United States Presidential Candidates 1968

"lame-duck president Lyndon Johnson sat cloistered in his White House, guarded by armed marines, protected from the chants outside on Pennsylvania Avenue: "Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?""

"Bobby doubted Johnson's liberalism, thought him insufficiently liberal. Ted Kennedy did not; in fact, Johnson's new liberal fervor seemed to have stoked Ted's and made him more liberal than he had been during his own brother's administration. He was catching the gust of liberal wind. And Johnson appreciated the support, even as he curried it."

"In this respect, Ted Kennedy was more like Lyndon Johnson than like his brothers. He was laying down his marker on the Senate as Johnson had. He was demonstrating that he could make the institution work. It was as if he was seeking to escape the politics of charisma that his brothers had personified and that had, arguably, cost them their lives; as if he was seeking reposition himself as a pol, not a messiah, burying himself in Senate drudgery, retreating into the institution, following Johnson's lead and Humphrey's, both of whom had been whips, protecting himself physically but also spiritually. It was totally uncharacteristic for a Kennedy to do so. No Kennedy had ever been an institutionalist, much less an errand boy."

"An extraordinarily gifted president who was the wrong man from the wrong place at the wrong time under the wrong circumstances."

"Johnson was a dirty fighter. Any campaign with him in it would involve a lot of innuendo and lies. Johnson was a wheeler-dealer. Neither he nor anyone else could change that. That's what he was. And Johnson was a treacherous boot. He'd slap you on the back today and stab you in the back tomorrow. Moreover, LBJ was dull. He was a lousy public speaker. The man didn't believe half of what he said. He was a hypocrite, and it came through in the hollowness of his speech. LBJ made me sick."

"And we need to remind people — and I’m saying this because I would say this anywhere in the country — we need to remind people that Texas Democrats are Texas tough. You are Texas tough. Tough like Texan President Lyndon B. Johnson — whose family is here with us. Luci Baines Johnson — I spent time with them earlier at the library — a leader in her own right, who reminds us every time that President Johnson, he never backed down from the hardest fights. Against fierce opposition, he worked beside leaders of the Civil Rights Movement, the labor movement, mobilizing Americans to enact the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare and Medicaid. Think about how tough he and you were to understand the odds against getting any of that done — the inability of a lot of people to be able to see that it was possible. But you and he did."

"The reaction to Bob Woodward’s new book Fear has been almost completely devoid of historical context. The very folks who are trying to convince us, based on Woodward’s account, that Donald Trump is unhinged are ignoring the fact that Trump is hardly the first American president to have temperamental deficiencies. Many of Trump’s alleged personality-related problems are not new in presidential history. Presenting his eccentricities as evidence of a constitutional crisis reflects a clear bias of omission by those doing the reporting."

"Johnson was unquestionably an insecure man. A graduate of Southwest Texas State Teachers College, he’d forever felt inferior to anyone with an Ivy League degree, especially if their last name was Kennedy."

"As noted previously, Lyndon Johnson and Woodrow Wilson are ranked among the top 11 presidents in American history. Yet how much did their personality flaws actually inhibit their overall records of accomplishment? The same question must be asked of Donald Trump."

"President Obama is no President Lyndon Johnson — and wouldn't be even if he tried. To those who might wish the president would emulate Johnson's hands-on approach with Congress, Obama and his supporters say the times — and the Republicans — have changed too much in the past five decades. "LBJ does not live in these times, and Obama would be a stranger in his," says former Johnson aide Bill Moyers. Memories of the Johnson presidency are in vogue. Obama will speak next week at a conference on the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the president occasionally hears a variation of this question: Why can't you be more like LBJ?"

"There are also stylistic differences between LBJ and Obama. The earthy, rough-hewn Texan often applied what came to be known as "the Johnson treatment," leaning into people, rubbing their elbows, cajoling, threatening and sometimes even begging lawmakers to do his bidding. It's hard to imagine the bookish, professorial Obama grabbing someone by the lapels and pulling him (or her) close in – and harder still to imagine that style might be effective today."

