby steps to achieve this ultimate goal. I still hold that for America a public option is best for now and in time if it passes America will ultimately have a single-payer system.

Valuable historical perspective in this thread.

I did my Graduate Assistantship at Sen. Albert Gore Sr's manuscript repository. Sen. Gore was one of the few southern congressmen working in favor of civil rights legislation. I used to teach a class using the letters written by Sen. Gore's constituents at the time the matter was being debated. The deaths of these children (and James Chaney who's brother Ben is seen in the last shot) was a MAJOR factor.

locked in filibuster over the bill.

That's the infamous "Mississippi Burning".

We should certainly not forget them.....

... for the hard core racists in the south. Like I said, I've held the letters they wrote in my own little hands. "I dont like the idea of having to eat with these coloreds but it's not right that these little negro kids are dying" was a typical response.

the last picture that I posted with the little boy crying was the younger brother of one of the civil rights workers who was killed to whom you are referring. That shot was taken right after he sang "We Shall Overcome" at his brother's funeral. Sang it at the top of his lungs like it was never sung before. One of the most moving scenes from the whole movement. Wish I could find the video.



Here's Ben Chaney, now 58, from last February holding a medallion commemorating the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States. Powerful stuff.

I was there as one of the sailors sent to hunt for them.
And I can tell you it was a consciousness raising for me as well as many americans at the time.

The filibuster of the 1964 Act ended on June 11 and the bill was passed by the Senate on June 19. Chaney, Goodman, and Schwermer went missing on June 21. While the final passage of the bill through conference took another two weeks, so that the bill wasn't signed into law until July 2, their disappearance and murder didn't imapct the ending of the filibuster.

1963

http://negroartist.com/civil%20rights%20imagery/images/Black%20civil%20rights%20demonstrators%20attacked%20by%20police%20water%20hose_%20Birmingham,%20Alabama%20May%201963_jpg.jpg

My White Mother was married to my Black father in 1963, and I was 5 years old.

... obviously there are gay and lesbian victims of hate crimes every day. We all know that. But to me that's the major difference between the civil rights movement and what we have today. No one should die, but sometimes I fear that's what will have to happen to get the rest of the country to wake up.

We honor our war dead .... those killed at Normandy .... or Gettysburgh.

But the Americans who fought and died as seen in the photos above are as much war heros as any uniformed solider ever was.

My friends and I "go out and have fun" today because of the blood and sweat they shed then.

I remember these scenes of violence vividly, Frenchie, as does anyone of a certain age in this country. Even from thousands of miles away they shook me, a teenager.

Nonviolent civil disobedience always has the potential for provoking this kind of response, but Rev. King, who had studied Gandhi's career, knew this very well. IIRC Gandhi performed a kind of cultural/religious values jujitsu on the British when he sent his people against their British rulers to break unjust laws in a completely pacifist and nonviolent way. British soldiers were required to brutalize people who would not fight back, and it ultimately sickened them. News media was there as well -- both print and film. It shocked the world, and most importantly it shocked the British people back home. These events played out in a way that went against their values of fair play and their fundamental beliefs as Christians, a religion Gandhi knew from missionaries. This is why I call it cultural jujitsu.

In the US anyone with a tv saw how violently our own racists reacted to nonviolent civil disobedience. Although they claimed a shared heritage of Christianity, they had Southern law and custom on their side. By bringing the violence and hatred to a national stage via the news media, MLK forced us all to confront what had been hidden or ignored. We all got to see these things, we all got to see that whites who interfered (Liuzzo, Goodman, Schwerner--the two young men were Jewish, btw) were at risk of death themselves, and we got to see the faces of children who died when their church was bombed. As another poster points out, it sickened even Southerners.

And it changed the world.

Hekate

In all likelihood, we'll probably never know how many children died during the Civil Rights movement and Jim Crow.

"Commemorating the Civil Rights Movement in Tennessee: 1946-1960."

