Lyndon Johnson and Nixon on Civil Rights and the War on Poverty
* What: Civil rights acts of the 1960s, Johnson's Great Society and War on Poverty, and Nixon's continuation and expansion of many of them.
* The Number of Lives Saved: Lynchings and other political violence by white supremacists killed hundreds a year. The political and social exclusion these atrocities enforced kept nonwhites disproportionately poor and more likely to die younger. Anti poverty programs of the Great Society successfully reduced the US poverty rate from going as high as 31% to only 15%. Deep poverty among children dropped from 20% to under 6%. We know these programs worked. The biggest failure was not doing them on a wider permanent scale and largely giving up after less than fifteen years.
* Who Also Gets the Credit:
* Civil rights movements (plural). While most Americans know about Black civil rights groups and leaders such as Martin Luther King, Rosa Parks, Jesse Jackson, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, the Student Non Violent Coordination Committee, the Freedom Riders, and the NAACP, fewer know about leaders and groups like Cesar Chavez and the United Farm Workers, Dr. Hector Garcia and the GI Forum, LULAC, MALDEF, MAYO, and the National Congress of American Indians.
* Black power, brown power, and red power groups like the Black Panthers, La Raza Unida, and the American Indian Movement did not, for the most part, succeed in passing many laws. But they did play a huge role in normalizing cultural pride. All three pride movements defeated assimilation as a goal sought by minorities. The most obvious sign of their success is that even most conservative whites find it strange that a minority would deny their heritage or not want to celebrate their ancestry.
* The GI Bill enlarged American Indian, Asian, Black, and Latino middle classes. For the first time since Civil War pensions, the federal government aided a large segment of the public without regard to race. Millions of minorities fought in World War II, from the famous Code Talkers of twelve different Native tribes to the Japanese-American 100th and 442nd Battalions to the Tuskegee Airmen, to millions of lesser known minority veterans in both combat and support roles. Military service played a huge role in spurring activism. After facing bombs and bullets, a lynching seemed far less frightening. Both combat and military discipline provided confidence to take on racists, and service provided patriotic legitimacy to activists.
* World War II also created many expectations for returning veterans. Official government propaganda stated that prejudice was wrong because it hurt the war effort. Since the enemy was a white supremacist dictatorship, for many the war was the Double V Campaign, victory over racism both abroad and at home. Since the Nazis were obvious racists, racism became much harder for white Americans to justify.
* The Cold War forced the federal government to intervene to aid civil rights. Since the US was seeking allies in the Third World, in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Mideast, one could not easily recruit such allies if there were images of police attacking nonwhites in papers and on television. In some cases the federal government directly intervened, getting city governments to desegregate so that military officers from Third World nations training in the US would not be humiliated by whites only and colored only separate bathrooms, theaters, etc.
* The union movement, including socialists and non-dogmatic communists played a central role in aiding the civil rights movements. Many early unions were whites only. Often the only labor activists who would recruit minorities were socialist or communists (not allied with the Soviet Union) such as A Philip Randolph and Emma Tenayuca.
* Tribal governments and other local governments often were the first place minorities achieved self rule. Tribal councils successfully defeated Termination, the federal effort to shut down reservations. Many cities like Lawrence, Louisville, Memphis, San Antonio, Santa Fe, and Tulsa had thriving minority communities that managed to elect minorities to city council, school boards, and even mayors' offices well before the civil rights era.
* Cultural movements including hundreds of blues, folk, funk, gospel, rhythm and blues, rock, and soul artists all helped spread civil rights messages, gave the movements a voice and popular support, reaching people emotionally as much as intellectually. Perhaps the best known example is the civil rights anthem, “We Shall Overcome.” Though popularized by folk singer Pete Seeger, the song has its roots in Black gospel music.
