Civil Rights Leader James Farmer to LBJ: "how did you get to be the way you are?"

[book_worm]

But Martin Luther King himself knew what Johnson had done, and he gave the President enormous credit when they met after the legislation was signed. James Farmer, the great leader of the Congress of Racial Equality, told the story of a conversation he once had with Johnson in the White House:


I asked him how he got to be the way he was. He said, “What do you mean?” I said, “Well, here you are, calling senators, twisting their arms, threatening them, cajoling them, trying to line up votes for the Civil Rights Bill when your own record on civil rights was not a good one before you became Vice President. So what accounted for the change?” Johnson thought for a moment and wrinkled his brow and then said, “Well, I’ll answer that by quoting a good friend of yours and you will recognize the quote instantly. ‘Free at last, free at last. Thank God Almighty, I’m free at last.’”

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/georgepacker/2008/08/lbjs-moment.html

[villager]

1. well then, I can't wait for Obama to start feeling fully free, at last, in the Oval Office!

n/t

[book_worm]

2. I believe he is moving in the right direction and hopefully will move

more decisively in the months and years ahead.

[villager]

5. I certainly hope so, too, book_worm!

:hi:

[Schema Thing]

3. Did he mean he had an epiphany that freed him, or...

...did he mean he was "free" of his need to coddle a racist constituency?

[book_worm]

4. I believe he meant that he was free of representing southern state

which supported Jim Crow.

On the other hand Johnson as a Senator was one of only three southern senators (TN Gore and Keufeaver were the others) not to sign the Southern Manifesto and also he did support the (watered down) Civil Rights Acts of 1957 and 1960 which most other Southern Senators voted against.