And trust me, my advisors MADE me whittle down the time frame considerably. "Clio, dont you feel like 1500 to 2001 is a bit of a BROAD time frame?" :)

I was a virtual basket case at the moment this photo was taken.....

John gave him a book I believe or something like that to sign on Inauguration Day. Obama signed it "For you, John. Barack Obama" I was BAWLING.

.... who came to Mississippi to "outside agitate" during the voter registration drives (which is what Schwerner, Goodman and Chaney were doing when they got killed.)

My father isn't overly romantic ... he's very matter of fact ... doesn't get swept up in melodrama.

He's diabetic, has trouble with his feet ... but he stood in line for hours to vote in the early voting. When he came home, I asked him how it went.

"I did something today I never even thought would happen in my lifetime...."

And then turned and walked away in what I believe was an attempt to keep from becoming too emotional.

:hug: And one for your dad too.

And the "presidential directives" about segregation ignored until the Korean War.

Once there's a pile of Purple Hearts, and a few Medals of Honor, earned by gay service-people, the US military will STFU, and honor their own.

This is how it works.

After the military, comes the rest of the country, using the military as a guide.

But the usual suspects have not commented on this thread.

And believe me, as a white male I get it as much as it is possible for a white straight male.

I understand the frustration of those who want change to occur faster, on their timetable, and they deserve it to happen. Unfortunately what they want, what most of us want, and what is right,... doesn't happen on our time schedule.

It's difficult to refute.

1.) JFK campaigned on pushing for Civil Rights leglislation.

2.) World events and various other domestic issues dominated the first year.

3.) JFK also tried to push healthcare reform through.

4.) Public support for civil rights leglislation was quite low at the beginning of JFK's Presidency.

5.) JFK couldn't get around to civil rights leglislation until 1963 because of many factors.

6.) Even then, it wasn't passed until 1964, after great debate in Congress, a long filibuster, and then allowing a weaker, compromised version of the leglislation.


So, fast-forward to 2009:

1.) President Obama campaigned on repealing DOMA, and DADT.

2.) World events (two wars, bringing the troops home from Iraq, a Somalian pirate crisis, rigged Iranian election, pushing for a two-state solution for Israel/Palestine, North Korea playing with nukes, Guantanomo closing and detainee relocations) and domestic issues (recession, high unemployment, banking/financial industry failures, foreclosures, American auto bankruptcies, stimulus package, increasing funding for science and energy research, education reform, dealing with torture memos and a cranky CIA that doesn't want them published) are dominating his time.

3.) Trying to also push healthcare reform through.

4.) Public support repealing DOMA isn't that high (about split down the middle at half), but a little higher for DADT. Should be higher, 60%+.


Soon to add:

5.) President Obama is able to get to DOMA/DADT on _________________ after dealing with _____________

6.) Even then, DOMA/DADT aren't repealed until ____________________________ happens in the Senate and other public events occur.

talking about perspective!

And what piece of shit created it?

.... to let any of you all adopt me and make me a citizen of ANY other state in the Union! lol

The President wants to give us the ability to opt out of our current insurance coverage ... how about the ability to opt out of my current representatives in state and Federal government? How about THAT Obama!!!! lol

after he filed a brief with the Supreme Court saying that blacks didn't deserve Civil Rights because they were pedophiles and incest victims, and they should uphold the Jim Crow laws because of that.

What? He didn't do that? Gee, then how can we do a fair comparison?

the murder of a sitting President then to make a real comparison?

As for Johnson and Civil Rights, he may not have filed a brief, but he certainly wasn't a rousing supporter of Civil Rights legislation till late in the game.

Johnson, due to political expediency, voted with his fellow Southern Democrats in Congress, against civil rights measures such as banning lynching, eliminating poll taxes and denying federal funding to segregated schools.

