LBJ: The Last Interview (1973)

the last interview given by Lyndon Baines Johnson 36th President of the United States it was held 10 days before his death at the LBJ ranch in Texas the subject was one dear to mr. Johnson a towering achievement of his administration the struggle for civil rights a lot of people say if you hadn't had all this civil rights legislation we never had this problem we'd had more than we could be dream of if we had if we've had him with it you can imagine what with ahead if we had continued to sit on that dynamite cake a month before the president had come to the LBJ library at the University of Texas in Austin to greet civil rights leaders black and white from all over the country library held a symposium to mark the opening of the president's civil rights papers of the 31 million Johnson Papers housed here 1 million deal with civil rights in the library Lyndon Johnson's three legislative milestones and civil rights 1964 the Act which prohibited discrimination in public accommodations and strengthened school desegregation and fair employment 1965 Voting Rights gave the federal government the power to enforce laws giving minorities the most precious right the right to vote 1968 housing prohibited discrimination in the sale or rental of most housing in the United States three acts and a surge in the civil rights movement unparalleled since reconstruction there were new faces and the rolled faces to former Chief Justice of the United States Earl Warren former vice president senator Hubert Humphrey Roy Wilkens executive director and double ACP two newly elected congresswoman from California LaVon brathwaite Burke and from Texas Barbara Jordan the president had braved a Texas ice storm to be here and he stayed through the long day and evening the next day threatened disruption some black factions demanded time to speak claiming the meeting was unrepresentative the president gave them permission to speak Roy Ennis director of core was given five minutes chairman he was joined by the Reverend a Kendall Smith New York City Council of Churches Task Force on racism the president told me later both men had received invitations to attend the symposium New York Task Force on racism then Clarence Mitchell Washington director and double ACP rose to his feet [Music] a president drawn and fatigued came back to the rostrum the disruption was over no okay you belong don't we don't hand it over right all right this is yours okay a month to the day later the president spoke with me this hour is the last interview with the 36th President of the United States I never thought that I would waken and find myself in the position of power that a president has but I am here and I have it and I'm going to use it to try to connect what I know and genuine and believer in justices toward my fellow man and I didn't do as much as I wanted to do but I didn't more than that had been done up to that time [Music] mr. president at the recent civil rights symposium in Austin when your civil rights papers were open you made a lot of interesting statements but one in particular I'd like to mention here now you said I do not want to say that I've always seen this matter in terms of the special plight of the black man as clearly as I came to see it in the course of my life and experience and responsibilities how did you come to see it at some point what was the moment of revelation I don't know that I can endpoint or nay or time or an hour I think that we all the products of our environment and here on the Purdon Alice we did not grow up and any prejudiced atmosphere this area is populated by Germans who emigrated here a hundred years ago we have few if any black citizens although when I was a child for four years old I grew up with Mexican Americans and they were my playmates but like most other citizens of this country I took my own rights for granted and I did not see and feel and was not as concerned with my fellow man as I later became as my service extended itself and as I became more acquainted with the problems of the land when I was a young man I taught in the mexican-american school and there I got my real deep first impressions of the prejudices that existed in the inequity of our school system between whites and browns later I was an Nye administrator and dealt with the poverty groups many young people in Nye were blacks and browns and I saw the inequalities of our system then later as a young congressman when I was a candidate and I would go campaigning in my district when I finished my speech all the people come through shake hands with me the lights would come through first the blacks would stand aside waiting their turn and I remember on the occasion of - I was criticized severely if I asking the blacks to come through and shake hands for them they felt that I was extended to them privileged that they shouldn't have very few were voting in Texas in those days because we had a poll tax that helped to disenfranchise them and they were not encouraged to vote but as they participate in the elections and I saw their problems and got to know them through my work and teaching my early years in Congress I I think I gradually took on a different viewpoint as vice president Deeping with the cause of the minorities and trying to evaluate their problems and find a solution to me to them no doubt gave me a breadth of understanding invasion I hadn't had before and finally when I became president and realized that I was the leader of the country and that there were I was the president of all the people and all the people were looking to me to correctly in equalities and inequities and in justices and there was something that I could do about it I concluded it I now that I have the power I'm going to use it every way I could and of course most of my efforts that brought fruit were during the time when I had the power of the presidency behind me the 1937 you had been elected to Congress did it was it difficult for you to reconcile