An Idea Whose Time Has Come: Two Presidents, Two Parties, and the Battle for the Civil Rights Act of 1964

by Todd S. Purdum

  “how do you spell straight?”: Civil Rights File, EMDP.

  “Dirksen and I had the same general approach”: Loevy interviews, Collection 151, EMDP.

  “so labyrinthine, so bewildering”: EMD, Alpha, 1959, Kennedy, EMDP.

  “This had to be a bipartisan bill”: Author interview with Cornelius Kennedy, June 2013.

  “A sort of ad hoc committee”: The Reporter, July 16, 1964, p. 20.

  “True give and take was possible”: Stewart manuscript, cited in Loevy, ed., Civil Rights Act of 1964, p. 260.

  “We were all very dear friends”: Author interview with Kenneth Teasdale, May 2013.

  But all was not collegial: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 176.

  He stalked out of the meeting: Loevy, ed., Civil Rights Act of 1964, p. 256.

  (Indeed, Dirksen did appear): Mary McGrory, “Rights Bill Rests with 2 Men,” Washington Star, May 6, 1964.

  The Republican liberals were not happy, either: Horn log, p. 159, EMDP.

  Johnson’s “gambit on cloture”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, pp. 174, 178.

  “shook hell out of them”: TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 6, p. 528.

  “somewhat of a minor miracle”: Stewart manuscript, cited in Loevy, ed., Civil Rights Act of 1964, p. 116.

  “The people’s business must come first”: PPP, Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963–64, p. 618.

  “I’m not getting much help on cloture”: Horn log, p. 161, EMDP.

  “I know damn well we can’t beat it”: TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 6, pp. 511–12.

  “One of my roommates in law school”: Kennedy interview.

  “hold out as long as possible”: Stewart manuscript, quoted in Loevy, ed., Civil Rights Act of 1964, p. 257.

  “‘Pattern or practice’ had a vagueness to it”: Author interviews with Teasdale and Ferris; Ferris OH, U.S. Senate Historian’s Office.

  “I’m talking out of both sides of my mouth”: Horn log, p. 168, EMDP.

  “My office is not a single trust”: PPP, Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963–64, p. 330.

  “we do not have the votes to prevent passage”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 178.

  “You’d be surprised at how chummy”: Hulsey, Everett Dirksen and His Presidents, p. 148.

  drank almost constantly: Valeo OH, U.S. Senate Historian’s Office.

  “Champagne is Mrs. Dirksen’s favorite vegetable”: Combined sources, cited in Hulsey, Everett Dirksen and His Presidents, p. 148.

  “No matter where the hands stood”: John G. Tower, Consequences: A Personal and Political Memoir (Boston: Little, Brown, 1991), p. 56.

  “That ain’t water, kid”: Author interview with John Stewart.

  “Fake pearls before real swine”: Author interview with Jack Rosenthal.

  “progress on the bill to date is nil”: TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 6, p. 954.

  “some very dark days in this country”: PPP, Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963–64, p. 684.

  11: It Can’t Be Stopped

  “we have gone a long ways”: Mackaman, Long Hard Furrow, p. 105.

  The pro-civil-rights forces had lobbied Mundt: Author interview with Ferris.

  “those two goddamned bishops”: Mann, Walls of Jericho, p. 413.

  “See what I’m up against?”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 183.

  “And to me, too”: Ibid., p. 183; Mackaman, Long Hard Furrow, p. 106.

  “just a question of doing the job”: Loevy interviews with Rauh and Kennedy, Collection 151, EMDP.

  McCulloch offered the most judicious summation: “Man Was Born to Be Free,” Box 1, Folder 2, WMMP.

  “they’re not going to be happy”: TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 6, p. 652.

  “it would be a great victory for civil rights”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 183.

  “worthy of the Land of Lincoln”: TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 6, p. 662.

  “We’ll have real revolution in this country”: Ibid., p. 697.

  “lowdown, dirty, cheap politics”: Ibid., p. 690.

  “Marshall and I will slit our throats”: Horn log, p. 197, EMDP.

  “There are no public cheers from me”: Ibid., p. 198.

  “to make the bill less burdensome”: CR, p. 11288.

  But liberals like Clark … said they could live with it: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 184.