As a senator, Johnson’s opposition to Truman’s civil rights programme disgusted Texas blacks.

http://www.georgecurry.com/columns/which-president-showed-the-most-courage-on-civil-rights

...Obama has not.

has only intervened begging the Supreme Court to keep a discriminatory law in place.

I don't think anyone has offered any evidence that Obama knew of or approved that brief. Do you have that evidence? I'd love to take a look at it if you do.

Also, I'm pretty sure that Obama has not done any "begging" of the Supreme Court which would be the job of the Solicitor General.

then he's completely incompetent and can't control his own staff.

If they did, then we'd have a politicized Justice Department and we all know how that turned out last time.

The bill was reported out of the Judiciary Committee in November 1963, and referred to the Rules Committee, whose chairman, Howard W. Smith, a Democrat from Virginia, indicated his intention to keep the bill bottled up indefinitely. It was at this point that President Kennedy was assassinated. The new president, Lyndon Johnson, utilized his experience in legislative politics and the bully pulpit he wielded as president in support of the bill.

Because of Smith's stalling of the bill in the Rules Committee, Celler filed a petition to discharge the bill from the Committee. Only if a majority of members signed the discharge petition would the bill move directly to the House floor without consideration by Smith's committee. Initially Celler had a difficult time acquiring the signatures necessary, as even many congressmen who supported the civil rights bill itself were cautious about violating House procedure with the discharge petition. By the time of the 1963 winter recess, 50 signatures were still needed.

On the return from the winter recess, however, matters took a significant turn. The pressure of the civil rights movement, the March on Washington, and the President's public advocacy of the Act had made a difference of opinion in Representatives' home districts, and soon it became apparent that the petition would acquire the necessary signatures. To prevent the humiliation of the success of the petition, Chairman Smith allowed the bill to pass through the Rules Committee. The bill was brought to a vote in the House on February 10, 1964, and passed by a vote of 290 to 130, and sent to the Senate.

end of quote

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964

I don't think Obama supporters really want to compare Johnson's adovacy of Civil Rights to Obama's lack thereof in terms of gay rights. The contrast is stark and oh so ugly for Obama.

:eyes:

gays don't deserve rights because we haven't suffered enough. Never mind that alone among groups we have seen hate crimes rise in the last year. Never mind that alone among people with immutable characteristics we can be fired from our jobs, thrown out of our apartments, cashiered out of the military, die without health care as our spouses work for the federal government, and a whole host of other civil rights we don't have and you do. The simple fact is Obama promised he would be a 'fierce' advocate for gay rights and until last night uttered not one single, solitary word about gay rights during the 5 months of his presidency. In contrast Johnson literally barnstormed the country for Civil Rights by then.

... and that's the mystery to me because it's not like the GLBT community is at odds with the press or doesn't have friends in the media .... or IS the media for that matter.

We dont see stories on the national level of those who have been assaulted or dying trying to obtain equal freedom under the law.

Instead, the images we see re: this matter are images that the proponents og anti-gay marriage legislation find most offensive ... (whether they should is obviously another matter.) So it only strengthens their cause.

How many Americans know who this is?



See my point?

We need to be as ferverent on this matter with the press as we are with the President.

Rights delayed are rights denied.

Equal civil rights affect us all.

which I sketched out in post 35.

He actually does provide a useful comparison because despite his very long record of stalling civil rights for pragmatic political reasons, the civil rights community refrained from demonizing him, and when Johnson deemed the time right to push through a bill, the civil rights community worked closely with him and publicly supported him.

but his record as President, which is what matters here, was good. They did indeed have huge problems with him being named to the ticket, and justifyably so. I also think, if months had passed with nary a word from Johnson, just like what is happening with Obama, the shit would have hit the fan, and again with full justification.

First, you said that Obama's record is ugly compared to Johnson's. That's simply not true. Obama may have not done enough quickly enough, but he certainly didn't spend most of his career actively opposing an equal rights bill through legislative maneuvers. You don't seem to have a sense of Johnson's overall record, nor his mercurial and pragmatic approach even to big moral issues.

