LBJ The “Super Sub”

Lyndon Baines Johnson was a very interesting character to research especially in the context of the Civil Rights Movement. He was born in Texas a southern state so you would think he would be pro segregation but his religious belief steered him towards acceptance, one of his favorite bible quotes “Come now, and let us reason together …” described his approach to civil rights perfectly. Another surprising and interesting thing was how fast he acted to push for progress in civil rights after Kennedy’s death it didn’t take Johnson no time to begin working on progress. If I was in his position I would be a lot more hesitant than him, I probably wouldn’t have gone all in on the civil rights like he did. It worked out very well for him early on when he passed the civil rights act of 1964 and won the next election by a landslide. When his balls to the walls approach began to fade with civil rights so did his popularity. LBJ was a lot more resistant to sign the equal voting act of 1965. I know the Vietnam controversy also led to declining popularity but his civil rights approach probably didn’t help. LBJ has been the most interesting character to me so far in my Civil Rights research followed by RFK  as they both showed that human decency was still alive and people respected that, it’s a silver lining of the Civil Rights Movement.