  “It’s a gargantuan thing!”: Ibid., p. 185; CQ, week ending May 22, 1964, p. 987.

  “No army can withstand”: New York Times, May 20, 1964. Dirksen claimed that Hugo had written such a sentiment in his diary on the night he died; no such diary has ever surfaced. The quotation seems most likely to have come from Hugo’s short story “Histoire d’un Crime,” where it was rendered as “A stand can be made against invasion by an army; no stand can be made against invasion by an idea.” See Mann, Walls of Jericho, p. 422.

  “they’re allowed to”: MacNeil, Dirksen, p. 235.

  he had inserted a provision: Smith, Race, Labor, and Civil Rights, p. 28.

  “We have attempted to be fair”: CR, p. 11935.

  “But the issue is here, and it cannot be evaded”: Ibid., p. 11936.

  Humphrey praised the compromise’s “practical, commonsense approach”: Ibid., p. 11937.

  “As one who lives in the South”: Ibid., p. 11943.

  “It wasn’t a sell-type meeting”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 187.

  “crystal clear, with brackets and underscoring”: CR, p. 12275.

  “Listen, they forget I’m no spring chicken anymore”: MacNeil, Dirksen, p. 236.

  “we shall be here until 1984”: CR, p. 12642.

  “Bourke had the feeling”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 191.

  There was instant panic: CR, p. 12847.

  Russell drily noted: Ibid.

  Overnight, Hubert Humphrey received commitments: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, pp. 190–92.

  “Well, Dick,” he said, “you haven’t any votes”: Hubert H. Humphrey memo, cited in Loevy, ed., Civil Rights Act of 1964, p. 91. John Stewart would recall that claiming credit for gaining Hickenlooper’s support for cloture became a kind of Senate parlor game, with multiple sources believing their own influence had been crucial. For example, Frank Valeo, the secretary of the Senate, would recall that when he told Hickenlooper that Lyndon Johnson had reportedly said that getting Hickenlooper’s vote would be as tough as getting Strom Thurmond’s, Hickenlooper took umbrage at being compared to such a segregationist and insisted, “I’ve got nothing against civil rights, it’s just that the goddamn bill is no good.” Valeo said that Mike Mansfield had then urged the bipartisan lawyers’ group working on the bill to listen to Hickenlooper’s complaints, thus softening Hickenlooper’s opposition. See Valeo OH, Senate Historian’s Office.

  “We, the undersigned Senators”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 194.

  “I think it makes it much more difficult”: TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 7, p. 149.

  “there may be speeches beyond the hour of 12 o’clock”: CR, p. 13098.

  “it would impair the civil rights of all Americans”: Ibid., p. 13133.

  And with that, Humphrey concluded: Ibid., p. 13175.

  He had stayed up late the night before: Remarks and Releases, June 10, 1964, EMDP.

  the Senate chamber was packed: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 197.

  Nick Katzenbach and Burke Marshall had to sit on the steps: Smith interview.

  “I was conceived by a pair of good”: Ibid., p. 13308.

  “I appeal to the Senate to vote down this gag rule”: Ibid., pp. 13308–9.

  “to make the year 1964 our freedom year”: Ibid., p. 13310.

  “Nothing is eternal except change”: Ibid., p. 13319.

  “It’s all right, Carl,” Mansfield now assured him: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 199.

  Roger Mudd was broadcasting live on CBS: Mudd, Place to Be, p. 154.

  “Ervin set forth the proposal”: Stewart manuscr
ipt, cited in Loevy, ed., Civil Rights Act of 1964, p. 137.

  “to regroup, rethink and recollect”: CR, p. 13330.

  The weary Georgian praised Humphrey: Humphrey, Education of a Public Man, p. 211.

  The lawyers said that the amendment, as revised, would do no harm: Stewart manuscript, cited in Loevy, ed., Civil Rights Act of 1964, p. 139; Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 207; CQ Weekly, week ending June 12, 1964, p. 1171.

  floor leaders accepted an amendment: Smith, Race, Labor, and Civil Rights, p. 29.

  Tower’s proposal passed on a voice vote: EMD, Alpha, 1964, Piper, EMDP.

  “God damn you, Russell”: Stewart interview.