Second, my main point is how much more pragmatic the civil rights movement was in working with politicians whose records were uneven. From Hugo Black to Lyndon Johnson, the main civil rights leaders didn't demonized them, and that paid off politically.

is better in regards to civil rights, than Obama's record AS PRESIDENT in regards to gay rights. Yes, Johnson had a bad record as Senate Majority Leader, though his record was better than many southerners, but it still stank. Obama has very little real record but has talked a good game. I hope to be proven wrong. I am willing to give him a chance given his words last night. But his current record isn't all that promising thus far. Again, I hope that by 2012 these words appear to have been foolishly paranoid, but I am not holding my breath.

that it is unwise to write a politician off if you are disappointed with his record at any particular point?

Do you therefore think that promises not to vote for Obama in 2012 that are already being made, might be ill-considered?

What do you think would have been the effect if the civil rights community had urged their constituents not to vote for Kennedy-Johnson in 1960, or if they had excoriated Johnson during his first five months in office for not having already gotten Congress to pass the voting rights bill (which was split off from civil rights)?

One more thing: your own summary shows that Johnson had a bill in committee to work with already which had progressed during the Kennedy administration. It was a matter of getting the bill out of committee and to a vote.

What bill that has already been marked up in committee and that is ready to go to the floor, as the civil rights bill was, do you think Obama should be pushing?

As to some of your other points. I haven't heard anyone say they out right won't vote for Obama. I have hard some say, and I agree with, that I won't vote for Obama if we don't have ENDA, hate crimes, and/or repeals of DOMA and DADT. For me I will need to see at least one actually pass and evidence of real effort on at least one other or he won't have my vote. I don't think that is an unreasonable standard. As to the point about bills. Every single one of the items I mentioned have working bills from either this or the last Congress. It isn't like they are new ideas.

Because the Johnson story is that the bills were complete and being held up by the Rules Committee.

Which bills are ready to go to the floor?

I thought that bills repealing DADT and DOMA would require a substantial amount of Congressional hearings (eg from the military and from constitutional experts on the "full faith and credit" clause). Are there bills that are being held up on procedural grounds that are ready to go?

If not, is the comparison between Johnson's position and Obama's a fair one?

I fail to see why those hearings can't be used. Hate crimes and ENDA actually have passed either one (ENDA) or both (hate crimes) houses. I won't say DOMA is anywhere near as ready as the civil rights bill was back then but DADT is probably having some committee problems given Skelton.

If you agree with that, how can you make a valid comparison between Johnson's getting the already completed civil rights bill out of the Rules Committee and Obama's inability so far to get DADT and DOMA repealed?

And I seriously doubt the current Congress or DoD would be satisfied with old hearings and proceedings that were not held before congresspersons who are now being asked to vote on the issue.

This is why I continue to believe that historical comparisons should be based on, well, actual history.

which is totally missing as of right now. I am not saying he should have had a law by now but we have had nothing, not a damn thing, in five months until last night and then only after even the HRC went nuclear over that brief. Yes, Johnson had the benefit of the work put in during the few months between Kennedy's introduction of the Civil Rights bill and his death but I would be willing to bet an immense sum of money that not one of those four bills I mentioned will be passed by either house by November which would be the time line it took Kennedy and Johnson to go from no bill to bill through the House. The fact is Obama has done a piss poor job of being a fierce advocate and no amount of blaming Congress can change that fact.

Because that's the post that is at the head of this sub-thread -- you are saying Johnson got a bill passed in a few months.

Is it fair to say now that your complaint isn't that Obama hasn't gotten a law passed in his first few months in office, but that he hasn't provided the public support?

In other words, more forceful public speaking in favor of these issues is what you would like to see -- in your words, "advocacy"?

Does that mean, then, that the many posts on DU criticizing Obama for just being a good speaker, or giving good speeches on these issues, are unfair -- because what you're effectively calling for is more and better and more forceful speeches at this point in the legislative process?

