Martin Luther King, SS LBJ, Great Society, and Vietnam, Northern Civil Rights, Biography Ch 10-12.pdf

Today we will reflect on the final Civil Rights struggles and causes
championed by Martin Luther King before his untimely
assassination in Memphis. We wonder:
How did John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson differ in their
support for civil rights for blacks?
Why were the Civil Rights struggles in New York City and Chicago
more problematic than those in Birmingham, Selma, and the
Deep South?
Did Martin Luther King’s opposition to the War in Vietnam
detract from his struggles and protests furthering civil rights?

David Levering Lewis
begins a chapter in his
biography of Martin
Luther King with a quote
from Langston Hughes:
Negroes sweet and gentle,
Meek, humble and kind,
Beware the day
They change their minds.”

Please, we welcome interesting questions in the
comments. Let us learn and reflect together!
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used for this video.
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As in all revolutions, one problem faced by Martin Luther
King was that the longer he fought his civil rights
revolution, the greater role that extreme militants would
play. Martin Luther King was sincerely devoted to
nonviolent protests, but he learned from Albany was that
if he halted demonstrations where violence bled into the
marches, particularly under the provocation of brutal
police, then the momentum of the protests was lost.

Martin Luther King had reservations
about the growing Black Power
Movement. Martin said, “In spite of
the positive aspects of Black Power,”
“its negative values” “prevent it from
having the substance and program to
become the basic strategy for the civil
rights movement.” Martin saw Black
Power as defeatist, “Beneath all the
satisfaction of a gratifying slogan, Black
Power is a nihilistic philosophy born
out of the conviction that the Negro
can’t win. It was born from the wounds
of despair and disappointment.”
Malcolm X's only meeting with Martin Luther King during
the Senate debates on the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

Our biographer Lewis lists the main issues that
Martin Luther King and the SCLC were considering as
they expanded their civil rights campaigns to include
Northern cities:

Main issues for Martin Luther King and the
SCLC:
• “The growing conviction among whites
that the blacks, with federal backing,
were moving too rapidly.
• The fierce objections by black militants
that racial progress had not only been
too slow but was being subtly
manipulated by powerful whites.
• Practical programs to deal with urban
and Northern black poverty.”
• Whether the military spending on the
War in Vietnam was hampering funding
for civil rights programs.

The problem was that although combatting urban
black poverty was the more important battle, these
were not simple battles, they did not make for good
television like the dramatic protests in places like
Birmingham and Selma, where there were snarling
dogs, fire hoses, and villainous Southern state
troopers with clubs and ominous sunglasses.

Close up of
some leaders
of the March
on
Washington
walking along
Constitution
Avenue.

We are now reflecting on the closing chapters of the life of
Martin Luther King. Previously we have reflected on Martin’s
youth and schooling, then the Montgomery Bus Boycott, when
Martin Luther King first gained national prominence due to the
national media attention. Martin then assisted struggles to
desegregate Lunch Counters with student sit-in protests, and the
Freedom Rider protesters seeking to desegregate interstate
buses and bus stations. Next came the brutality and bombing in
Birmingham, where four children were martyred when their
church was bombed during Sunday School.

https://youtu.be/_64FMZ6AlEg https://youtu.be/TuiyFycWE-U
https://youtu.be/_TLt2fQqL4w https://youtu.be/5y0v0tYMdy8

We also reflected on his Letter From a Birmingham Jail,
comparing it to Hannah Arendt’s Banality of Evil, on the
trial of Adolph Eichmann, the Nazi bureaucrat that
oversaw the Nazi Final Solution, which was the Nazi death
camps and concentration camps that exterminated many
Jews. This was followed by the hopeful March on
Washington and Martin Luther King’s I Have a Dream
speech, which was followed by the brutality experienced
in the Marches from Selma to Montgomery.

https://youtu.be/PqFAUEXbi8k
https://youtu.be/eMA_7vLYcdM
https://youtu.be/IJ64y3nQA4Q

Martin Luther King and LBJ: Great Society

Why was President Lyndon Baines Johnson such a
prominent figure in Civil Rights history? Although both
John F Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson supported greater
civil rights for blacks, their experience and dedication to
the cause differed. John F Kennedy’s support for civil
rights, though genuine, was more reactive. Like FDR before
him, he relied on the actions and oratory of the civil rights
leaders to propel the issues into the national
consciousness, seeking to benefit politically from his
support.

