Lyndon B. Johnson Quotes
Discrimination in voting is something that no American in his heart may justify.
Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1908-1973, 36th President of the United States (Democrat, TX), Statement on signing the Voting Rights Act
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
In the South racism was so extensive that Blacks were not allowed to even vote. Brooke had moved from the South to Massachusetts and there as in the North, Midwest and West, African Americans could vote. So the first time Brooke ever voted he was a candidate.
The President was asking for passage of his Voting Rights Bill.
This phrase was also to be used over 100 years later by Malcolm X. See {624101} and {38291}.
Preclearance was a requirement that any change in the voting or registration laws, rules or procedures needed to be approved by the Federal Justice Department.
He was explaining why preclearance was necessary. Preclearance was a requirement that any change in the voting or registration laws, rules or procedures needed to be approved by the Federal Justice Department.
Preclearance was a requirement that any change in the voting or registration laws, rules or procedures needed to be approved by the Federal Justice Department. He was testifying about why preclearance was important and why it was placed in the Voting Rights Act every time it was reauthorized. See {635271} for what happens without preclearance.
At the time Negroes were prohibited from voting by a series of discriminatory criteria for voter registration and intimidation so that Blacks would not generally even try to register. But the Civil Rights movement changed tactics and organized large scale attempts at voter registration. Mayor Thompson and the white power structure of the town were not going to allow that. They had not only enlarged the police department but the city purchased an a small armed tank.
The marshal was embarrassed by his assignment to arrest this famous, elderly woman. He refused to handcuff her, gave her time to change her clothes, and took Anthony by streetcar to the courthouse trying to keep as low a profile as possible while Anthony was making speeches all the way about her unjust arrest. She was found guilty and fined $100 which she never paid.
Opposing national attempts to give Blacks the vote in the South:
Even in modern times Alabama election manipulation is in great part driven by the views of an ever diminishing racist white proportion of the voters.
At that time a number of state legislatures all changed their state voting laws to require citizens who try to register to vote to have documentation of various kinds and or obtain special documentation. These were generally possessed by upper class and educated people but not in as large proportions by lower and working class people. To obtain the documents and register if things like original birth certificates were not possessed, the citizen had to lose much of a day’s work and travel some distance. The burden existed on most lower class people and especially the minorities. The courts nullified some of these discriminatory requirements for voter registration, but many were allowed. The rationale was to prevent voter fraud and yet there were almost no cases of voter fraud in the entire country. While the requirements were racially discriminatory, they were also socioeconomically discriminatory. By coincidence, or perhaps not, every state that added these requirements had a Republican controlled state legislature AND a Republican Governor. Despite the effort to suppress Obama and Democratic voters, the effort backfired. Minorities and especially Blacks were so outraged that Jim Crow voting suppression had returned that they made a huge effort to register and get out the vote and Blacks voted in a much larger proportion than historical and well over 90 percent voted for Obama who won the election handily.
The law required voters to have a driver’s license or other picture ID issued by the Motor Vehicles Bureau. 300,000 adults in the state did not have a license. They tended to be more frequent among the poor, the elderly, and the minorities.
Lyndon Baines Johnson, often referred to by his initials LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, in office from 1963 to 1969. He served as the 37th vice president from 1961 to 1963 and assumed the presidency following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. A Democrat from Texas, Johnson was also a United States representative and later majority leader in the United States Senate. Johnson is one of only four people to have served, at various times, in all four federal elected positions.