"Mr. Speaker, as a proud Texan, I rise today to pay tribute to Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States and the greatest "Education President" in the history of our Nation. It is no exaggeration to say, Mr. Speaker, that Lyndon Baines Johnson's record of extending the benefits of education to all Americans in every region of the country, of every race and gender, irrespective of economic class or family background, remains unsurpassed. Lyndon Johnson recognized that the educated citizenry is a nation's greatest economic asset and most powerful guardian of its political liberties. Mr. Speaker, Lyndon Johnson did more than any single American, living or dead, to make the federal government a partner with states and localities in the vitally important work of educating the people of America, from pre-kindergarten to post-graduate school. It makes perfect sense, therefore, to name the headquarters building of the U.S. Department of Education in his honor."

"Mr. Speaker, Lyndon Baines Johnson, who died January 22, 1973, will be remembered not only as a great President and Member of Congress, but also as the greatest champion of accessible and affordable quality education for all. President Johnson truly understood the importance of leaving no child behind, and he didn't. For all these reasons, Mr. Speaker, it is most appropriate that the House voted to rename the headquarters building of the Department of Education located at 400 Maryland Avenue Southwest in the District of Columbia as the "Lyndon Baines Johnson Department of Education Building.""

"Lyndon Baines Johnson was a giant of a man and a towering figure in the history and life of our nation. We are not going to see his like again."

"Today I introduced legislation awarding the Congressional Gold Medal to Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States whose vision and leadership secured passage of the landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, the Social Security Amendments Act (Medicare) of 1965, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Higher Education Act of 1965, and the Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965. The awarding of the Congressional Gold Medal is long overdue recognition of the remarkable record of achievement in the field of domestic affairs of the person most responsible for several of the nation's landmark laws that mark their 50th anniversary this year. Mr. Speaker, as a Member of Congress from the Tenth Congressional District of Texas, as Majority Leader of the U.S. Senate, Vice-President and President of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson's domestic accomplishments in the fields of civil rights, education, and economic opportunity rank among the greatest achievements of the past half century."

"According to Robert A. Caro, the preeminent biographer of Lyndon Baines Johnson, with the single exception of Abraham Lincoln, Lyndon Johnson was the greatest champion of the poor and underprivileged in the history of the Republic and was the President "who wrote mercy and justice into the statute books by which America was governed." I invite all Members to join me in sponsoring this legislation awarding the Congressional Gold Medal and recognizing the extraordinary domestic achievements of President Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States."

"Between 1825 until the late 1960s, the prison population is stable and pretty low. In the late 1960s you've got all these scholars and activists talking about the end of prison. People are talking about the prison as being over. You have to think about how the United States went from the end of prison to, all of a sudden, the largest jailer in the whole world. And that's because of a set of bipartisan policies, but really takes off with Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson wants to fight the war on poverty, and he gives in on creating a war on crime arm of the war on poverty. And what do the Republicans do, which they always do so well? They defund the poverty angle and keep the war on crime."

"I know that some of us who came to adulthood calling Lyndon Baines Johnson a fascist have a perspective problem, one which Reagan and Bush have helped us address."

"The 1964 Civil Rights Act, which outlawed employment discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, and President Johnson's 1967 Executive Order 11375, which strengthened enforcement of the policy barring hiring discrimination on the basis of sex, removed the last major legal hurdles for women who wanted to work in the mines."

"The basic insights central to our current understanding date back to the beginning of the second half of the nineteenth century, and the first scientific breakthroughs demonstrating that burning carbon could be warming the planet were made in the late 1950s. In 1965, the concept was so widely accepted among specialists that U.S. president Lyndon B. Johnson was given a report from his Science Advisory Committee warning that, "Through his worldwide industrial civilization, Man is unwittingly conducting a vast geophysical experiment. ... The climatic changes that may be produced by the increased CO₂ content could be deleterious from the point of view of human beings.""

"Even those who believe LBJ laid the groundwork for a more compassionate nation have to concede that the Great Society promised “an end to poverty and racial injustice,” which makes it, by definition, a failure. It was also an electoral loser for decades. Although Vietnam was the primary culprit, Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan were both elected, at least in part, because voters wanted law and order amidst a rising crime rate and heightened cultural anxiety and urban unrest. There was also the sense that the welfare state was too large and that big government liberalism had overreached its mandate."