I think we therefore agree that it would be completely unrealistic for him to already have actually gotten a bill passed and signed in 5 months based on the Johnson example.

Also, given the history we've reviewed of Johnson, would it be fair to say that the comparison between Johnson and Obama isn't "stark" as you put it? That Johnson was in fact quite pragmatic, mercurial and inconsistent on civil rights? And yet the leadership of the civil rights movement supported Johnson for his efforts despite being harshly criticized by some of the more impatient members of their constituencies.

and stopped entirely when he became President and have not been followed up with any action at all. At this point if he had been speaking consitently on behalf of gay rights for months and we had no action it would be one thing. No speeches and no actions both are another.

If you now agree that to hold Obama to the same standard as Kennedy/Johnson in terms of legislation would require you to give him until at least November, and if you now believe that Obama's speeches and advocacy are important in the mean time, why did his recent statement that he sought legislative appeal of DOMA "not count" as exactly what you want him to do?

Why would you characterize that as "no speeches"?

Barack Obama had a pretty good record concerning gay rights, when he was elected, compared to JFK's record on civil rights. Margaret Carlson had to remind Keith Olberman of the fact the other day, that barack Obama has long advocated for the rights of gays. Maybe not gay marriage, but for civil unions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Rights_Act_of_1964

The bill was reported out of the Judiciary Committee in November 1963, and referred to the Rules Committee, whose chairman, Howard W. Smith, a Democrat from Virginia, indicated his intention to keep the bill bottled up indefinitely. It was at this point that President Kennedy was assassinated. The new president, Lyndon Johnson, utilized his experience in legislative politics and the bully pulpit he wielded as president in support of the bill.

Because of Smith's stalling of the bill in the Rules Committee, Celler filed a petition to discharge the bill from the Committee. Only if a majority of members signed the discharge petition would the bill move directly to the House floor without consideration by Smith's committee. Initially Celler had a difficult time acquiring the signatures necessary, as even many congressmen who supported the civil rights bill itself were cautious about violating House procedure with the discharge petition. By the time of the 1963 winter recess, 50 signatures were still needed.

On the return from the winter recess, however, matters took a significant turn. The pressure of the civil rights movement, the March on Washington, and the President's public advocacy of the Act had made a difference of opinion in Representatives' home districts, and soon it became apparent that the petition would acquire the necessary signatures. To prevent the humiliation of the success of the petition, Chairman Smith allowed the bill to pass through the Rules Committee. The bill was brought to a vote in the House on February 10, 1964, and passed by a vote of 290 to 130, and sent to the Senate.

end of quote

Let's just say Johnson had done a whole lot of heavy lifting in a relatively short amount of time to accomplish that.

but his record as President is entirely defensible in this regard. VietNam not so much.

tenure and leadership in the Senate meant he knew exactly who wanted what and where they stood on the various civil rights issues

<edit: oops! i see this point has already been made>

the letters I wrote about previously....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=8479865#8480013

had nothing to do with Johnson putting pressure on Congress.

Congressmen were getting pressure from their constituents. A ground swell was forming.

That's not an advantage that Obama has at the moment. (unfortunately)

The first real legislation to end the very unpopular Vietnam war started in 1970. It took well into late 1973 before troops started leaving and final legislation was passed.

and had a political party on his side not to end it.

As a federal judge, Frank M. Johnson Jr. (1918-1999) played a crucial role in shaping civil-rights law in America and applying it in Alabama. Civil-rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. once called him "the man who gave true meaning to the word justice." Johnson's legal decisions desegregated schools in Alabama, busing in Montgomery, eliminated the state poll tax, allowed blacks to serve on juries, and authorized the 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery. Many other rulings also had far-reaching consequences toward achieving civil rights for blacks, inmates, and the mentally ill.
<snip>
Because of the controversy surrounding the cases and intense opposition to change, federal marshals provided him round-the-clock protection for almost 15 years, beginning after a cross was burned on the lawn in front of his house in December 1956 following the Supreme Court's final order to desegregate the buses in Montgomery. Without complaint, he endured social ostracism, death threats, and the bombing of his mother's home in the mistaken belief that the home was his.
http://www.encyclopediaofalabama.org/face/Article.jsp?id=h-1253

He walked the walk!