President Franklin
D Roosevelt (left),
Texas governor
Allred (right), and
Lyndon Johnson
(center) in 1937

In contrast, Lyndon Johnson was more proactive in
his support of civil rights, he sought to consult with
civil rights leaders to coordinate their tactics and
strategy so he could push effective Civil Rights
legislation. John F Kennedy was an aristocrat, but
Lyndon Johnson was drawing from his personal
experiences as a young teacher in rural Texas, he saw
how abject poverty affected the families of his young
Mexican students.

President John F
Kennedy and Vice
President Lyndon
Johnson outside the
White House in
August 1961

One practical implication was that their tactics
differed. While Martin found that the Kennedy
administration was usually receptive to pleas for the
Justice Department to intervene to prevent unfair
treatment of protesters, this support was sometimes
withheld by the Johnson administration, as in the
Selma dispute, when LBJ thought the resulting
publicity of the resulting abuse and violence would
further the cause for Civil Rights.

In early July, President Lyndon Johnson signed the
Civil Rights Act of 1964. Martin Luther King and other
black leaders were invited to the signing ceremony.
These two leaders had consulted closely on tactics to
pass this important legislation, which along with the
Supreme Court decisions, would be critical in
promoting civil rights and changing the lives of black
citizens for the better.

President
Lyndon
Johnson signs
the Civil Rights
Act of 1964.
Among the
guests behind
him is Martin
Luther King.

But two weeks later, rioting and looting erupted in Harlem,
where white merchants and police were assaulted. LBJ
immediately conferred with the leading civil rights activists, chief
among them was Martin Luther King, who traveled to New York
City, where black leaders issued a statement condemning the
rioting, asking that demonstrations be suspended until after the
November election. This rioting endangered white support for
the upcoming voter reform legislation, as white support for civil
rights wavered whenever there was rioting. Doris Kearns
emphasizes this consultation between LBJ and Martin, it is not as
prominently mentioned in Lewis’ biography.

Demonstrators
march on 125th
Street during the
Harlem Riots of
1964.

More destructive riots erupted
in Los Angeles, California.
When Martin toured the
smoldering ruins with Andrew
Young and other black leaders,
he discovered that many of the
young blacks had not even
heard of him, and some rioters
boasted, “WE WON.” Martin
asked, “How can you say you
won? Thirty-four Negroes are
dead, your community is
destroyed, and whites are using
the riots as an excuse for
inaction!”

(REPEAT) Martin Luther King in his book, Where Do We Go From Here,
observed that “Jobs are harder and costlier than voting rolls. The
eradication of slums housing millions is far more complex than
integrating buses and lunch counters.”
These thoughts were echoed by Lyndon Johnson in his 1965 speech to
the graduates of the leading black Howard University: “There is no single
easy answer.” “Jobs are part of the answer, they bring the income which
permits a man to provide for his family. Decent homes in decent
neighborhoods and a chance to learn are part of the answer. Care of the
sick is part of the answer.” He again committed his administration to
improving life for ordinary Americans.

Martin Luther King observed that “Jobs are
harder and costlier than voting rolls. The
eradication of slums housing millions is far
more complex than integrating buses and
lunch counters.”
These thoughts were echoed by LBJ: “There
is no single easy answer.” “Jobs are part of
the answer, they bring the income which
permits a man to provide for his family.
Decent homes in decent neighborhoods and
a chance to learn are part of the answer.
Care of the sick is part of the answer.”

The problems faced by
Northerners were both complex
and intractable. As Lewis notes:
“The illusion of freedom in the
North had masked its hideous
economic conditions: matriarchal
families whose morality was
discouraged by perpetual
dependence on welfare
programs, levels of
unemployment that had risen,”
and massive projects of
multistory “substandard housing
that had few equivalents in the
South.”

The administration had passed a billion-dollar
program to fight poverty, but these sums barely
touched the problems of pervasive poverty.

Lyndon Johnson
meeting with
civil rights
leaders Martin
Luther King,
Whitney Young,
and James
Farmer in the
Oval Office,
1964

MLK and LBJ: Vietnam War Protests

Soon after Selma, Martin Luther King began expressing his concern about the
growing casualties in the unpopular Vietnam War. But the SCLC voted that Martin
could publicly only express his opposition to the war as a private citizen, not as an
officer representing the SCLC. Their fear was this position would endanger the
administration’s support for civil rights. The NAACP and the Urban League shared
these concerns, and Martin was initially stunned by the negative reaction that his
stance against the war provoked in his black audiences. Did his protests against the
War in Vietnam cause LBJ to be less than forthcoming when Martin requested help
from the Justice Department when being threatened by white supremacists?
Perhaps. Perhaps not.
How much did Martin Luther King’s opposition to the War in Vietnam distract from
the Civil Rights struggle? Certainly, it diverted Johnson’s attention away from civil
rights struggles. Certainly, his opposition to the war muddled the civil rights
messages of Martin Luther King. More details are in Lewis’ biography, we will only
include this quote:

1970 protest at Florida State University.