"Fast-forward to 2021: Joe Biden is riding high, and LBJ is back in vogue—as are many of the same issues he championed (in a sense, an ironic reminder of his failure to fix them). Voting rights and civil rights are front-page news. Police shootings and threats of riots abound. And we are spending money that would have made LBJ blush. Years of congressional gridlock and stasis have caused many to yearn for a “master of the Senate” who can steamroll the opposition and pass landmark legislation. Does Biden have what it takes to finally right our sinking ship?"

"Even if Biden avoids all of those dangers, Johnson’s legacy remains flawed. Biden might think he can simply give up on the war in Afghanistan, but the war on poverty is the real “forever war.” As the progressive outlet Mother Jones noted a few years ago, “The government’s official measure of poverty shows that poverty has actually increased slightly since the Johnson administration, rising from 14.2 percent in 1967 to 15 percent in 2012” (although if you include “additional non-cash government aid from safety net programs,” the poverty rate fell during that time). It is impressive that LBJ enacted nearly 200 new laws in such a short timespan. That copious output, coupled with its enduring legacy (Medicaid and Medicare, for example), make Johnson a consequential president. They do not, however, make him a good one. If the goal was to win the war on poverty, we didn’t achieve it—we are still stuck in a quagmire."

"While Lyndon Baines Johnson was a man of time and place, he felt the bitter paradox of both. I was a young man on his staff in 1960 when he gave me a vivid account of that southern schizophrenia he understood and feared. We were in Tennessee. During the motorcade, he spotted some ugly racial epithets scrawled on signs. Late that night in the hotel, when the local dignitaries had finished the last bottles of bourbon and branch water and departed, he started talking about those signs. "I'll tell you what's at the bottom of it," he said. "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you." Some years later when Johnson was president, there was a press conference in the East Room. A reporter unexpectedly asked the president how he could explain his sudden passion for civil rights when he had never shown much enthusiasm for the cause. The question hung in the air. I could almost hear his silent cursing of a press secretary who had not anticipated this one. But then he relaxed, and from an instinct no assistant could brief — one seasoned in the double life from which he was delivered and hoped to deliver others — he said in effect: Most of us don't have a second chance to correct the mistakes of our youth. I do and I am. That evening, sitting in the White House, discussing the question with friends and staff, he gestured broadly and said, "Eisenhower used to tell me that this place was a prison. I never felt freer." In those days, our faith was in integration. The separatist cries would come later, as white flight and black power ended the illusion that an atmosphere of genuine acceptance and respect across color lines would overcome in our time the pernicious effects of a racism so deeply imbedded in American life. But Lyndon Johnson championed that faith. He thought the opposite of integration was not just segregation but disintegration — a nation unraveling."

"Lyndon Johnson was not known as a great orator, but 50 years ago today he stood before graduates at the University of Michigan and described his vision of "the Great Society" — a more humane society that "demands an end to poverty and racial injustice." In his efforts to achieve those goals he enacted programs like Medicare, food stamps and the Voting Rights Act, giving Johnson an image of legislative effectiveness that every president since has been measured against."

"Mr. Obama’s critics also often fault him for failing to twist arms in Congress as effectively as Johnson, who has been mythologized as pushing the "Great Society" agenda into law by sheer force of will. In reality, Johnson’s historic legislative accomplishments were enabled by enormous Democratic majorities in Congress, especially after the 1964 election. When those majorities diminished, so too did his influence, as Mr. Obama himself pointed out this year. For these reasons, the frequent comparisons made between the two presidents are unfair. Beyond the changes in how politics works over the last 50 years, the circumstances were never as favorable for the current president, who took office with more modest demand for a liberal agenda, smaller Congressional majorities and a far more unified opposition party. Unsurprisingly, those constraints breed frustration among Obama supporters and puzzlement among observers who wonder why he can’t do what L.B.J. did. At some point, however, they will come to realize that Obama can’t change public opinion or push bills through Congress by sheer force of will – and neither could Johnson."

"As a master of politics and the legislative process, he grasped like few others the power of government to bring about change. …President Johnson liked power. He liked the feel of it, the wielding of it. But that hunger was harnessed and redeemed by a deeper understanding of the human condition; by a sympathy for the underdog, for the downtrodden, for the outcast. And it was a sympathy rooted in his own experience."

