Transcript
Edited by Kent B. Germany, with Kieran K. Matthews and Marc J. Selverstone
In the aftermath of rioting in the Watts section of Los Angeles, California, President Johnson received a discouraging phone call from Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The civil rights leader had just concluded a largely unsuccessful visit to Los Angeles in which he attempted both to intervene in the uprising and to secure concessions from city officials that might restore calm.[note 1] For a detailed account of King’s efforts in Los Angeles, where he met with a hostile reception both from city officials and from militant African Americans, see Thomas F. Jackson, From Civil Rights to Human Rights: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Struggle for Economic Justice, (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2007), 239–44. After complimenting King’s public response to the Watts crisis, Johnson reported on his difficulties with the Senate’s reauthorization of the War on Poverty. The exchange that followed offered an indication of why, despite the frustration he had expressed in the office conversation a few days earlier, Johnson had not simply eliminated community action. The program, for all of its liabilities, offered a possible way to acknowledge the deep human suffering that Johnson saw both as the cause of the Watts riots and as the responsibility of government to address.
After the Watts disorders, Los Angeles seemed to offer a clear indication of the importance of both community action and the wider War on Poverty. Alone among major American cities, Los Angeles in August 1965 had not yet received approval for its War on Poverty program proposals. Stymied by a series of disputes over the city’s inclusion of the poor in its planning efforts and proposed programs—as well as by Mayor Samuel W. “Sam” Yorty’s underlying opposition—OEO had not yet approved the city’s application. In the aftermath of the Watts riots, Yorty and R. Sargent Shriver exchanged recriminations, with each blaming the riots on the other’s hindrance of the local antipoverty program. For King, however, the War on Poverty and, implicitly, community action, still held promise as a potential preventative to “full-scale race war.” Despite the strains that had emerged from its failure to resolve the racialized expression of poverty and inequality, and despite the challenge posed by newly resurgent reactionary social forces represented in this case by Mayor Yorty and, especially, by the repressive Los Angeles police chief William Parker, the War on Poverty remained, for both the minister and the President, a source of potential reconciliation. In the case of Johnson, the exchange reflected both his continued empathy for society’s downtrodden and a belief that the nation as a whole had an obligation to act through the federal government to mitigate the problems of inner city communities. In the aftermath of the riots and the King conversation, Johnson would authorize $25 million for Los Angeles’ poverty program. For King, meanwhile, the experience in Los Angeles left him with new insights into the effect of police violence in urban black communties and deepened his belief that the underlying economic injustices of American society lay at the root of the grievances that had led to the riot—and to the wider problems of African Americans in the United States.[note 2] Jackson, From Civil Rights to Human Rights, 240–42.
The conversation closed with a tense discussion of King’s views of the situation in Vietnam, an exchange that reflected their phone call from 7 July about press reports that King had called for a negotiated settlement in Southeast Asia, even “with the Vietcong.”[note 3] “Dr. King Declares U.S. Must Negotiate in Asia,” New York Times, 3 July 1965.
OK. Hold on, please.
Can you bring me that letter right quick, from [Thomas H.] Kuchel [R–California]?[note 4] Thomas H. Kuchel was a U.S. senator [R–California] from January 1953 to January 1969, and Senate Minority Whip from January 1959 to January 1969. [speaking to King] Hello? Hello?
Hello?
Yes, Dr. King.
Yes, Mr. President, how are you today?
Oh, I’m doing pretty good. I’ve been—I thought you made a mighty good statement yesterday that I saw on . . . last night.
Yes, well, we’re dealing with a difficult situation here.
Well, it’s difficult all over the country. I met with about 6[00] or 700 of them today and—here on equal employment, and it’s . . . we just got so much—we’ve got just so much to do, as I told you the other day, that I don’t know how we’ll ever do it, but we got to get ahead with it.[note 5] Shortly after noon on 20 August, President Johnson had spoken at the White House Conference on Equal Opportunities. “Remarks at the White House Conference on Equal Opportunities,” 20 August 1965, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1966), doc. 436.