Martin Luther King: “The
truth is that it is sinful for
any of God’s children to
brutalize any of God’s
other children, no matter
from what side the
brutalization comes.” The
destruction of Vietnamese
villages proved “that we
still believe that might
makes right.”
Student protesters at University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1965

Protesting Substandard Housing in Chicago
Our biographer
Lewis states that
“there are dozens of
cities in America
blighted by bossism,
poverty, crime,
corruption, police
brutality, and civic
indifference to the
poor and the racially
disadvantaged.”
New York City Tenement house, 72nd Street & First Avenue, Manhattan, 1936

Chicago, in particular,
faces all these problems.
“Of its 3.5 million
people” in 1964 “nearly
one million are black,
and almost half of these
are impoverished. Of
those who are not, not
many are well above the
poverty line. And the
overwhelming majority
are concentrated in the
appalling residential
slums on the city’s south
and west sides.” The Arthur family arrive in Chicago in 1920, during the Great Migration.

What acronym was created for the struggle for civil rights
in Chicago? The CCCO, or Coordinated Council of
Community Organizations, which included the NAACP,
CORE, SCLC, and SNCC. But Chicago differed from the
Southern states in that the boss of Chicago, Richard Daley,
was not a white supremacist, and was willing to not only
confer with the civil rights leaders, but also tried to steal
their thunder with pronouncements of new city programs
to defuse whatever protests they planned.

President
John F
Kennedy
poses with
Mayor
Richard J.
Daley and
family in the
Oval Office
of the White
House, 1961

Martin Luther King rented a substandard apartment in Chicago to
publicize how many of these slum properties were neglected. When the
landlord, who was about as poor as his tenants, learned his intentions, he
hired numerous workers to fix the apartment so it would comply with the
municipal code. But his wife Coretta found the urine stench
overpowering. Martin announced that if landlords would not maintain
their properties, he would lead a rent strike. Together with the AFL-CIO,
he attempted to form a union of slum-dwellers. He unilaterally declared
that civil rights groups would assume responsibility for the collection of
the rent in his building, using it to repair the properties, which was
challenged in court. Martin even announced that protestors would fill up
the jails of Chicago to put an end to slums.

President
Lyndon
Johnson
meeting
with Martin
Luther King
in the White
House
Cabinet
Room in
1966

There were deaths in Chicago at this time. Jerome
Huey, a black teenager, was beaten to death by four
white youths when he went job-hunting in a white
suburb. Violence erupted when a black youth was
shot by police in the Puerto Rican section of Chicago.
When Martin led a protest in a white community, a
white mob rioted, burning the cars of several
protestors. They were dispersed by police and their
nightsticks.

Close up of some
leaders of the
March on
Washington
walking along
Constitution
Avenue.

These Northern protests were far more problematic than
the civil rights protests he had organized in the Deep South
cities, and his attention was diverted to his pastoral duties
in Atlanta, flying around giving speeches, receiving awards,
and protesting against the War in Vietnam. How can
protests put an end to slums? Slums are a long-term
problem that can only be addressed by long-term
solutions. Lewis describes the details of Martin’s campaign
for better housing in Chicago.

Martin Luther
King after
receiving his
honorary
doctorate from
Newcastle
University

Sanitation Workers Strike in Memphis

In Memphis, “two black garbage crewmen were crushed to death when
the automatic compressor of their truck was accidentally triggered.”
Angry workers in Memphis voted to strike in February. Mayor Loeb
threatened to fire workers who did not return to work. Non-union
workers were hired to restore garbage pickup in white neighborhoods.
Meanwhile, sanitation workers in New York City went on strike for wage
increases and additional benefits.
Walter Reuther of the AFL-CIO offered material assistance to their
Memphis Local 1733, but Mayor Loeb, whose election had been opposed
by eighty percent of black voters, refused both to recognize the union
and refused to sign a written contract to end the strike.

Some sanitation
workers in
Memphis used
antiquated trucks
they called
"wiener-barrel"
trucks which
killed two
sanitation
workers.

This was a simpler contest more
suited to the confrontational
nonviolent protests that Martin
Luther King and the SCLC
preferred. Many blacks
welcomed his swooping down to
assist in Memphis, but not many
of the young militant blacks in
Memphis, the youth organization
Invaders declared, “If you expect
honkies to get the message, you
got to break some windows.”