"As was true 50 years ago, there are those who dismiss the Great Society as a failed experiment and an encroachment on liberty; who argue that government has become the true source of all that ails us, and that poverty is due to the moral failings of those who suffer from it. There are also those who argue, John, that nothing has changed; that racism is so embedded in our DNA that there is no use trying politics — the game is rigged. Yes, it’s true that, despite laws like the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act and Medicare, our society is still racked with division and poverty. Yes, race still colors our political debates, and there have been government programs that have fallen short. In a time when cynicism is too often passed off as wisdom, it’s perhaps easy to conclude that there are limits to change; that we are trapped by our own history; and politics is a fool’s errand, and we’d be better off if we roll back big chunks of LBJ’s legacy, or at least if we don’t put too much of our hope, invest too much of our hope in our government. I reject such thinking. Not just because Medicare and Medicaid have lifted millions from suffering; not just because the poverty rate in this nation would be far worse without food stamps and Head Start and all the Great Society programs that survive to this day. I reject such cynicism because I have lived out the promise of LBJ’s efforts. Because Michelle has lived out the legacy of those efforts. Because my daughters have lived out the legacy of those efforts. Because I and millions of my generation were in a position to take the baton that he handed to us. Because of the Civil Rights movement, because of the laws President Johnson signed, new doors of opportunity and education swung open for everybody — not all at once, but they swung open. Not just blacks and whites, but also women and Latinos; and Asians and Native Americans; and gay Americans and Americans with a disability. They swung open for you, and they swung open for me. And that’s why I’m standing here today — because of those efforts, because of that legacy. And that means we’ve got a debt to pay. That means we can’t afford to be cynical. Half a century later, the laws LBJ passed are now as fundamental to our conception of ourselves and our democracy as the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. They are foundational; an essential piece of the American character."

"In so many ways, he embodied America, with all our gifts and all our flaws, in all our restlessness and all our big dreams. This man — born into poverty, weaned in a world full of racial hatred — somehow found within himself the ability to connect his experience with the brown child in a small Texas town; the white child in Appalachia; the black child in Watts. As powerful as he became in that Oval Office, he understood them. He understood what it meant to be on the outside. And he believed that their plight was his plight too; that his freedom ultimately was wrapped up in theirs; and that making their lives better was what the hell the presidency was for. And those children were on his mind when he strode to the podium that night in the House Chamber, when he called for the vote on the Civil Rights law. “It never occurred to me,” he said, “in my fondest dreams that I might have the chance to help the sons and daughters of those students” that he had taught so many years ago, “and to help people like them all over this country. But now I do have that chance. And I’ll let you in on a secret — I mean to use it. And I hope that you will use it with me.” That was LBJ’s greatness. That’s why we remember him. And if there is one thing that he and this year’s anniversary should teach us, if there’s one lesson I hope that Malia and Sasha and young people everywhere learn from this day, it’s that with enough effort, and enough empathy, and enough perseverance, and enough courage, people who love their country can change it."

"Like Dr. King, like Abraham Lincoln, like countless citizens who have driven this country inexorably forward, President Johnson knew that ours in the end is a story of optimism, a story of achievement and constant striving that is unique upon this Earth. He knew because he had lived that story. He believed that together we can build an America that is more fair, more equal, and more free than the one we inherited. He believed we make our own destiny. And in part because of him, we must believe it as well."

"Lyndon Johnson told the nation have no fear of escalation I am trying everyone to please Though it isn't really war we're sending fifty thousand more to help save Vietnam from the Vietnamese"

"What are the similarities and differences between Presidents Johnson and Kennedy? Both are political pros who exude confidence and, generally speaking, embrace the same broad philosophies. But Kennedy was an idealist; Johnson is a pragmatist. Kennedy was a voracious reader, a stickler for detail; Johnson has little patience to read, he hits at the heart of a problem rather than get enmeshed in detail. Kennedy had little luck with Congress; Johnson's 32 years' experience on Capitol Hill caught him how to handle lawmakers. Kennedy's foreign-policy style had a continental touch; Johnson's has the flavor of a Texas barbeque."