* The Supreme Court under Justice Earl Warren ruled on a series of decisions aiding civil rights. Most notably the Warren court ruled in Brown v Board of Education that segregation in schools was illegal and ending it must proceed as quickly as possible. For the first and only time in its history, the court in this era sided with the less powerful. Both before and after the Warren court, the Supreme Court ruled in favor of wealthy elites, racists, and greater government power, and against minorities, unions and working people, consumers, women, and limits on government power.
* Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy are often given limited credit for some civil rights accomplishments. Truman did desegregate the US military during the Korean War, recognized Israel, and courted those Blacks able to vote. But his record also includes the Termination effort against Native reservations, a civil rights proposal he was unable to pass, and worst of all, dropping the A-bomb on Japan in part because of his own anti-Asian racism. (See Section Two.)
* Eisenhower was no racist, but did little for civil rights unless pushed. For years he dragged his feet about segregation, not wanting to antagonize southern racists. Not until several years of protests and finally deaths did he send (unarmed) federal troops to Little Rock, where racists sniped at them at will and were never punished. Eisenhower also fully endorsed Termination his entire time in office.
* John Kennedy's reputation is almost as overrated on civil rights as it is on peace. (See Section Nine.) When Kennedy and Nixon ran for president in 1960, there was little difference between them. Martin Luther King almost endorsed Nixon before deciding it best not to endorse either man. A single phone call by Kennedy after one of King's arrests created the false impression Kennedy backed civil rights. Kennedy dragged his feet even more than Eisenhower. Transcripts of the phone calls between Kennedy and King show the two men loathed each other. At one point Kennedy called King an embarrassment. Only after years of protests did Kennedy reluctantly put forward a civil rights bill that he was unable to pass.
* Johnson came into office after Kennedy's assassination and very cleverly called for passage of the Civil Rights Act as tribute to Kennedy. It suited Johnson to pretend Kennedy was a strong supporter of civil rights, as it suits many Democrats and liberals to either pretend as well, or naively believe so.
* But Johnson likely could have and would have passed a civil rights bill had he been elected president entirely on his own. Johnson had several decades of successfully winning the support of Mexican and Black voters in his home district, and he did so by both working with and for them and also by being one of the craftiest politicians in US history. His level of persuasion, deal making, and even intimidation were legendary, and he had practiced politicking since the New Deal, as his father had done for decades before that.
* The Civil Rights Act finally put an end to violence and intimidation at the polls. It is virtually impossible to understate the amount of terrorism and devious tactics used to keep minorities from voting. (See Section Four.) A monopoly on political power by racists meant that minorities lived in the worst areas, worked the worst jobs or were more often jobless than whites, and ultimately lived shorter and grimmer lives. Many never got education, never lived a normal life span, and had every aspect of their much shorter lives limited. The Civil Rights Act opened up possibilities. Neither Black billionaires nor a Black president would have been possible without these acts.
* Johnson was the only US president since Lincoln to both sincerely favor and be able to pass strong civil rights laws that changed many lives permanently and for the better. He was far from acting alone, as the long list before shows. He was pushed from below by millions of people and hundreds of dedicated leaders across a wide spectrum. Civil rights protesters were truly a mass movement, the same size as the largest peace movements, feminists, and unions.
* But unlike Truman, who favored civil rights but did not accomplish as much as he wanted, Eisenhower and Kennedy, who did as little as possible and had to be pushed for years to do even that, and Nixon, who agreed to continue what happened before out of indifference and to have a free hand on other matters, Johnson passionately believed in what he did, did all he could, and put the entire strength of the presidency and his own skill into it. Johnson spoke publicly of his support for civil rights, even quoting “We shall overcome” in a speech. He also appointed Thurgood Marshall as the first Black Supreme Court justice. Johnson, by appointing Marshall, set a precedent that the Supreme Court should reflect the ethnic makeup of the US.
* There were three big effects of Johnson's Civil Rights Act. Minorities could finally vote without fear, leading to minorities finally elected into office in numbers close to their proportion of the population. Laws barring interracial marriage and racist immigration quotas were overturned. America went from nine tenths white to two thirds white in 40 years, and soon will not have any racial majority.
