Lyndon B. Johnson

===Civil Rights Act of 1964===
{{Main|Civil Rights Act of 1964}}
[[File:Lyndon Johnson meeting with civil rights leaders.jpg|thumb|Johnson meeting with civil rights leaders [[Martin Luther King Jr.]] (left), [[Whitney Young]], and [[James Farmer]] in the [[Oval Office]] on January 18, 1964]]
President Kennedy had submitted a civil rights bill to Congress in June 1963, which met with strong opposition.<ref>{{harvnb|Reeves|1993|pp=521–523}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|last=Schlesinger|first=Arthur|orig-year=1965|year=2002|title=A Thousand Days: John F. Kennedy in the White House|page=973}}</ref> Johnson renewed the effort and asked Bobby Kennedy to spearhead the undertaking on Capitol Hill. This provided adequate political cover for Johnson should the effort fail, but if it were successful, Johnson would receive ample credit.<ref>{{harvnb|Dallek|1998|p=115}}</ref> Caro notes that the bill Kennedy had submitted was facing the same tactics that prevented the passage of civil rights bills in the past: Southern congressmen and Senators used congressional procedure to prevent it from coming to a vote.<ref name="Caro, Robert p459">{{harvnb|Caro|2012|p=459}}</ref> In particular, they held up all of the major bills Kennedy had proposed and that were considered urgent, especially the tax reform bill, to force the bill's supporters to pull it.<ref name="Caro, Robert p459"/>

Johnson was quite familiar with the procedural tactic, as he played a role in a similar tactic against a civil rights bill that [[Harry S. Truman]] had submitted to Congress fifteen years earlier.<ref name="Caro, Robert p459"/> In that fight, a [[rent-control]] renewal bill was held up until the civil rights bill was withdrawn.<ref name="Caro, Robert p459"/> Believing that the Civil Rights Act would suffer the same fate, he adopted a different strategy from that of Kennedy, who had mostly removed himself from the legislative process. By tackling the tax cut first, the previous tactic was eliminated.<ref name="Caro, Robert p460">{{harvnb|Caro|2012|p=460}}</ref>

Passing the civil rights bill in the House required getting it through the [[United States House Committee on Rules|Rules Committee]], which had been attempting to kill it. Johnson used a [[discharge petition]] to force it onto the House floor.<ref name="Caro, Robert p462">{{harvnb|Caro|2012|p=462}}</ref> Facing a growing threat that they would be bypassed, the House rules committee approved the bill and moved it to the floor of the full House, which soon passed it by a vote of 290–110.<ref>{{harvnb|Dallek|1998|p=116}}</ref> In the Senate, since the tax bill had passed three days earlier, the anti-civil rights senators were left with the [[filibuster]] as their only remaining tool. Overcoming the filibuster required the support of over twenty Republicans, who were growing less supportive because their party was about to nominate for president a candidate who opposed the bill.<ref>{{harvnb|Caro|2012|p=463}}</ref> According to Caro, Johnson ultimately could convince Republican leader [[Everett Dirksen]] to support the bill that amassed the necessary Republican votes to overcome the filibuster in March 1964; after 75 hours of debate, the bill passed the Senate by a vote of 71–29.<ref>{{harvnb|Caro|2012|p=465}}</ref><ref name="Schlesinger-Pages644-645">{{cite book|last=Schlesinger|first=Arthur Jr.|orig-year=1978|year=2002|title=Robert Kennedy And His Times|pages=644–645}}</ref> Johnson signed the fortified [[Civil Rights Act of 1964]] into law on July 2.<ref name="Schlesinger-Pages644-645"/> The following evening, Johnson told aide [[Bill Moyers]], "I think we may have lost the South for your lifetime – and mine", anticipating a backlash from Southern whites against Johnson's Democratic Party.<ref name="Kaiser2023">{{cite news |last1=Kaiser |first1=Charles |title='We may have lost the south': what LBJ really said about Democrats in 1964 |url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2023/jan/22/we-may-have-lost-the-south-lbj-democrats-civil-rights-act-1964-bill-moyers |access-date=February 20, 2023 |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=January 23, 2023}}</ref><ref>{{harvnb|Dallek|1998|p=120}}</ref>

Biographer Randall B. Woods has argued that Johnson effectively used appeals to [[Judeo-Christian ethics]] to garner support for civil rights. Woods writes that Johnson undermined the Southern filibuster against the bill:

{{blockquote|LBJ wrapped white America in a moral straitjacket. How could individuals who fervently, continuously, and overwhelmingly identified themselves with a merciful and just God continue to condone racial discrimination, police brutality, and segregation? Where in the Judeo-Christian ethic was there justification for [[16th Street Baptist Church bombing|killing young girls in a church in Alabama]], denying an equal education to black children, barring fathers and mothers from competing for jobs that would feed and clothe their families? Was Jim Crow to be America's response to "Godless Communism"?<ref>Randall B. Woods, "The Politics of Idealism: Lyndon Johnson, Civil Rights, and Vietnam". ''Diplomatic History'' 31#1 (2007): pp. 1–18, quote p. 5. The same text appears in Woods, ''Prisoners of Hope: Lyndon B. Johnson, the Great Society, and the Limits of Liberalism'' (2016) p. 89.</ref>}}

Woods states that Johnson's religiosity ran deep: "At 15 he joined the Disciples of Christ, or Christian, church and would forever believe that it was the duty of the rich to care for the poor, the strong to assist the weak, and the educated to speak for the inarticulate."<ref>Woods, "The Politics of Idealism", p. 3.</ref> Johnson shared the beliefs of his mentor, FDR, in that he paired liberal and religious values, believing that freedom and social justice served both God and man.<ref>Woods, ''Prisoners of Hope'', p. 90.</ref>