The Media or Fourth Estate

I was speaking this morning with a friend of forty five plus years and our conversation, as it quite often does, led to politics and the current presidential campaigns. Neither of us really disagrees with one another about the importance of change in the White House and electing a President who will lead this country away from the failed policies of George W. Bush. This is why we both agree in how important a Democratic Victory in November is so essential for this critical change to occur in Washington. This led into a discussion over the recent controversy between Obama and Clinton on race and gender but especially concerning race. The media or what we used to refer to as the Fourth Estate, I believe, has attempted from the onset to created an environment of confrontation and controversy between candidates over apparent personal disagreements having nothing to do with the important political issues of the day. I also think it is very unfair to even intimate that either Bill or Hilary Clinton have a racist bone in their bodies. What far too many of us are doing is allowing the media to turn brother against brother. I was as opposed to the Vietnam War as I am to the Iraq War and in that sense I am much closer to Barack Obama’s position on the Iraq War. I would have no difficulty in supporting either candidate for President except for one serious caveat. I would hope that either an African American or a woman could run and be elected President of the United States in 2008. However, I am sadly fearful that this nation has not yet overcome the sin of racism and bigotry that has plagued us for so many years and still contributes to the social divide that separates us one from another. I am also saddened by the role that the media is playing in perpetuating this divide within the United States.


Senex Magister


BILL MOYERS JOURNAL | Clinton, Obama, King and Johnson | PBS







I Have A Dream




Civil Rights Act of 1964

In an 11 June 1963 speech broadcast live on national television and radio, President John F. Kennedy unveiled plans to pursue a comprehensive civil rights bill in Congress, stating, ‘‘this nation, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens are free’’ (‘‘President Kennedy’s Radio-TV Address,’’ 970). King congratulated Kennedy on his speech, calling it ‘‘one of the most eloquent, profound and unequivocal pleas for justice and the freedom of all men ever made by any president’’ (King, 12 June 1963).

The earlier Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first law addressing the legal rights of African Americans passed by Congress since Reconstruction, had established the Civil Rights division of the Justice Department and the U.S. Civil Rights Commission to investigate claims of racial discrimination. Before the 1957 bill was passed Congress had, however, removed a provision that would have empowered the Justice Department to enforce the Brown v. Board of Education decision. A. Philip Randolph and other civil rights leaders continued to press the major political parties and presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy to enact such legislation and to outlaw segregation. The civil rights legislation that Kennedy introduced to Congress on 19 June 1963 addressed these issues, and King advocated for its passage.

In an article published after the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom that posed the question, ‘‘what next?’’ King wrote, ‘‘the hundreds of thousands who marched in Washington marched to level barriers. They summed up everything in a word—NOW. What is the content of NOW? Everything, not some things, in the President’s civil rights bill is part of NOW’’ (King, ‘‘In a Word—Now’’).

Following Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, King continued to press for the bill as did newly inaugurated President Lyndon B. Johnson. In his 4 January 1964 column in the New York Amsterdam News, King maintained that the legislation was ‘‘the order of the day at the great March on Washington last summer. The Negro and his compatriots for self-respect and human dignity will not be denied’’ (King, ‘‘A Look to 1964’’).

The bill passed the House of Representatives in mid-February 1964, but became mired in the Senate due to a filibuster by southern senators that lasted 75 days. When the bill finally passed the Senate, King hailed it as one that would ‘‘bring practical relief to the Negro in the South, and will give the Negro in the North a psychological boost that he sorely needs’’ (King, 19 June 1964). On 2 July 1964, Johnson signed the new Civil Rights Act of 1964 into law with King and other civil rights leaders present. The law’s provisions created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to address race and sex discrimination in employment and a Community Relations Service to help local communities solve racial disputes; authorized federal intervention to ensure the desegregation of schools, parks, swimming pools, and other public facilities; and restricted the use of literacy tests as a requirement for voter registration.


Source: King Encyclopedia

Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908 – 1973)

President Johnson’s five years in office brought about critical civil rights legislation and innovative anti-poverty programs through his Great Society initiative, though his presidency was marred by mishandling of the war in Vietnam. Though Martin Luther King, Jr., called Johnson’s 1964 election “one of America’s finest hours,” and believed that Johnson had an “amazing understanding of the depth and dimension of the problem of racial injustice,” King’s outspoken opposition to the Vietnam War damaged his relationship with Johnson and brought an end to an alliance that had enabled major civil rights reforms in America (King, 4 November 1964; King, 6 March 1965).

Johnson was born in rural Texas on 27 August 1908. He graduated from Southwest Texas State Teachers College in 1930 and briefly taught in Texas public schools before becoming secretary to a Texas congressman in Washington, D.C. In 1937, Johnson was elected to serve out the term of a Texas representative who had died in office. In 1948, he was elected a senator, becoming Democratic whip, then minority leader. In 1954, Johnson became the second youngest man ever to be named Senate majority leader. From this position of power, Johnson used his political leverage to engineer passage of the 1957 and 1960 Civil Rights Acts.