Then the nation was surprised when Lyndon Johnson
announced to a stunned nation that he did not plan
to run for reelection as President. But this also meant
that he now had a freer hand in pursuing Civil Rights
legislation. Martin had also been planning another
major march on Washington, called the Poor People’s
Campaign, but due to the political climate, he
decided to postpone these plans.

President Lyndon Johnson announcing he will not run for re-election on March 31, 1968.

A nonviolent protest was planned in Memphis, starting
from the Clayborn Temple. Over six thousand nonviolent
protesters began the peaceful march, but when they heard
the sound of glass breaking, Martin and the nonviolent
protesters retreated back to the church or went home. The
militant protesters continued with what was now a riot, in
the melee the police shot a teenage black. Fifty people
were injured and over a hundred were arrested, though
property damage was largely limited to broken windows
and the looting of window display cases.

Protesters outside
Clayborn Temple
during the
Memphis
sanitation workers
strike in 1968.

Everyone seemed to blame Martin Luther King. Many moderate blacks and whites
blamed him for the violence. Militants blamed him, claiming the lack of success
showed the futility of nonviolent protests. President Johnson, mindful how riots can
quickly turn many whites against civil rights, denounced the mindless violence in an
address on national television.
In response, Martin Luther King announced immediately that another march, far
better organized, was planned for that Friday. He persuaded the Chicago Invaders to
participate in a nonviolent protest. But a federal court issued an injunction against
further demonstrations, backed up by a Justice Department Attorney.
Would Martin Luther King defy the federal injunction on Friday? Wednesday,
Memphis experienced unseasonably heavy rains, which would dampen attendance
by protesters. He spoke fatalistically at the Memphis Masonic Temple:

Memphis
policemen using
mace during a
demonstration on
Main Street in
Memphis,
Tennessee, 1968.

An injured
Memphis
policeman during
the sanitation
workers' strike in
1968.

Martin Luther King spoke fatalistically:
“Well, I don’t know what will happen
now. But it really doesn’t matter with
me now. Because I have been to the
mountaintop.” “Like anybody, I would
like to live a long life. Longevity has its
place. But I am not concerned about
that now. I just want to do God’s will.
And He has allowed me to go up to the
mountain. And I have looked over, and I
have seen the Promised Land.”

Here he refers to himself as the Moses of his race.
Martin Luther King did not defy the federal injunction
forbidding further Memphis demonstrations planned for
Friday. On Thursday evening, Martin was standing on the
balcony of his Memphis motel with Ralph Abernathy and
other associates. Across the street, James Earl Ray
carefully pulled the trigger of his Remington rifle, his bullet
exiting the head of Martin Luther King.

The Lorraine
Motel in
Memphis,
where King was
assassinated, is
now the site of
the National
Civil Rights
Museum.
The wreath
marks the spot.

Aftermath of Assassination of MLK

What was the immediate aftermath of the assassination of Martin Luther
King? While he was publicizing the economic and housing plight of the
Negro, President Lyndon Johnson was shepherding further Civil Rights
legislation through Congress. Martin Luther King was assassinated on
April 4, and then the Civil Rights Act of 1968 was signed by Lyndon
Johnson on April 11. Included was the Fair Housing Act that forbade racial
or any other form of discrimination when dwellings are rented or sold.
Hate crimes were addressed, and federal protections for voting,
schooling, and employment were strengthened. This legislation did
address some of the issues Martin Luther King had publicized in his
protests in Chicago.

President Johnson signing the Civil Rights Act of 1968

Massive riots in more than a dozen cities erupted
after the assassination of Martin Luther King. Doris
Kearns was working as a White House intern for the
Department of Labor under Lyndon Johnson when
she heard that Martin Luther King was assassinated.
At first, she thought it was an opportunity to propose
additional civil rights legislation, expecting public
sympathy for the assassination, as happened after
John F Kennedy was assassinated.

But in her biography on LBJ, Kearns writes:
“We were wrong. Too much had changed
since 1965, for Johnson and, even more, for
the country.” Johnson was planning a major
address to the nation, but “a canvass of
opinion in Congress had convinced him that
the riots had destroyed whatever sense of
injustice, compassion or guilt King’s death
had produced; that the country was in no
mood for progressive words on race.” Martin Luther King statue,
Westminster Abbey, 1998

The planning for the Poor People’s Campaign, the march on Washington,
continued as a tribute to Martin Luther King. Later, Ralph Abernathy
admitted that had Martin Luther King not been assassinated, there never
would have been a Poor People’s Campaign, for fear that it might lead to
the election of Richard Nixon, a Republican, to the Presidency in 1968.
This march sought to ensure economic justice by ensuring better income
and housing for blacks. Media coverage tended to emphasize the
instances of violence, not the efforts to ensure a nonviolent protest.
Martin had requested a thirty-billion-dollar expenditure to relieve
poverty.