the the problem of representing a constituency in Texas with the need your new felt need to take a stand on civil rights first I didn't have the power doing much about it is an individual congressman of 435 but I did not enthusiastically exercise the power I did have because first of all I couldn't have done much about it and second all I was not aware of the extent of the overall injustice that was practiced upon them as a young congressman that I later realized as a leader of the nation in the Senate and his vice president and president at Gettysburg in 1963 when still vice president you said this until justice is blind to color until all education is unaware of race until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins emancipation will be a proclamation but emancipation will not be a fact wasn't that just about a strong statement as you've ever made it up to that point perhaps I think that's still true I thought it was very true then we've made a lot of progress we have made near enough and education is not blind the color in this country and justice is not unaware of race and it'll take us decades to try to bring the white man the black man and the bound man on equal footing in all of these fields but there's no question but what a great people felt that when we had the Emancipation Proclamation we had made great steps forward and we had but but we had not solved the problems and a hundred years went by and we've done very little about it now we have had the rapid advancement period of the sixties and I hope we will I have in the seventies but I believe that strong statement I intended to be strong but I think it's an accurate statement you wrote in your book the vantage point but about that moment when you became president the United States and truly the top leader of all the people and you said just from the blacks had their hopes for equality and justice raised after centuries of misery and despair they awoke one morning to discover their future in the hands of a president born in the south well do you think they really felt that way after all you'd been doing in the almost ten years previously yeah at least the last six years please mrs. Patel yes I'm sure that that they have a feeling toward the southerner and they have doubts I had him then and I think they have them now and then they'd be justified in some regard because I was the product of an environment and an area that was had never been particularly aggressive and reading them of some of these injustice is perpetrated Department I can understand their viewpoint although I have no complaint about the treatment of me as president I frequently disagreed with the methods and the procedure in the manner that we want about things and we had our differences with mr. Wilkinson mrs. young dr. King and others on what decision I ought to make certainly on the war and things of that nature but they were respectful and they were reasoning and they were fair with me and any leadership are provided to make advancements in their field they supported and and effectively supported it now in 64 of course that was the year a great filibuster that you finally had to break going against your own feelings as you've told us earlier in this talk before on them to debate what brought you to that decision that you finally communicated then to Senator Russell that this time there would be no compromise well Senator Russell I think understood that from the day I became president I recall senator Russell made a speech early in my presidency that was somewhat prophetic he said he felt he knew that I felt certain things deeply and he except affected me to move in certain a risk and then when I moved I would move with all the power that I had and put all my chips in and they had to be prepared to resist that effort and that's what that's what we did in the 64 act after 64 just a year later you put your full weight behind another historic measure that was the voting act of 1965 Voting Rights Act of 1965 which provided direct federal action in order to help the blacks register and vote could you start from the beginning and tell us about the evolution of that act of getting it through just a year after the 64 victory I think it was a part of a philosophy that I had is the presidency I wasn't sure that I would run for reelection 64 when I decided I would run and did run and was elected I realized that the president's time is limited regardless of how bigger mandate he may have received so after the 64 election I said to the people associated with me we got to make up our mind what the big problems of this country are and do what we can about them in cooperation with the Congress and get that legislation through in a period of relatively few months because as things go on we won't have the support of the country that we have in November 64 Voting Rights Act was one of the things that needed doing poverty and health and Medicaid and all those things that made up a part of the program now I called on the congressional leadership and said we feel that you know we ought to have this legislation that now is the time that we can pass it and I want to review it with you explain it all to you ask for your help and cooperation and if you feel that you want to invite me to come to the Congress to deliver this message in person I'll do it if you don't I will send it up by message the leadership discussed it thoroughly and extended me an invitation and I went there and some time in March as I recall every American citizen must have an equal right to vote there is no reason which can excuse the denial of that right there is no duty which weighs more heavily on us then the duty we have to ensure that right and over the evolution for four months we were able to get that rather strong Bell passed in the house and in the Senate two cent reduction as you know supported this and the final days and made effective speeches and voted for cloture and we put that landmark legislation on the statute books I doubt that we could have done that in 67 as things went on and the divisions came about we hit while the iron was hot and we made much progress you think the divisions of the Vietnam War did bring a halt to any hope of consensus on these Daman these domestic issues no no great many of our better pieces domestic legislation was a product of the Congress from 1968 and 68 was one of our more productive years I was given everything I asked Lord Vietnam in a way of man and the way of authority in the way of appropriations and it was anguish for all of us the people that felt that what I was doing was not right they suffered to have to criticize me and to find fault with what we were doing and I suffered to have to listen to them and try to find a better course and never to really find the right answer we had many many disappointments but I never liked Authority and I never liked corporations and I never liked a majority support in either house or I felt in the country of my programs and I think the president must have those things if he's going to be a good person he can't have a Congress going one direction and the Judiciary another an executive another it's just like the pilot of the plane going this way and the copilot going this way and I never had that problem now I'm grateful for it I'd like to ask you about Selma the March organizer Martin Luther King from Selma to Montgomery protesting how difficult it was for blacks to vote at that period in the middle of the crisis and Selma you went on television your staff we gather advised against it the result was that we shall overcome speech to the Congress 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 their cause must be our cause too because it's not just Negroes but really it's all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice and we shall overcome what was the reaction of that to that speech that is this moved you really and into the camp with the protesters I think that when a president exercised his leadership that he believes he must exercise that he feels is necessary for the country that he looks at these people and tells and this is the course of action that is just and fair and this is what I'm going to do I think the reaction is generally good and it was then and of course I was not without criticism from many sources in many places but I'm glad I did what I did and I think it was helpful to the courses that we pursued and the laws were enacted subsequently did you tell us about the decisions that went him to the appointment of the first Negro over to the US Supreme Court Thurgood Marshall yes I had met Justice Marshall and he was a lawyer for the n-double-a-cp yet and I had not had an intimate relationship but I knew him when I became president he was on the federal bench in New York I looked over the country to to attempt to find a person to be Solicitor General who would argue the cases before the Supreme Court I also knew that they'd never been a black on Supreme Court in this country and never been a black and the cabinet this country and I didn't feel that was just and I sent for him and told him if you resign the federal judgeship you give up a lifetime job the job I'm offering you is a temporary job if I'm for some something happens to me you'll be out of a job the next morning another administration would be out of a job but I would like for you to be my Solicitor General if you feel that you can be available for that Simon he said yes mr. president I am available I'll resign and I'll be ready whenever you ask me he came there and he discharged his duty solicitor general well I never mentioned the Supreme Court to him when it became possible for me to point him on the Supreme Court I called him and asked him to come to my office Claude Lee the next day and to tell no one I wanted to counsel with him on a matter and he Curtis Lee agreed to be there ten o'clock he whatever time I said Domonique a man sat down and I told him that I had this problem select the man Supreme Court and that I had had him in mind and I said I'm going to send your nomination to Senate if it's critical to you he said yes it was said you told me not the same thing about this to anyone and said there before you do I think I will tell you something and my heart almost stopped beating because I afraid it's gonna be some problem of some kind but he said you you told me not to discuss this with anyone else this conference but said I just couldn't contain myself I had to tell my wife when the president called up and asked to see a man he's just can't be expected to keep that from everyone and I had to tell her and said now that you've given me this great honor could I be excused long enough just call her and tell her that what has happened and I asked that they get miss Marshall on the phone White House operator got her on the phone and I asked him pick it up and he said hello and be sure that Miss Marshalls on the other hand and she said honey did we make it and all the feeling that I thought I had contained must have been present there all those years and they must have least had the silent hope that if any black ever made the Supreme Court he would make it and I've always felt very warm toward his Marshall because I I think it lady bird must have felt that way many times and could crisis that I was confronted with she would say honey did we make it and that was a team but the pride that really came to me was here was a qualified man who had done so much for his people in so much for his country that finally on the basis of merit could be nominated and confirmed by the Senate and that last is not an easy job for any man its nominated for Supreme Court in 1965 and in a eloquent speech at Howard University you apparently took a new tact you said what freedom is not enough you do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying now you are free to go where you want and do as you desire and choose the leaders you please you do not take