Episode 33: The Johnson Treatment (Part 2) The Great Society, the murder of 3 Civil Rights Workers, and the 1964 Civil Rights Act

This episode opens as Lyndon Johnson declares War on Poverty in America. LBJ had a vision of the America he wanted to create and unlike many of our Presidents this man was the quintessential legislator.  Johnson's ability to get legislation passed was an area of his job in which there has been no equal, whether you like what he passed or not. Johnson's Great Society changed America in fundamental ways and redefined what many Americans looked for in their Federal Government. 

One of the centerpieces of Johnson's Great Society was in the area of Civil Rights. He was a Southerner from the State of Texas and as such he knew what racial divisions looked like. As a former school teacher he saw the inequities in the lives of his students in Cotulla, the small Texas town he had taught in. He was determined to change the Jim Crow laws of the South.

On the eve of the passage of his landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964 , which would guarantee access to all public accommodations and ending segregation, three civil rights workers would disappear in Mississippi. Listen in as the President deals with this horrifying development.

 Listen as he talks to the Senator and Governor of the State of Mississippi, to an FBI Director who was himself no friend of the struggle for civil rights, listen as he calls one of the students mothers  and also listen as he closes the deal he needed to get the 1964 Civil Rights Bill passed. It is a fascinating look inside the wheeling and dealing this President would become famous for, and an education on the complexities of the job he had, and the times in which he served. 

Questions or comments at , [email protected] , https://twitter.com/randal_wallace , and http://www.randalwallace.com/
Please Leave us a review at wherever you get your podcasts
Thanks for listening!!