Row of tents
set up in the
shantytown for
the Poor
People's
March,
Washington
DC, 1968

Poor People's
March near
Lafayette Park,
Washington
DC, 1968

Likely the Poor People’s Campaign contributed to the overwhelming
landslide victory of Richard Nixon in the presidential campaign a few
months later. Many Southern Democrats did bolt from the party, fielding
their own segregationist candidate, George Wallace. The election was a
landslide, Nixon won 301 electors, opposed to 191 electors for the
Democrats and 46 Wallace electors. But Democrats retained a healthy
margin in both the House and the Senate, though many Southern
Democratic Congressmen were not enthusiastic supporters of Civil Rights.
Richard Nixon implemented his Southern Strategy, where Republicans
posed as the Law-and-Order Party supporting the Silent Majority
concerned about the violence of the inner-city riots, eventually turning
the Deep South into a Republican rather than a Democratic Party
stronghold over many decades

1968 Presidential Election Results
1968 House Election Results 1968 Senate Election Results

One problem we face today is that only those
Americans who are in their seventies remember
seeing the dramatic events that Martin Luther King
was a part of as they unfolded on their living room
television sets. My personal memories are scantier, I
first remember being angry that Kennedy’s
assassination interrupted my Saturday morning
cartoons.

What I do vividly remember were the unending stories
over many years of the inner-city riots with their
everlasting flames, flames that continue today on Fox
News. Business property values in the inner city collapsed
and would not recover for decades. This meant fewer
employment opportunities for blacks. Anywhere, anytime
there are flames, they are constantly rebroadcast by Fox
News, they ignore the fact that few protests today descend
into flames as they did in the Sixties.

The author, David Levering Lewis, was planning to write
the biography of Martin Luther King when he was
assassinated. It was initially published sixteen months
later and quickly became the classic biography of this Civil
Rights icon. We discussed his biography in greater depth
in our reflection on his youth and school years. Some of
the pictures were from the Martin Luther King National
Historic Park in Atlanta, not far from the Carter Center.
Lewis also wrote the definitive biography for WEB Du
Bois.

To form an accurate picture of the Civil Rights Struggle, you need to view the
struggle from several perspectives. Lewis’ biography viewed the struggle from the
vantage point of Martin Luther King and the SCLC, but he alone could accomplish
little, which is why protests before the Sixties accomplished so little. The first
catalyst for further Civil Rights was the legal struggles that led to the Supreme Court
decisions favoring Civil Rights, culminating in the Brown v Board of Education ruling
that desegregated public schools. We can view these legal struggles through the
eyes of Thurgood Marshall, legal counsel from the NAACP. Both struggles were
catalysts enabling the actual passage of the Civil Rights legislation, which is best
viewed through the eyes first of John F Kennedy and then LBJ, or Lyndon Baines
Johnson, who shepherded this legislation through Congress, first as Speaker of the
House, then as Vice-President to John F Kennedy, then as President in his own right,
founding the Great Society programs.

Doris Kearns’ first best-selling biography is Lyndon Johnson, the
American Dream, the copious notes she took while bouncing in the LBJ’s
pickup truck and their early morning discussions at his ranch after his
retirement were her major source. This is a narrated autobiography
augmented with nearly unlimited access to his personal and Presidential
documents. She tells us the other side of the passing of the Great
Society legislation and the Civil Rights struggles of the Sixties. Though
Lewis has more footnotes of LBJ than Kearn’s biography does of MLK,
IMHO, Lewis underemphasizes the importance of the consultations
between the two leaders. Some scholars speculate that LBJ pushed
through this civil rights legislation even though he felt it could eventually
switch the allegiance of the Southern state electorates from the
Democratic Party to the Republican Party.

We will also record a summary of Martin Luther King’s life
for those folks who want a lifetime struggle compressed
to fifteen or twenty minutes. We may, in the future,
discuss James Baldwin’s essay on his personal impressions
when he met with Martin Luther King. We may record a
short video comparing and contrasting the careers of
Martin Luther King to those of WEB Du Bois and Booker T
Washington, whom Baldwin mentions in his essay.

https://www.meetup.com/Reflections/

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCLqDkfFbWhXOnzdjp__YZtg/

Martin Luther King, SS LBJ, Great Society, and Vietnam, Northern Civil Rights, Biography Ch 10-12.pdf

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