a person who for years has been hobbled by chains and liberating this it is not enough just to open the gates of opportunity all our citizens must have the ability to walk through those gates how did you come to believe that the country was ready for that new move forward in the Civil Rights approach the country said that we want you to vote and we want you to eat anyplace you want to and we want you to sleep any place any public establishment if you want to we want you to have equality and jobs and in many ways we improved our education health and welfare systems we're more equal justice was being dispensed but all those things don't do any good it doesn't do any good to have a job if you're not qualified to hold it it doesn't do you any good to have the right to build a house if you don't have the money to build it it doesn't do you any to have the right to go into Hilton Hotel in New York if you haven't got the money to pay the rent on the building all those things not worth much to you unless you have the economic resources and the preparation mr. president the statement is frequently made about that period in our national history indeed going right up to today it was that perhaps in your zeal to do something for the blacks of this country and the other underprivileged you had promised so much and the delivery was difficult do you think that you over-promised know I don't think I don't know what we promised we had certain goals and we made certain recommendations and we asked the Congress to do certain things but I'm unaware of a lot of promises who was made who were not fulfill I think that when the speaker promises not specifically political or legislative promises but the promise of a better life and that perhaps they believed that this was going to come with the passage of legislation and not over a longer period of time practically the entire substance of the Johnson administration was organized and prepared and recommended more than 20 years before by another person Lyndon Johnson was not the first president to recommend federal aid to education Harry Truman had a group that studied it in Harry Truman asked the Congress to give him educational legislation lemon Johnson was not the man to recommend Medicare Harry Truman recommended Medicare and was called a socialist and communist and everything else sold in this country long before Lyndon Johnson came into position of power our leaders were recommending great advances in the field of civil rights and great advances in the field of health and education and environment and consumer legislation space and things of that nature I just happened to be the catalyst and happened to be there at the time and with this support and with the approval of nearly everyone the country that put them on the statute books we passed 440 major pieces of legislation in the six years and the great many people did say that we went too far and we went too fast and well we might have but the country was long overdue we'd had a good many administrations where they hadn't been able to achieve these things but in this country we always it seems his long lapse between the time something's proposed and something's disposed well in your book you say the Democrats lost in 68 because they had gone too far and too fast and the blue-collar worker felt that the Democratic Party had traded his welfare for the welfare of the black man but I intend I don't really think it that we lost in 68 for any one single reason the blue-collar worker thinking that the black man had I think all of those were their satisfactions that we had the populist I don't think you can take any one thing in point to what makes a man president I changed at 250,000 votes out of many millions but I think that the Democratic candidate had dissatisfaction in those fields you think that the that the blue-collar wondering another I think the blue-collar worker has been lost to the Democrats still because of this pressure for I think the blue-collar worker all the workers are the backbone the Democratic Party and times they get disgruntled they're satisfied with high prices and not quite as high rise in wages and things of that kind they express themselves they have right to an octave now we've touched on all of the bills or most of them civil rights except the last one which touches most directly on this matter of blue-collar worker resentment perhaps and that's housing in 66 and 67 he introduced a bill for non-discrimination in rental and sale of housing it was defeated he brought it back and again in 68 and again I gather you didn't think that there was very much support for it was something you had to do with all the evidence pointing the other way after two defeats now is a lame-duck president you said you weren't gonna run again why did you think you're going to get it through that time well I I wasn't too sure the meeting we had with the blacks they wanted me to issue an executive order and proclaimed this by presidential edict I didn't think it would be very effective if the Congress had not legislated and I didn't want to be a Hitler and start running the government by executive order and I took the position that wouldn't be wise to do it by executive order it would arouse the antagonism of the Congress and the leadership of the people and it wouldn't be followed difficult enough to followed if you have the law of the land and most of the leaders felt that they couldn't get the law and they'd like to get part of a loaf by executive order get what they could one of those leaders agreed with me that we ought to go the legislative route and that was Clarence Mitchell and he stood up and said that if I would recommend it to the Congress and support it that he thought that was the route we should follow and anyway that was the route that I was determined to follow so I made the recommendation and we passed the Equal Housing Act of 68 after I'd announced that I would not accept the nomination at the recent symposium