My late uncle, who served on Gov. Soapy Williams' cabinet, was an insider in discussions in D.C. regarding King-Anderson and Medicare. The fight for Medicare (and any kind of national health care insurance) was over a decade old by the time JFK took office. My uncle related to me an off-the-record comment LBJ made regarding such legislation when JFK was still alive -- i.e. "I'll be goddamned if I use my influence in the Senate to give that S.O.B. a victory in health care!!!" (Words to that effect betrayed LBJ's core animosity toward the Kennedys and their "northeastern liberal" roots.)

Only the assassination of JFK and LBJ's ascendancy led to his reversal and the revisionist history regarding LBJ's support for Medicare. LBJ was, first, foremost, and exclusively, an obsessive power-broker. Any 'principle' fell far behind his single-minded obsession to be the puller-of-strings and control freak.

Younger DUers just can't seem to comprehend the political landscape in the quarter century after WW2. The Dixiecrats/Southern Democrats were the day's neocons. (There's a REASON I'm an independent liberal!)

Piss me off!

To attempt to simply state that it took Johnson three months to pass Civil Rights legislation and that is all there is to it, is to rewrite history for the convenience of making a point that is not sound. It is an intellectually dishonest conclusion and only serves as a deceptive soundbyte with no relation to the truth of what it actually took to get Civil Rights passed. As someone who is African-American, I don't appreciate my history being rewritten for me.

Because insisting that historical comparisons be based on actual history has become a very unpopular position here lately.

:rofl:

:hi:

and have always taken much longer than they should, and have nearly always included bloodshed, pain, mass organization, persistence, and political strategy. To try to make it appear that it was something that only took 3 months once the right person came into office is a bunch of shit.....as it took so much more than that till it ain't even funny. Hell, to finally pass Civil Rights in 1964, it took the tragic violent death of a much loved President! That's what it actually took!

It's MY history as well and I've never felt that I had less invested in civil rights and JUSTICE due to the paleness of my skin. Yeah, I know all the 'wisdom' about how I, as a white male ("type"), have the 'luxury' of seeing the world that way ... but anyone that thinks I'm part of "THEM" instead of "US" is, to me, more a part of the problem than the solution.

Believe me, "that which is essential is invisible to the eye."

EVERY individual looks out and 'sees' a different world ... unique to themselves. That 'world' is composed of the infinite array of reactions, actions, dreams, aspirations, and framing we embrace. We surrender to the tyranny of -isms when we adopt the categories of separation to the detriment of understanding that we're ALL family, cousin. We're kin. We all 'create' the 'worlds' that every other individual 'sees' ... and I'm committed to making my part in that 'world' as honest and positive as I can for every other human being.

:rant: (... off my soapbox for another month or so.)

I'm pretty sure that you understand this more than nearly any other DUer, though, with maybe only one or two exceptions.

:hug: :fistbump:

Join the club, sister... :fistbump:

to move on civil rights than JFK was.

I'm absolutely confident in what my uncle reported LBJ ACTUALLY said and the impediments my uncle saw. As a 'New Deal' Democrat (not just politics - almost religion) who worked with Soapy Willams for over a decade and as the State Insurance Commissioner and then on the Board of Directors for Michigan BC/BS, I'm quite confident he reported objectively and honestly.

as would the Johnson ones for that matter. I will say that Johnson and Kennedy could have been playing to the taping system but that doesn't make the tapes 3rd, 4th, or 5th hand.

:hide: :hide: