Why This Is A Night To Remember

The most important single thing I've seen written, spoken or pictured today -- prior to Barack Obama's acceptance speech, or possibly even including it -- appears on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times. It's a column by Robert Caro, a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner, who's been struggling for years to complete the fourth and final volume of his monumental biography of President Lyndon Johnson.

The op-ed is entitled "Johnson's Dream, Obama's Speech," and it's the most powerful affirmation and explanation I've seen of how this great nation somehow struggles dramatically forward, at least in some ways, even in its worst of times. That dramatic drive is enabling a black man to be chosen tonight as one of the two major party candidates for president, something unthinkable less than half a century ago. As Caro reminds us, before President Johnson pulled out all the stops to force passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, black people could hardly vote in the south, much less run for national office:

In March 1965, black Americans in the 11 Southern states were still largely unable to vote. When they tried to register, they faced not only questions impossible to answer -- like the infamous "how many bubbles in a bar of soap?" -- but also the humiliation of trying to answer them in front of registrars who didn't bother to conceal their scorn. Out of six million blacks old enough to vote in those 11 states in 1965, only a small percentage -- 27 percent in Georgia, 19 percent in Alabama, 6 percent in Mississippi -- were registered.
What's more, those who were registered faced not only beatings and worse but economic retaliation as well if they tried to actually cast a ballot. Black men who registered might be told by their employer that they no longer had a job; black farmers who went to the bank to renew their annual "crop loan" were turned down, and lost their farms... So the number of black men and women in the South who actually cast a vote was far smaller than the number registered; in no way were black Americans realizing their political potential...

For decades, Johnson had been anything but a promoter of black voting rights. In his first 20 years in Congress, the man from the former Confederate state of Texas had voted against every single civil rights bill -- even those against lynching. In 1957, as Senate majority leader, he had managed to push through a weak bill that critics complained did next to nothing to protect the rights of blacks. Still, it was the first civil rights law passed by Congress in 87 years.

After the nation was aroused by television pictures of black demonstrators in Birmingham blasted by fire hoses and attacked by dogs, and further brutalized elsewhere in the south, combined with the shock of John F. Kennedy's assassination, President Johnson was able to gain passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which banned segregation in public accommodations. But southern blacks still couldn't vote.

On March 7, 1965, Bloody Sunday, police and mob violence broke up a planned march from Selma to Montgomery Alabama to demand black voting rights (of 15,000 blacks in and around Selma, only 130 were registered). Six days later, LBJ announced to Congress that he was introducing his voting rights bill:

When Johnson stepped to the lectern on Capitol Hill that night, he adopted the great anthem of the civil rights movement as his own. "Even if we pass this bill," he said, "the battle will not be over. What happened in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and state of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life." And, Lyndon Johnson said, "Their cause must be our cause, too. Because it is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice." He paused, and then he said, "And we shall overcome."

Martin Luther King was watching the speech at the home of a family in Selma with some of his aides, none of whom had ever, during all the hard years, seen Dr. King cry. But Lyndon Johnson said, "We shall overcome" -- and they saw him cry then.

As Caro tells us, immediately after uttering those words, Lyndon Johnson's mood turned from softness to steel. Even as he was being congratulated on his speech, he pressed the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee to promptly begin night-and-day hearings on the bill. Despite furious southern opposition, LBJ signed it into law on Aug. 6, less than five months later. Caro writes that "Abraham Lincoln struck off the chains of black Americans,

but it was Lyndon Johnson who led them into voting booths, closed democracy's sacred curtain behind them, placed their hands upon the lever that gave them a hold on their own destiny, made them, at last and forever, a true part of American political life. LOOK what has been wrought! Forty-three years ago, a mere blink in history's eye, many black Americans were unable to vote. Tonight, a black American ascends a stage as nominee for president.

Whether you're for or against Obama, and whether he wins or loses in November, that is what tonight is all about, as Caro so eloquently reminds us. In these dark days, it gives me new hope for my country.

Comments

[bigfan1]

Thanks for posting the gist of Caro's NYT piece. Once again, you have served your loyal Goodmanites well. Certainly Caro is THE political historian of our time and what he says is important. And certainly, by any measure Barack Obama should win this election and make history. The tracking polls have him ahead. The more important electoral college projections have him ahead. And by ANY standard he is the obvious winner. The Republicans have been a disaster. Bush is the worst President in our nation's history. And Obama is a brilliant, gifted man and a leader whose ideas will make our country and our world a better place. So in two months let's see just how far this country has come. Will Obama claim the White House? Or will the hidden (and not so hidden) racismn that still pervades our society sink his candidacy? One can only hope that we have come far enough.

[ewoman]

Sandy - here's your link: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/28/opinion/28caro.html

The comments here are fascinating. I was in fifth grade in 1965, but I remember much from that era - the Vietnam war on TV, the assassinations, the protests, the total metamorphosis of what was my parents' world into what would become my world.