[Unclear.]
I had all day long yesterday and all day the day before—I was having 44 to 44 votes, 43 to 42, and finally I won last night by three extry, and now my bill’s got to go back to the House, go through [Howard] Judge Smith [D–Virginia] again, go to conference with my poverty [bill].[note 6] Howard “Judge” Smith was a U.S. representative [D–Virginia] from March 1931 to January 1967, and chair of the House Rules Committee from January 1955 to January 1967. The final vote on passage of the 1965 Amendments to the Economic Opportunity Act had been an easy 61–29 in favor, so the President referred here to the series of votes that attempted to restore the power of state governors to veto various War on Poverty programs in their states. The closest votes had actually taken place on 17 and 18 August; on August 19, the two proposed governor’s veto amendments had been rejected by margins of four and seven votes. Congressional Quarterly Almanac, 89th Cong., 1st sess., 1965, vol. 21 (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly Service, 1966), 1065–67. Although the discretionary power of the Rules Committee had been reduced during the Kennedy presidency, no bill could proceed to the House floor without a rule for debate granted by Smith’s committee. Smith was a bitter opponent of most elements of Johnson’s Great Society agenda, and his committee still represented a major hurdle in moving legislation through the House. Bruce Dierenfield, “Howard W. Smith (1883–1976),” Encyclopedia Virginia, http://www.EncyclopediaVirginia.org/Smith_Howard_Worth_1883-1976. They’re determined to destroy it, to scandalize it, and . . .
[Unclear.]
I thought [R. Sargent] Shriver was about as popular and about as fair a young man as I could do, and had a pretty good image, and he was [John F.] Kennedy’s brother-in-law and . . . but they’re just raising the dickens in all these states and particularly all the governors are upset, and the mayors can’t get along. And I got a letter from Kuchel last night; he’s a pretty decent fellow.[note 7] R. Sargent Shriver was director of the Peace Corps from March 1961 to February 1966, and director of the Office of Economic Opportunity from October 1964 to March 1968. California Republican senator Thomas H. Kuchel had issued a public letter to the President in which he requested the “mobilization of ‘all federal agencies, as well as those dealing with the anti-poverty program,’ to ‘make the reconstruction of the Watts area a true demonstration of self-help and co-operation between private and public groups.’” Johnson issued a letter assuring Kuchel and the public that all federal resources would be fully utilized to calm the situation and address underlying problems. Don Irwin, “Significance of Riot Studies on Capitol Hill,” Los Angeles Times, 18 August 1965; “Dr. King Calls Johnson,” New York Times, 21 August 1965.
Yes.
I told him I’d get busy in every one of these programs. I told Lee [C. White] to tell you I’m here with a bunch of Latin American ambassadors.[note 8] Lee C. White was assistant special counsel to the president from 1961 to 1963; associate counsel to the president from 1963 to 1965; special counsel to the president from 1965 to 1966; and chair of the Federal Power Commission from 1966 to 1969.
Sure.
And they’re upset because they want more for sugar and their people are all starving, but I told him to tell you what—Did he go over the Kuchel thing with you?
Yes, he went over it with me. He read the letter.
And I would get in—I would get in . . . Shriver, if you think that’s what we ought to do and do anything that we ought to. I’ve got each one of these agencies, now, that have a responsibility in this field. I’ve sent them Kuchel’s letter to me and my letter to him and asked them to prepare for crash action. [King acknowledges.] And I guess that—I got a mean letter from [Samuel W. “Sam”] Yorty.[note 9] Samuel W. “Sam” Yorty was a U.S. representative [D–California] from January 1951 to January 1955, and mayor of Los Angeles, California, from July 1961 to July 1973. A conservative Democrat and former congressman, Yorty often pursued a populist strategy aimed at working-class white Angelenos. Both before and after the Watts Riots, he pioneered a political strategy that sought to take advantage of anti–civil rights sentiment among such voters. In 1966, he would stage a primary challenge against California governor Edmund G. “Pat” Brown. Although Yorty lost to Brown, he tacitly encouraged his supporters to vote for Republican challenger Ronald W. Reagan in the general election. Lisa McGirr, Suburban Warriors: The Origins of the New American Right (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001), 199–201. He says that our people up here said that he wouldn’t cooperate. I don’t know who said it, if anybody, but he’s upset with us—demanded I investigate that. Now, how do you see it?
