Lyndon Baines Johnson: Speech to Congress on Civil Rights

Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the presidency in the wake of the assassination of John F. Kennedy in November 1963. He gave a speech to Congress solemnly embracing his duties five days after the assassination, pledging to advance the domestic programs and initiatives of his predecessor and, in foreign affairs, to balance U.S. military strength with restraint. Although he is considered to have failed on the latter front, in view of the Vietnam War, he met with success on the former. Passage of civil rights legislation first proposed by Kennedy was a top priority as Johnson sought to carry out his own “Great Society” agenda, and in July 1964 he signed the Civil Rights Act into law. Then in early 1965, a week after a civil rights march in Selma, Alabama, was brutally suppressed, Johnson gave his Speech to Congress on Civil Rights, which was broadcast to a television audience of 70 million. In this speech, Johnson introduced and made the case for voting rights legislation that would end arbitrary restrictions on the right of African Americans to vote, particularly in the South. This legislation became the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which Johnson would regard as the crowning achievement of his administration.