Episode 35: The Johnson Treatment (Part 4) Selma, Alabama and the Voter Rights Act of 1965
George H.W. Bush 1990 - 1991 The Sweep of History
English - July 25, 2021 15:00 - 1 hour - 47.7 MB - ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsPolitics News History politics history government republican democrat independent speeches world war 2 vietnam war lyndon johnson Homepage Download Apple Podcasts Google Podcasts Overcast Castro Pocket Casts RSS feed
If President Lyndon B. Johnson has a real claim to greatness it is for his work to pass the Voter's Rights Act of 1965. It was the act that guaranteed every citizen in this country the right to vote. It came after a horrifying Sunday in the Alabama town of Selma. It was there that a contingent of Alabama State Troopers attacked a group of protesters as they marched across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. The entire country watched it all on television, including the President.
Lyndon Johnson had just passed a Civil Rights Act in 1964 that had guaranteed access to all Americans to public places. But that Act did nothing about laws and restrictions all over the country that were used to prevent African Americans from voting and registering to vote. Johnson knew that something had to be done and it could wait no longer. It had been a century since President Abraham Lincoln had signed the Emancipation Proclamation and won a war to insure African Americans their freedom in America. During the century that had followed a period of racist, shameful segregation had been allowed to exist unchallenged through out the land.
Lyndon Johnson knew that his chance to gain a permanent place of greatness in our nation's history would be "to finish what Lincoln began." Here listen in as he works with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, Senator Everett Douglas, and many others to get the 1965 act passed and to insure the safety of thousands of protesters in Alabama as they marched to secure their rights as Americans. Listen in as he pressures the Alabama Governor, George C. Wallace (no relation) into securing the safety of the marchers. It is truly a historic moment in the history of our country and thanks to President Johnson's taping system and the gift of audio recording we can listen in as it all unfolds.
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