Showing posts with label LBJ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LBJ. Show all posts
Friday, September 15, 2017
John Dickerson on the Presidency and This President
CBS' News "Face the Nation" host John Dickerson makes some excellent points on the job and position that is the presidency, what it entails, what the job calls for and how this President does--and does not--fit the job.
Thursday, August 11, 2016
Imagine
Imagine if any one of these things happened in our US history.
--If Jack Kennedy hadn't been assassinated
--If LBJ didn't lie us into Vietnam and that war
--If Bobby Kennedy hadn't been assassinated
--If Richard Nixon hadn't been elected to the presidency
--If George W. Bush weren't successful in stealing the 2000 election
--If George w. Bush didn't lie us into the Iraq War
The ramifications of each would be huge.
Now, imagine if all the above occurred.
Friday, March 11, 2016
On This Day, 1965
Jon S. Randal (from FB)
March 9, 2014 ·
He was a white minister. Some said he didn't have to go, he had a good life in Boston, he had a loving wife and four loving children. But, he was horrifed at the brutality he saw happening in Selma, Alabama, on Sunday, March 7, 1965, as what is now called "Bloody Sunday." So, when Dr, Martin Luther King, Jr. issued a nationwide call to the clergy, urging representatives of all denominations and faiths to journey to Alabama and stand with African Americans there for the cause of voting rights, social justice, and equality, James Reeb answered the call. Believing that to do nothing in the face of injustice is as wrong as to condone it, Reeb knew he had to go.
Those of you who know your history know what happened and know what occurred on "Bloody Sunday." On March 9, at an integrated restaurant in Alabama, Reeb and two other ministers were confronted by several white men brandishing clubs and shouting racial slurs. One man slammed his club into Reeb’s head, knocking him to the ground. Several hours elapsed before Reeb was admitted to a Birmingham hospital where doctors performed brain surgery. He never recovered, and he died on March 11, 1965.
His murder spawned national outrage. President Lyndon B. Johnson called Reeb’s widow and father to express his condolences, and on March 15, he invoked Reeb’s memory when he delivered a draft of the Voting Rights Act to Congress. That same day Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. eulogized Reeb at a ceremony at Brown’s Chapel in Selma:
"James Reeb, symbolizes the forces of good will in our nation. He demonstrated the conscience of the nation. He was an attorney for the defense of the innocent in the court of world opinion. He was a witness to the truth that men of different races and classes might live, eat, and work together as brothers."
The last phone call Reeb made was to his wife at the restaurant before he was beaten. His wife would later say that Reeb believed in the aims of the civil rights movement, almost nothing could have stopped her husband from going to Selma, though he knew the risks associated with doing so.
James Reeb, January 1, 1927 – March 11, 1965
Wednesday, January 13, 2016
On This Day in American History -- A "Two-fer"
On this day (from today's New York Times:
Robert C. Weaver was appointed secretary of housing and urban development by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966, and L. Douglas Wilder took the oath of office as governor in Richmond, Va., in 1990.
Weaver, who had three Harvard degrees, was the great-grandson of a slave and an expert strategist in the civil rights movement. “Fight hard and legally,” he said, “and don’t blow your top.”
His government service began during the New Deal, when he tried to harness benefits for blacks from the domestic spending programs. Weaver has been followed by 19 other African-Americans in the cabinet.
Mr. Wilder, a grandson of slaves, won the governorship in the onetime capital of the Confederacy with 50.19 percent of the vote. History was made only after a recount.
His margin of victory lagged far behind those of his Democratic running mates, suggesting that many Democrats did not vote for him.
Only one other African-American has been elected governor of a state: Deval Patrick, a Democrat who led Massachusetts from 2007 to 2015.
Links: Robert C. Weaver - Wikipedia
Thursday, August 1, 2013
A stunning quote
Even more stunning because of the truth--and ugliness--of it.
Pretty sad.
Pretty pathetic, sometimes, all too often, really, we humans.
Wednesday, June 26, 2013
On the Supreme Court's Affirmative Action vote yesterday
And the Republicans should know that and respond accordingly.
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