Transcript: Chapter 09

Narrator: His first test would be civil rights. Racial tensions could no longer be tempered by compromise. The civil rights movement was demanding freedom -- now. Johnson's abrupt assumption of the presidency had converged with the fierce struggle for black equality.

In 1964, racial segregation still ruled the South by both law and custom and Lyndon Johnson was a Southerner burdened by a history of vacillation, compromise and a long string of votes that had kept segregation strong. Civil rights would measure the limits of Lyndon Johnson's moral imagination.

Roger Wilkins: A Southern accent went a long way to raise my defenses, so when Johnson became president, I was fearful [and] very, very unhappy.

Narrator: With civil rights activists confronting segregation all across the South, many Americans wondered how the new president would react.

James Farmer, Civil Rights Activist, CORE: Johnson did not approve of, he did not like -- I can even use a stronger term -- he hated the demonstrations of the movement in the street. He hated them.

Rep. James Pickle: But he had enough sensitivity that he knew that all hell was going to break loose if we didn't do something about it.

Narrator: Civil rights workers laid siege to a segregated society. There were sit-ins at lunch counters, on trains and buses, in hotels and theaters, forcing Johnson to act. When some of Johnson's aides advised him not to lay the prestige of the presidency on the line, he responded, "What's it for if it's not to be laid on the line?"

Roger Wilkins: He said over and over and over again in those days, "I'm going to be the president who finishes what Lincoln began." He said it over and over again. Well, it was great rhetoric, but you also knew that it was a great reading of history, that if, in fact, he could accomplish that, he'd have belonged up there on Mount Rushmore.

Narrator: A bill to prohibit the segregation of blacks and whites in public facilities had been put before Congress by John Kennedy, but it was stalled. Johnson determined to act.

President Johnson: This bill is going to pass if it takes us all summer and this bill is going to be signed and enacted into law because justice and morality demand it.

Roger Wilkins: All of a sudden, there was a power and a force behind this kind of legislation that we hadn't seen in the Kennedy time and with that, my view about him began to change.

Narrator: The full force of the Johnson treatment, perfected in the Senate, now became a weapon in the arsenal of the presidency.

James Farmer: He was on the phone with Republican senators and with Southern Democrats and he was bargaining with them. He was telling them about some bridge that they wanted back home or some dam that they wanted. And he would help them with that if they would help him with this and give him this thing that he wanted, that the whole nation wanted and the nation had to have. And he was also reminding them in not-too-subtle tones that if they didn't support him, he would have ways of getting back at them.

Jack Valenti, Special Assistant to the President: So in those days, we played hardball. My catalogue included a number of Southern congressmen where you had to say -- they'd say, "Well now, Jack, there's no way I can vote for that," and I'd say, "Well, Mr. Congressman, I know you've got this, this and this that you want and I don't think we're prepared to deal with you on that unless you're going to be responding to some of the entreaties from the president." We let them know that for every negative vote, there would be a price to pay.

Rep. James Pickle: And he kept saying to his Southern friends, "If I can advocate it, as president, you ought to be able to vote for it in your constituency. This may be the best chance we'll ever have. I think we got to change our way of doing things." It's not like a Yankee from New York we got to do this. This was a Southerner saying it ought to be done and that helped. It didn't help a whole lot because the Southern boys, they knew that they again were going to catch heck for it.

Roger Wilkins: That's what he got from the Southerners , that, "You're killing us by loving up the niggers. You're ripping the party apart here. You're hurting us." And Johnson's answer was, "This is what we've got to do and this is what I'm going to do and this is what the Democratic Party is supposed to do."

Narrator: Once again, the leader of the Southern Democrats, his old friend and mentor, Richard Russell, stood in his way.

Senator Richard Russell: But we are not yet ready to surrender in our opposition to this bill which we feel is a perversion of the American way of life.

Jack Valenti: And he said to Dick Russell, "I want this Civil Rights bill passed and you nor no one else is going to stand in my way." And I remember Richard Russell said to him, he said, "Well, Mr. President, you may do it, but I'll tell you what -- it's going to cost you the South and it will cost you an election."

Narrator: Southern senators prepared to filibuster -- to prevent the bill from ever coming to a vote by talking it to death -- but Johnson was not to be denied.

Joseph Rauh, Jr.: What the president did was to say, "They can filibuster till hell freezes over, I'm not going to put anything else on that floor," so the filibuster couldn't win. And that was Johnson's great contribution to the Civil Rights bill.

Narrator: The debate paralyzed the Senate for 83 days. It was the longest filibuster in Senate history. And then, the Senate voted to stop the talking. The bill passed. That same evening, at two in the morning, Johnson reached Congressman Jake Pickle, one of only six Southerners to vote in its favor.

Rep. James Pickle: And he says, "No, Jake," he says, "this is your president." He said, "I know it's late and I know where you've been." I said, "Where have I been?" He said, "You've been out having a few drinks and trying to forget that vote you cast. You voted for the Civil Rights and you're trying to forget it." And I said, "I sure am." And he said, "Cause you're going to catch heck, aren't you?" And I says, "Yes, I'm afraid I will." He said, "Well, let me tell you -- the reason I keep calling is I want you to know that your president is extremely proud of you." He said, "I had chances to do something like one year as a congressman," he said, "and I didn't." And he said, "I've always regretted." He said, "You did something I thought was basically right and I didn't want this night to go by until I called on you personally to tell you how proud I am of you." He said, "I am. Now," he said, "go to sleep." Well, of course, I couldn't -- between the vote and that call, it was hard to go to sleep then.

James Farmer: I remember that when I was in the White House talking with him, 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.'"

Ed Herlihy, Newsreel Announcer: [1964] Congress passes the most sweeping Civil Rights bill ever to be written into the law and thus reaffirms the conception of equality for all men that began with Lincoln and the Civil War 100 years ago.

Narrator: When Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights bill into law, a century of enforced segregation was finally over. Blacks and whites could ride the same buses, eat at the same restaurants, use the same washrooms, stay at the same hotels. A Southern president had broken the Southern system of segregation.

Andrew Young, Civil Rights Activist, Southern Christian Leadership Conference: There was something about this man -- I mean, he had a pretty shoddy career and he'd done some pretty ruthless and awful things, but he knew poverty and he knew racism. And I really think that he decided that this was the way to assure his place in history. This was the way to really save the nation. And he knew it was not politically expedient, but I think he really knew it was right.

Eliot Janeway: His attitude, going in, was that Kennedy couldn't pass anything. "I will pass everything that Kennedy failed to do. Where Kennedy failed, I will succeed. I am Kennedy's trustee. I will out-Kennedy Kennedy. I will perform what Kennedy promised, period," especially Vietnam.