Tommy > Books: presidential-leadership‎ (16)

Out of the sorrow of John F. Kennedy's assassination and the passion, determination, and skill of President Lyndon Baines Johnson and the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. had emerged the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Out of courage an horror on the Edmund Pettus Bridge and in fiery protest throughout the nation, the two men again ignited the nation's passion for justice in passing the 1965 Civil Rights Act. And out of the ashes of burning cities following Dr. King's assassination and Johnson's decision not to seek reelection had come one final declaration for justice written powerfully into the fabric of American law. (p. 421)

King believed that his success as a leader depended on his maintaining credibility with a large, diverse constituency. He would sit quietly through long arguments, and then seek a middle way (p. 186). . . . In their goals, both Johnson and King were seeking radical change in the equities of social justice in America [they both spoke for it, but disagreed about the role of nonviolent demonstration]. In action, however, they both revealed a belief that change is achieved most effectively pragmatic, conciliatory leaders (p. 186).

If he were to join King's court petition, it would look as if he were "advocating the god-damn march. If every time [King] wants to march, I go in and tell the judge, 'I want you to enjoin the local officials,' it may look like I'm stirring up those marches. . . . But if you don't you get a lot of killings, and they say, "What did you do?" He paused: "And you didn't do anything." "You've got a hell of a dilemma," sympathized Senator Hill. "Yes, I do," replied Johnson.

On the one hand, canceling the march would embarrass King and the SCLC before both local and national civil rights forces. The momentum building in Selma wold also be lost. On the other hand, SCLC mantra had always been that local and state segregation statues were invalid, but that federal laws must be followed. And King had never defied a federal court order (p. 292).

King's popularity, like Johnson', was sinking. As 1967 drew to a close, Lyndon Johnson and Martin Luther King, now avowed political enemies, faced identical dilemmas: how to end an escalating war, with mounting casualties, which was siphoning funds from the dream they still shared of a more just society -- and how to deal with increasing hostility from each other as well as from their own hard-won constituencies (p. 378).

With Watts, Martin Luther King began moving toward a far more radical critique of what ailed American society (p. 343).

Our students and our country need to relearn why we once celebrated leaders such as these--as well as their predecessors and successors. In his farewell address, President Reagan warned the American people--and the world--of a whirlwind we would reap by not studying history . . . . "If we forget what we did, we won't know who we are. I'm warning of an eradication of the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit." p. 3

He could extemporize for an hour or longer without a pause or misplaced word. He thought in metaphors, spoke in perfect sentences, and composed entire paragraphs in his head, relying on his superior vocabulary. . . . Muckraker Ida Tarbell said, "I doubt if there is any man in America that can talk . . . with such precision and at the same time so like a human being." (p. 11)

Victory was already assured when President Roosevelt died. Since then two of the mightiest empires of the world have collapsed. History has recorded the decline and of empires before, but never with such rapidity. During these four months events that once covered years, even centuries, were consummated in weeks and days . . . Surely the revolutionary changes wrought during this period are such that it is safe to say that a new era in mankind's history is beginning. (New York Times)