"The president, LBJ, went on TV to declare 7 April a Day of National Mourning. This was the same man who had ordered thousands of US citizens - black and white - overseas to die in a foreign jungle while he ignored the war at home. Our president was obviously a man of violence. Why shouldn't the rest of us be the same?"

"He was just awful — so jealous, so disagreeable and ugly."

"I sleep each night a little better, a little more confidently because Lyndon Johnson is my President. For I know he lives and thinks and works to make sure that for all America and indeed, the growing body of the free world, the morning shall always come."

"Following the trail of some of these transactions resembles the action in a Western movie, where the cowboys ride off in a cloud of dust to the south, the herd stampedes northeastward, the Indians start to westward but, once out of sight, circle toward the north, the rustlers drift eastward and the cavalry, coming to the rescue, gets lost entirely—all over stony ground leaving little trace."

"Johnson who had compromised too many contradictions and now the contradictions were in his face: when he smiled the corners of his mouth squeezed gloom; when he was pious, his eyes twinkled irony; when he spoke in a righteous tone, he looked corrupt; when he jested, the ham in his jowls looked to quiver. He was not convincing. He was a Southern politician, a Texas Democrat, a liberal Eisenhower; he would do no harm, he would do no good, he would react to the machine, good fellow, nice friend — the Russians would understand him better than his own. ... Johnson gave you all of himself, he was a political animal, he breathed like an animal, sweated like one, you knew his mind was entirely absorbed with the compendium of political fact and maneuver."

"You and I are told increasingly that we have to choose between a left or right, but I would like to suggest that there is no such thing as a left or right. There is only an up or down—up to a man’s age-old dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order—or down to the ant heap totalitarianism, and regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course. In this vote-harvesting time, they use terms like the “Great Society,” or as we were told a few days ago by the President, we must accept a “greater government activity in the affairs of the people.” But they have been a little more explicit in the past and among themselves—and all of the things that I now will quote have appeared in print. These are not Republican accusations. For example, they have voices that say “the Cold War will end through acceptance of a not undemocratic socialism.” Another voice says that the profit motive has become outmoded, it must be replaced by the incentives of the welfare state; or our traditional system of individual freedom is incapable of solving the complex problems of the 20th century. Senator Fulbright has said at Stanford University that the Constitution is outmoded. He referred to the president as our moral teacher and our leader, and he said he is hobbled in his task by the restrictions in power imposed on him by this antiquated document. He must be freed so that he can do for us what he knows is best."

"[Former President] Lyndon Johnson in many respects was a very, very good president. Domestically he brought forth some major pieces of legislation. He chose not to run in ’68 because of opposition to his views on Vietnam, and I worry very much that President Biden is putting himself in a position where he has alienated, not just young people, but a lot of the Democratic base, in terms of his views on Israel and this war."

"Kennedy promised. Johnson delivered."

"It was LBJ who pushed through the civil rights bills in 1957, 1964 and 1965 that finally gave African Americans the same rights (at least on paper) as white America. On the other hand, there can be no question that Johnson was a racist who looked down on people of color as inferior."

"Johnson was a man of his time, and bore those flaws as surely as he sought to lead the country past them. For two decades in Congress he was a reliable member of the Southern bloc, helping to stonewall civil rights legislation."

"As one of our interviewers... says... once you kill a sitting president in high noon in Dealey Plaza and blow his head off, you're not going to go back to normal... After Kennedy was killed, and nobody asked... what was Kennedy's real policy on Vietnam? Well... he was going to pull out of Vietnam. He was very clear about it, and that's what people get confused. Johnson, Lyndon Johnson, who took over the office went right to war quickly. He went to a far more aggressive posture of Vietnam, which resulted in more-- It was a lie, another lie, and that war was a disaster... Unfortunately, the same forces that made that war happen continued in our life, and they controlled us and pushed us into another war and another war and another war... we propagandize an enemy, make him far bigger than he is, and I don't know what we're fighting."