When John F. Kennedy secured the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination in 1960, he surprisingly chose Johnson as his running mate, hoping the Texas senator would appeal to southern voters. Shortly after winning the election, Kennedy named Johnson chairman of the President’s Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity. With Johnson’s encouragement, on 11 June 1963, Kennedy framed civil rights in moral terms for the first time during a national address.

Following the assassination of President Kennedy on 22 November 1963, Johnson challenged Congress to pass the civil rights legislation that had been deadlocked at the time of Kennedy’s death. King publicly supported Johnson, saying that Johnson had taught him to recognize that there were “new white elements” in the South “whose love of their land was stronger than the grip of old habits and customs,” and expressed optimism that Johnson’s term would benefit African Americans (King, 1964).
On 2 July 1964 Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, a far reaching bill he hoped would “eliminate the last vestiges of injustice in America” (Kenworthy, “President Signs Civil Rights Bill”). King stood behind Johnson as he signed the bill into law. A month later, they clashed over the recognition of delegates from the integrated Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP) at the Democratic National Convention of 1964. MFDP sought recognition as the legitimate Democratic Party delegation from Mississippi instead of the all-white “regular” delegation. However, Johnson feared this change would cost him southern Democratic votes in the upcoming election against Republican Barry Goldwater, and recommended a compromise that King eventually supported.

Later that year, Johnson won a decisive victory in the 1964 election, garnering the widest popular margin in presidential history. King had campaigned actively for Johnson and welcomed the victory saying, “the forces of good will and progress have triumphed” (King, 4 November 1964). In the first months of Johnson’s elected term, King joined a voting rights campaign in Selma, Alabama, where less than two percent of eligible black voters had been able to register to vote. The brutality of white law enforcement during the Selma to Montgomery March stirred Johnson to send a voting rights bill to Congress. When introducing the bill, Johnson reflected publicly on the poverty and racism he had encountered teaching high school to Mexican immigrant children in Texas. King called Johnson’s speech “one of the most eloquent, unequivocal, and passionate pleas for human rights ever made by the President of the United States” (King, 16 March 1965). Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law on 6 August.

During the first four years of Johnson’s tenure as president, he deflected the criticisms of King that were fed to him almost daily by Federal Bureau of Investigation Director J. Edgar Hoover, who nursed personal animosity toward King. Johnson saw King as a natural ally for his civil rights agenda, soliciting King’s advice on civil rights matters, and collaborating on tactics for pushing legislation through Congress. This relationship, coupled with Johnson’s civil rights record, made King initially hesitant to speak out against his administration’s policies in Vietnam. When asked his opinion by journalists in March 1965, King cautiously stated that he was “sympathetic” to Johnson’s predicament, but that he himself did not believe that “violence can solve the problem” (King, 6 March 1965). In late 1966, King’s last phone call to Johnson was to discuss Vietnam.

In the months that followed, Johnson attempted to meet with King on two occasions, but King canceled both engagements. Johnson was bewildered and asked his aides to find out why King was avoiding him. On 4 April 1967, the answer was revealed to Johnson in a speech, “Beyond Vietnam, “that King delivered at New York’s Riverside Church in conjunction with Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam. In his speech, King said that he was moved to “break the betrayal of my own silences and to speak from the burnings of my own heart” against the war in Vietnam, and in a devastating indictment of Johnson’s policies, King called the United States government “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” (King, “Beyond Vietnam,” 141; 143). Shocked by King’s address and feeling personally betrayed, Johnson caved in to Hoover’s pressure and asked his press secretary to distribute the FBI’s information about King’s ties with alleged communist Stanley Levison to reliable reporters.

Beyond Vietnam



A year later, a press conference for the Poor People’s Campaign, King announced that he would not support Johnson in the 1968 presidential election. “I was a strong supporter,” King recalled. “I voted for President Johnson and saw great hope there, and I’m very sorry and very sad about the course of action that has followed” (King, 26 March 1968). On 31 March 1968, Johnson shocked the nation by declaring that he would not seek reelection, and pledged that he would spend the remainder of his term seeking “an honorable peace” in Vietnam (“Transcript”).

Four days later, on 4 April 1968, King was assassinated. Johnson wrote in his memoir that he had rarely felt a “sense of powerlessness more acutely than the day Martin Luther King, Jr., was killed” (Johnson, 173). Less than a week later, Johnson invoked King’s memory when he signed into law the Civil Rights Act of 1968. Among other provisions, the bill barred discrimination in federally funded housing and created new penalties for threatening or injuring persons exercising their civil rights. In his final year as president, Johnson halted bombing in North Vietnam and pressed for peace talks. He would not, however, live to see peace in Vietnam; he died of a heart attack at his Texas ranch on 22 January 1973.

Source: King Encyclopedia

It is past time to bring this war to an end and live as brothers in a world based on fairness for all of us.

~Dissent is the highest form of Patriotism. ~Thomas Jefferson~
Bring Them Home