* Finally, the Democrats lost the support of southern racists. Southern racists switched to being Republicans. Nixon and most major GOP leaders openly courted them with their southern strategy. The Democrats lost many elections, both congressional and presidential, because of the Civil Rights Act. Johnson chose what was right over what would get his party votes, and deserves credit for that. Republicans, once the party of Emancipation and Reconstruction, have openly welcomed racists ever since the 1960s, and deserve condemnation for that.
* Johnson's Great Society was ambitious, almost a Marshall Plan for the poor of America. The War on Poverty did work, though not nearly as well as either supporters or critics wanted. It cut poverty rates, and as said before, poverty rates are the best predictors of life expectancy.
* One of the biggest successes of government anti poverty programs is in saving and improving the lives of small children. School lunch programs and Head Start have a measurable effect on helping improve school performance and graduation rates. This in turn lowers both poverty rates and crime rates. Aid to the poor, or its hated synonym welfare, also dramatically improves the lives of youth. Contrary to stereotype, most people on welfare are white, were once middle class, only use welfare for a short time, and are helped by it. The biggest group on welfare is recently divorced or abandoned mothers with children, made poor for the first time because the fathers cannot or will not support them. The one thing welfare does not do is stop or discourage people from working. Most people on it also work, but don't make enough to live on.
* Nixon, the famed anti Communist hardliner and early conservative culture warrior, actually was far more moderate and even liberal in practice than either his supporters or critics often know or admit. Devoted and even obsessed with foreign policy alone (though not nearly as skilled as many claim, as discussed elsewhere) Nixon largely chose to ignore domestic policy. Thus it suited Nixon to concede virtually everything the left wanted domestically.
* Though he was doing many right things for the wrong reason, Nixon still should get credit. Just listing what Nixon agreed to during his time is impressive; extending the Voting Rights Act to protect civil rights; Title IX, which helped end sexism in education; the Clean Air Act that gave the country less pollution; and workplace safety rules that saved lives.
* Nixon imitated and expanded both FDR's New Deal and Johnson's Great Society. He also passed cost of living increases for Social Security, expanded Social Security to the handicapped unable to work, and increased food stamps and unemployment benefits. Nixon even tried an explicitly socialist idea, wage and price controls. The former red baiting Cold Warrior came out in favor of what he considered Communist in the first twenty years of his career.
* It was Nixon, not Democrats or liberals, who began Affirmative Action (AA). Contrary to what critics of AA claim, it has largely been a success. AA is far more about sexism than racism, and those who harp about largely mythical reverse racism do not even try to hide their own racism. AA mostly helps secure and protect white women's jobs and education far more than minorities. Again, a drop in poverty leads to saved and longer lives.
* It was also Nixon, not Democrats nor liberals, who began the Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA has been a success, though more limited. Air pollution dropped over the past four decades, leading to healthier and longer lives. Water pollution also dropped, but not nearly as much. Because water supplies are often under local control, and state and governments can be pressured or persuaded by corporate interests easier than at the federal level, many more local water supplies remain unsafe and harm children especially.
* Nixon also had a good record on treatment and relations with American Indian tribal nations. The Indian Civil Right Act, passed under Johnson, made civil rights laws apply to reservations. The Alaska Native Claims Settlement, passed by Nixon, marked the first time Natives were justly compensated for stolen and cheated lands. The Indian Self Determination Act, also passed by Nixon, gave tribes the right to directly run their own facilities for the first time, from schools to water and power to jails and courts.
* Nixon passed laws favorable to Natives for purely pragmatic political reasons, in an attempt to pretend he was not a racist. Nixon's own words in private, captured on the Watergate tapes, show the opposite, long bigoted rants against Blacks and Jews, even demands for lists of influential Jews. Often he even ranted abut Jews to Kissinger, who had lost family in the Holocaust. Kissinger, true to his mindless love of power, would agree. Nixon made lives better for many ethnic groups he held in deeply racist contempt, one of the more surreal episodes in presidential history.