And, to imagine, that Barack was only four-years-old that year. We're blessed by history, no?

[tbrnotb]

Brilliant article and briliant post. The comments have also been touching as we look back in time to those days. People today forget how close we are to the past.

I remember that August day, when the Civil Rights Act passed in 1965. We were at the beach in Lake County, Ohio. I'd have to say people's opinions were split, but it was a new begining.

We still have far to go and there is much work to do. But when Barack Obama became our candidate tonight I could not hold back the tears. There I was, an old white man blubbering away on the sofa....one of the proudest moments of my life!

[January]

I heard LBJ"s speech on the road between Memphis and Montgomery. My colleague, the Rev. James Reeb, was killed that week in Selma. Two others ministers came along to join the many "outside agitators."

The good ol" boys continued the intimidation and violence despite the1964 Civil Rights Act. LBJ"s speech caught us by surprise and gave us nerve to get into the struggle. As it happened, my Presbyterian friend, Rev. Rims Barber, was soon thereafter to begin his civil rights ministry in Mississippi where he became a legend in his own time.

I got to march with Dr. King for my first time. It changed my life. These days most folks fail to realize that King was infamously notorious to his many enemies and in need of friends. Yes, he later received the Nobel Peace Prize. But his assassination, as tragic as it was, came as no surprise. We paid a heavy price to get here today.

When LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act, he mentioned it would cost the Democratic Party control of southern electoral victories for a generation. It has been two generations. The consequence is that we had the loss to Nixon in 1968 and the rampant corruption that spawned. Along with that struggle, LBJ"s Vietnam error occludes his many positive contributions.

We have waited long for our first African American president. LBJ will have to wait longer for his tributes. History will judge him a great president. Obama is a credit to the same tradition.

[schatsie]

absolutely agree with you that this is a night to remember!!! heck the whole darn convention was great from one peak to another.... Too bad the MSM had to walk all over the words with their inane, corporacracy commentary.

Because the MSM is so corrupted, Barack and Biden and Michelle and Bill and Hillary will have to go out stumping and knocking on the doors. We cannot let another 4 years of Republicans happen because they will privatize and corrupt social security and overturn roe vs wade.

[Sandy Goodman - Huffpost Blogger]

I just wish I'd hear from more of you. I'd like to know what you think of what I think is Bob Caro's wonderful, insightful NYTimes oped column. He says it all, about the historic important about Obama's accepting the Dem nomination tonight, and I think that I've included everything important that he says in my Huffpost blog so you all can fairly comment on it. I am still unable to navigate the complexities of how one puts a link on one's post, so I'm not yet able to link his whole column to my blog. I wish I could. But when you get old, I'm 75, you get less able to learn how to do new things. But you can find him easily on the new york times website. Do read everything he has to say. And then I'd greatly appreciate it if you'd send your reactions, whatever they are, positive or negative, to the comment section of my Huffpost post.
Thanks, and my grateful appreciation of reading what I have to say. Sandy Goodman.

[CeeDeeCee]

Sandy

Thanks for ;providiing some historical context for the evening's event.

Well written.

[Dap]

Dear Mr. Goodman,

You keep on writing... I keep on reading, thanks. Agape,dap

[whatevertoo]

thank you, Mr. Goodman.

[Dap]

It's a beautiful thing...

[PaulLee]

There is a hell of a lot that is wrong with America....................but it seems to me that there is a hell of a lot more that is right with it. Congratulations America.

[myskylark]

LBJ was a dedicated and courageous man when he forged ahead with the great Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. He knew that the passage of these laws would cost the Democratic Party the support of the then Solid South.

How sad that when Hillary Clinton mentioned Johnson as the man who made Dr. King's dream the law of the land she was criticized and accused of racial insensitivity by people who knew better.
Rep. Jiom Clyburn knew damn well what he was doing when he falsely accused Sen. Clinton of demeaning Dr. King's memory by recognizing LBJ's contribution.

The New York Times actually wrote an editorial criticizing Sen. Clinton for her statement on LBJ.

The crass hypocrisy and dishonesty of people like Clyburn and Barack Obama himself on this matter is one of the reasons I have left the Democratic Party and will not vote for Sen. Obama in November. I won't vote for Sen. McCain, but I will not vote for Sen. Obama either.

[Dap]

A person sees what they want to see... and disregards the rest... Then takes it out of context. Good luck with that sophism, you'll need it.

[MPeter]

Thank you Sandy. Thank you for providing context. Thank you for reminding us all of the historical significance of tonight. Yes, we have made headway. Some 45 years of MLK's speech, buttressed by the work of LBJ, we will witness history tonight. Yes, it says much about us as a people and as a country.