Robert Dallek Quotes

We could beat back Kennedy on Civil Rights, but Lyndon [Johnson] knows how to beat us.

Lyndon Johnson used to call his chauffer “Boy,” but he passed the greatest Civil Rights bill in the history of the company.

Roosevelt, Truman and Johnson understood that the South would continue to be an outcast unless it abandoned folkways that were injurious—to whites as well as blacks—and they employed the powers of the state to coerce recalcitrants into new patterns of behavior.

We could have beaten John Kennedy on Civil Rights. We can’t beat Lyndon Johnson. He’s a man who understands power and how to use it. He’ll tear your arm off at the shoulder and beat you over the head with it, but he’ll get the votes. We’re going to lose to Lyndon Johnson.

It was not until the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s that Congress got serious about the assignment laid out in the post-Civil War amendments.

I have seen periods of progress followed by reaction. I have seen the hopes and aspirations of Negroes rise during World War II, only to be smashed during the Eisenhower years. I am seeing the victories of the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations destroyed by Richard Nixon.

In the summer of 1964, my sister and I went to South Ballston, Virginia, to stay with my aunt and her kids. They passed the civil rights bill that summer; my cousins were so happy because now they could swim in the pool.

It is difficult to overstate the importance of the Civil Rights Act.

Was it the intention of the framers ... to forbid the states to enact and enforce segregation statutes? If one goes to the historical materials with this specific question, the only answer is in the negative. The framers did not intend or expect then and there to outlaw segregation, which, of course, was a practice widely prevalent in the North.

Harry Truman knows I am against him on this [civil rights] program. I just don’t think Congress should try to cram his program down the throats of Southern states.

The New Deal ultimately undermined Jim Crow’s prospects. The very legislation embraced by Southern segregationists created at first mere chinks, then whole openings for social change that were grasped by an incipient, soon powerful, movement for equal rights for Blacks.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was vigorously and vociferously opposed by the Southern states. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it into law nonetheless.

I was born after the Civil Rights Movement.

At the end of the day, the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott had to be converted into the 1964 Civil Rights Act. We don't want politicians who've gotta be coaxed, cajoled and protested. We want them on our side from the beginning.

The greatest difference between now and 1964, when I began teaching, is that public policy has pretty much eradicated the dream of Martin Luther King.

The Civil Rights Movement, it wasn't just a couple of, you know, superstars like Martin Luther King. It was thousands and thousands - millions, I should say - of people taking risks, becoming leaders in their community.

We Americans entered a new phase in our history - the era of integration - in 1954.

In our state, I'm really proud of the fact that the ones who overturned Jim Crow in Kentucky were Republicans fighting against an entirely unified Democrat Party. So I am proud to be Republican. I can't imagine being anything else.

When I started graduate school I was interested in the culture of the Civil Rights Movement.

On July 2, 1964, President Johnson signed into law the Civil Rights Act. Its enactment, following the longest continuous debate in the history of the U.S. Senate, enshrined into law the basic principle upon which our country was founded - that all people are created equal.

I grew up in Ohio, where civil-rights accomplishments had already begun to accelerate before Martin Luther King appeared. In hindsight, we know that many people, black and white, were instrumental in changing the Jim Crow status quo on all levels.

In the United States, the Supreme Court's decision of 1954, outlawing segregation in school systems, was greeted with mixed feelings of hope and skepticism by African-Americans.

Half a century ago, the amazing courage of Rosa Parks, the visionary leadership of Martin Luther King, and the inspirational actions of the civil rights movement led politicians to write equality into the law and make real the promise of America for all her citizens.

A lot of things happened in a lot of places. And to see how well it was handled in Atlanta. There are a lot of reasons for Atlanta being a special town in the Civil Rights era.

We've had a great change. Dr King saw to that. I was so grateful to see the 'colored only' signs come off the water fountains and bathrooms in the south. But the struggle lives on.