"He was a vice president of a charismatic president adored by liberals. He had a long record in the Senate, with a history of savvy deal-making that was seen as an asset to a less experienced younger president, a newcomer to Washington. And as he ran for the presidency in his own right, he was distrusted by a left newly ascendant in their party. That distrust was born of a record on race that seemed anachronistic to a younger generation. That description of Lyndon Johnson could easily be used for Joe Biden. And in that symmetry is a lesson for liberals. Because as president, Johnson would have the most effective progressive record on race and class of any Democratic president in the past 80 years. The foundational principles of modern liberalism — civil rights and greater economic equality — took further strides during Johnson’s presidency than any since the New Deal."

"Johnson was a candidate characterized as moderate who defeated an extreme Republican and thereby created a large scale governing mandate to pass popular, large scale structural changes to redress inequality and racism. There are lessons here for today’s liberals. It is to concentrate on and work toward the margin victory. A moderate president with strong margins in the House and Senate can achieve many more liberal goals than a liberal without the Senate. We live in a time of extreme polarization, so a Johnson-like landslide may not be possible. But if there’s an event that can scramble that kind of polarization, it is a global pandemic that an incumbent president badly mismanages."

"Johnson, who is unable to put his own house in order - give reality to democracy in America and give black people their basic rights as American citizens - sees this unjust, unnecessary genocide as an affair of honour."

"Our 36th and 46th presidents share a number of key things in common. Lyndon Johnson and Joe Biden both got elected to Congress before the age of 30, achieved great prominence in the Senate, and became vice presidents to charismatic, younger leaders who represented generational change. They also rose to become president, promulgating ambitious domestic agendas and leading a divided nation through turbulent times. Johnson and Biden might also share something else in common; there has been wide speculation that Biden might step down from the presidency after a single term, becoming the first incumbent president to opt not to run for re-election since Johnson announced that he would not be a candidate 55 years ago today."

"Johnson’s reasons for not running in 1968 were principally rooted to his health. He had suffered a nearly fatal heart attack in 1955, at age 46, and was acutely aware that his father and paternal grandfather had both died of heart attacks at age 62. (As it stood, Johnson died of a heart attack at 64, four years and two days after leaving the presidency). He was also conscious of the crises the country had endured when Roosevelt died unexpectedly of a stroke in 1945 and when Woodrow Wilson had a stroke in 1919 that had left him largely incapacitated. Of course, there was also the issue of the Vietnam War, which dogged Johnson’s presidency and polarized the country as he steadily escalated U.S. involvement. Johnson saw not running for re-election as an overture to the North Vietnamese to agree to peace talks, which until then, had eluded him. And surely he knew that his campaign for re-election would further divide America. As Lady Bird Johnson said of his decision, “I saluted him for being clearheaded enough to see that he wasn’t the man at that particular time who could unite the country.” It’s different for Biden who is in good health and can’t be expected to unite an America whose divisions are largely intractable. But he, as much as anyone, can ensure that America remains sound and true to our most basic ideals during a pivotal time. Johnson chose not to run in 1968 “with America’s future under challenge right here at home, with our hopes and the world’s hopes for peace in the balance every day.” Biden should run for re-election for the same reasons."

"Lyndon Johnson had fallen into popular disfavor by the time Nixon succeeded him in the White House; but in succeeding Kennedy, winning a landslide over Goldwater, and pushing through Congress not only Kennedy's remaining initiatives but his own Great Society program, Johnson had been by late 1965 perhaps literally more powerful than any of his predecessors. The Tonkin Gulf resolution he maneuvered through Congress left him and for a while Nixon virtually a free hand in Indochina; and in waging one of the biggest wars in American history without Congressional declaration, Johnson notably expanded the already extensive "war powers" of the presidency."

"Johnson ran as the peace candidate in 1964, promising to get us out of Vietnam or at least to stop any escalation of American involvement there. The opposite happened. Johnson promised that Medicare would be efficiently run and financially self-sustaining. The opposite happened. Johnson said that his Great Society programs would usher in a new kind of America, one in which government-directed investments in anti-poverty campaigns and educational projects would not only lift up the poor but would, by helping them to maximize their own economic value, lift the entire country, too. The opposite, or something close to it, happened there, too. Johnson, who in Congress had opposed not only a great deal of civil-rights legislation but even anti-lynching bills, would in 1964 reinvent himself as a civil-rights champion. It is pleasant to think that, in whatever afterlife he finds himself in, he is both amused and pleased to see himself politically reincarnated as a black man."