Barbara Jordan elected congresswoman Franciscan whom you of course know very well said that the South would ultimately be more open to racial justice in the North now do you believe that I I think it's a problem for all of America that knows no region I don't think prejudice is a matter of geography I think we have it everywhere and we have ample quantities of it in degrees that we ought to be ashamed of sometimes it's because of color and sometimes it's because of literacy and sometimes it's because of something you don't control at all but we're living in a fast age and all of us are rather impatient and more importantly rather intolerant of the opinions of our fellow man and his judgments and his conduct and his traditions and his way of life and America was supposed to be the happy hunting ground for people of all religions in all faiths that could live life according to the dictates of their own conscience and their own choice as long as they didn't in basically interfere with the rights of another man but to deny that there is prejudice in the country just makes the wrong bigger because we know it's here and the quicker we get at it just like getting it heart disease or cancer anything else better off would be and I think we're making a good progress mr. president you said in that quite lovely speech at the library and I do believe you have told me in private that you were feeling poorly and but you didn't feel you could let your friends leave that hall without saying a word to them you did speak to them and you said some quite eloquent things one of them you said to be black in a white society is not to stand on the level and equal ground the phrase it just came to you at that moment or is that something that you had as kind of a credo and years no I think it's it's fact I think we assumed it because a lot of our documents say oh man agreed equal stand side by side we have kidded ourselves and believe in that we that's actually a fact just like the Emancipation Proclamation to Proclamation but it's not a fact and it's not a fact that we stand on equal ground and stand side-by-side one stands in an elevated position with all the advantages country gave you and the other one stands down in the lot neglected and overlooked and enjoyed second-rate facilities and housing and jobs and schools and health and everything else during our entire governmental existence and we've begun to do something about it but unless we recognize the fact it's one's own hell the others and Hawwa or ones on the mountain the others in the date we're not evaluating it properly and if we don't evaluate the problem properly we can't solve the problem this second thing you said there that it was a little more pragmatic perhaps involved the blacks and president administration you told him to go and see mr. Nixon and I asked him to set aside an hour to talk and they don't need to start off by saying he's terrible because he doesn't think he's terrible when you put it do you do you think that if they asked they can get that time to talk to the president yes I think so although I'm not making the president's partner I have no authority to speak for him won't make that clear I think that it's ists the wise thing for all of us to do who are intersted i think we ought to go to the leadership of the Congress and say them here is a big problem that represents a cancer on society of this country and we want to do something about it and here's what we think ought to be done one two three and here's the way to go about it here's the legislation as they have done with the civil rights conferences in past years and then I think if they don't have the answer that they think is fair and just that they have a right to call the president's people and say we would like to talk to some of you in the White House about this gets you evaluated and if it can't be corrected we want to go all the way higher appeal to the highest office for the land the president himself I don't think you're gonna be very effective if you say the Congress is no good and antiquated ought to get out of the way and the cabinet officer dishonest and they won't do anything about it and the president can't read and write and he's no good because there none of those people you keep selling that arguments they don't believe that they they think they are good and they're doing the best they can they want to do what's right and I found a lot of times that my viewpoint was helped a great deal and that I was strengthened and decision that I made but what I learned by people who came to see me and I wasn't always anxious to see all of them exposed to advice but I think it'd be helpful to both group and the president's a good listener all of them have been some of them thought I didn't listen enough but if they'd count the hours that I had people speak to me I'm grateful for those hours I learned from them at the very end of that speech here in Austin I think you repeated a memorable phrase that you'd use before in Congress 65 we have proved that great progress is possible we know how much still remains to be done and if our efforts continue and if our will is strong and if our hearts are right and if courage remains our constant companion then my fellow Americans I am confident we shall overcome mr. president do you think that on this great still over unresolved issue of civil rights we shall overcome I surely do

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Views: 368,367

Rating: 4.832952 out of 5

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Id: YrtWwBreRwg

Length: 43min 9sec (2589 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 21 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/MarquisDeMustard]

How did he find this? How did YOU find this???

[u/ericnot]

I like how the end credits are in complete silence. The trumpets must have fully melted by then and become unplayable.

[u/forrestjunior]

Hahahahaha

[u/[deleted]]

Man I thought it was Close Encounters