  Later that same Wednesday: MacNeil, Dirksen, p. 212.

  “because we have been under quite a strain”: CR, p. 14239.

  When the Senate convened that morning: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 213. In Texas, a forty-year-old oil company executive who was the Republican candidate for the U.S. Senate embraced Goldwater’s position. His name was George Herbert Walker Bush, and his stance would dog him uncomfortably for the rest of his political life.

  “Joining the legions of other small rural dailies”: Ibid., p. 217.

  “the highest breach of senatorial ethics”: Stewart manuscript, cited in Loevy, ed., Civil Rights Act of 1964, p. 146.

  “There is no room for second-class citizenship in our country”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 214.

  “This, indeed, is his moment as well as the Senate’s”: CR, p. 14509.

  “I am prepared for the vote”: Dirksen, The Honorable Mr. Marigold, p. 193; CR, p. 14511.

  “No single act of Congress”: PPP, Lyndon B. Johnson, 1963–64, p. 787.

  “Nobody’s maid worked on Juneteenth”: Russell, Lady Bird, p. 244.

  “Never in my fifteen years in the Senate”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p, 216.

  12: The Law of the Land

  From the moment the Senate approved the bill: TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 8, pp. 350–51.

  “signing it as soon as it’s available is the correct idea”: Ibid., p. 359.

  “I think it’d be very bad if you waited”: Ibid., p. 362.

  “I don’t think you can hold it up”: Ibid., p. 365.

  “That would be very unfortunate”: Ibid., p. 374.

  “we ought to go forward with this”: Ibid., p. 382.

  “Summer means a thousand delights”: Statements of LBJ, Box 112, LBJL.

  “Now, goddamn it, Mr. President”: TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 8, p. 539.

  “If Martin Luther King were chairman of this committee”: Whalen and Whalen, Longest Debate, p. 222.

  “The bell has tolled”: CR, p. 15870.

  “Forever and a day”: Ibid., p. 15871.

  “Never have so many of such ability”: Ibid., p. 15894.

  he was changing his vote: Ibid.

  “an overwhelming vote for this bill”: Ibid., p. 15896.

  “House passed the bill”: President’s Daily Diary, LBJL.

  “I’ll feel relieved”: TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 8, p. 379.

  “They’re selfish bastards”: Ibid., p. 384.

  “Mr. President, it’s so monumental”: Ibid., p. 374.

  “Get Doug Cater and Dick Goodwin”: Bill Moyers Files, Box 125, LBJL.

  “The thought must be in the speech”: Ibid.

  “with all kinds of people around”: Caplan, Farther Along, pp. 230–31.

  “He’s signing!” someone shouted: Bruce Watson, Freedom Summer (New York: Penguin Books, 2010), p. 132.

  “the sadness that we saw in Bobby’s eyes”: Schlesinger, Robert F. Kennedy and His Times, vol. 2, p. 674.

  “we just delivered the South to the Republican Party”: Moyers, Moyers on America, p. 197.

  “I don’t tell that figure to anybody”: TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 8, p. 400.

  “It’s been relatively calm”: Ibid., p. 401.

  “a man gets his back up”: Ibid., p. 417.

  She never again returned to the ranch: Booker, Shocking the Conscience, p. 246.

  “They got the right answers, too”: TPR, Lyndon B. Johnson, vol. 8, p. 446.

  “I’m sorry he was there”: Ibid., p. 454.

  Epilogue

  “All across the South”: John Lewis, interview with Adam Clymer, May 8, 2008.

  “These statutes are now on the books”: Mann, Walls of Jericho, p. 430.

  By 1987, Mississippi would lead the nation: Southern Changes, vol. 9, no. 5 (1987), p. 25.

  “Fifty years later, we can ride anywhere”: Washington Post, Aug. 28, 2013.

  Gerri Whittington continued her career: Booker, Shocking the Conscience, pp. 246–47.

  “The old battles have been won”: Man Was Born to Be Free, Box 1, Folder 2, WMMP.

  “Please forgive the emotional tone of this letter”: Correspondence files, 1971, WMMP.

  a “Negro president” in forty years: Schlesinger, Robert F. Kennedy and His Times, vol. 1, p. 346.

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