Freedom's Pragmatist: Lyndon Johnson and Civil Rights

4. The Road to Damascus: The Vice Presidency, 1960–1963

111 4 The Road to Damascus The Vice Presidency, 1960–1963 . . . the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived or his imagination conceived. John Adams When you hear your President say, “Do not ask what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country ,” you take it seriously. Lyndon Johnson It is a received wisdom in American politics that the position of the vice president is a weak one. John Adams, the nation’s first, called it “the most insignificant office that ever the invention of man contrived,” and John Nance Garner, who served as vice president under Franklin Roosevelt and was a fellow Texan, famously told Johnson that “the vicepresidency isn’t worth a warm pitcher of piss.” But an American columnist , William Vaughan, made an equally perceptive comment when he noted that it “is sort of like the last cookie on the plate. Everyone insists that he won’t take it, but someone always does.” In constitutional terms, the vice president has a very limited role. An afterthought for the founding fathers, the role of the vice president is unclear in the U.S. Constitution . Article I, section 3, stipulates that the vice president “shall be President of the Senate, but shall have no Vote, unless they be evenly divided.” Beyondthat,thepositionisoneofsuccessorintheeventofthepresident’s 112 · Freedom’s Pragmatist death, resignation, or impeachment, and as the constitutional successor to the president, ambitious politicians recognize that the vice president is only “a heartbeat” away from the top job. Indeed, prior to 1960, seven vice presidents had become president on the death, assassination, or resignation of a president—Andrew Johnson, John Tyler, Millard Fillmore , Chester Arthur, Teddy Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, and Harry S. Truman. The adages about, and history of, the vice presidency all held relevance for Lyndon Johnson. Indeed, LBJ’s years as vice president have been characterized by those who knew him well as a “miserable three years” as he struggled to cope with the diminution of his political power. And yet this period on the political sidelines—described by one scholar as “the Johnson eclipse”—proved crucial in increasing his moral commitment to civil rights. Johnson was now free from the demands of his conservative Texas constituents and could break free from his southern shackles. Indeed, as the civil rights crisis came to a head in Birmingham in May 1963, Johnson appears to have experienced a Damascus moment. Shortly before he became president, he had become convinced of the need for decisive executive action to end segregation and racial injustice and was making statements that were more forthright on the issue than President Kennedy’s. A Fox in the Chicken Coop: LBJ as Vice President When it was announced at the Democratic convention in Los Angeles in July 1960 that Johnson was Kennedy’s vice-presidential nominee, most civil rights leaders were surprised and many were dismayed. Thurgood Marshall, chief counsel for the NAACP, was neither. He recalled being asked by the former U.S. ambassador to the Soviet Union and Democratic governor of New York, Averell Harriman, before the 1960 convention if he would have any problem with Johnson being part of the ticket; he replied that “there was no problem at all.” He later recalled that this was because in his book Texas was “not South; it’s Southwest . . . and that his record wasn’t that bad.” While Marshall may have been willing to give Johnson a chance, “other people in NAACP hit the ceiling,” including Roy Wilkins, the NAACP’s executive secretary. James Farmer, then with the NAACP and later national director of CORE, also opposed Johnson’s nomination, considering it “most unfortunate”; his “prime concern” was that it would “probably be a disaster, because of his Southern background and his voting record on civil rights.” A. Philip The Road to Damascus: The Vice Presidency, 1960–1963 · 113 Randolph, international president of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, remembered that the announcement that LBJ would be on the Democratic ticket in the presidential election led to a picket line of black leaders at the convention, including himself. But when the AFL-CIO Executive Council met to endorse Kennedy, William Levi Dawson, an African American congressman from Chicago, “got among the Negro groups and told them that he knew . . . Senator Johnson and that he had a good record on civil rights, because he was responsible...