Well, I’ll tell you, Mr. President, I have met with . . . oh, all levels of leadership here and I’ve talked with people in the Watts area. Now, this is really what concerns me very much. I’m not optimistic at this point about the possible outcome of [unclear]. Because in talking—now, Governor [Edmund G. “Pat”] Brown has been marvelous in his statements and the moves that he’s made.[note 10] Edmund G. “Pat” Brown was the Democratic governor of California from January 1959 to January 1967. I had a long talk with him.
By the way, I made—you might—you might misunderstand it, but I took your statement you made the other day and one or two others made, about we pass laws to help people and we got to all obey the law, and we can’t violate it either as a Klansman or either with a Molotov cocktail, that we ought to obey the law. I made that to the equal employment people today and made it pretty strong.[note 11] During his remarks earlier that day at the White House Conference on Equal Employment Opportunities, Johnson had stated that “a rioter with a Molotov cocktail in his hands is not fighting for civil rights any more than a Klansman with a sheet on his back and a mask on his face. They are both more or less what the law declares them: lawbreakers, destroyers of constitutional rights and liberties, and ultimately destroyers of a free America. They must be exposed and they must be dealt with.” “Remarks at the White House Conference on Equal Opportunities,” 20 August 1965, Public Papers of the Presidents, Johnson, 1965. [King acknowledges.] But I wound up—I said, “What we’ve got to do is take the—find a cure and go in and correct these conditions, where the housing, and the ghettos, and the rats are eating the children, and the schools, and the hunger, and the unemployment,” and so forth.
Yes.
“And they’re all God’s children and we better get at it.”
Yes, yes. [Unclear]—[note 12] The Presidential Recordings Program revised the following section of text in 2021 for inclusion in The LBJ Telephone Tapes, a project produced by the Miller Center in partnership with the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library to commemorate the library's 50th anniversary.
[speaking over King] But I want you to know I’d said that—Pardon me for interrupting. Go ahead.
That’s all right. But in my meeting with Police Chief [William H.] Parker and Mr. Yorty—Mayor Yorty—I just felt that they are absolutely insensitive to the problem and to the needs, to really cure the situation.[note 13] William H. Parker served as the chief of the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) from 1950 until his death in 1966. Deeply controversial, Parker had reformed a department notorious for its corruption, but in the process created a departmental culture that “was intended to be incorruptible because unapproachable, a ‘few good men’ doing battle with a fundamentally evil city,” as historian Mike Davis described it. This included a hostile and aggressive approach to policing in African American neighborhoods, and by the 1960s, the LAPD faced charges of racial discrimination and police brutality against African Americans. Mike Davis, City of Quartz: Excavating the Future in Los Angeles, 2nd ed. (New York: Verso Press, 2006), 126, 294–97; Alisa S. Kramer, “William H. Parker and the Thin Blue Line: Politics, Public Relations and Policing in Postwar Los Angeles,” (PhD diss., American University, 2007). Now, Mr. Parker is a very rude man—we just couldn’t get anywhere with him—but I just don’t see a willingness even on the part of the mayor to grant just a few concessions to make—to bring about a new sense of hope and [unclear].[note 14] Accompanied by Bayard Rustin and a group of Los Angeles civil rights leaders, King had met with Mayor Yorty and Chief Parker and demanded Parker’s resignation and the creation of a civilian police review board. Yorty denied all charges of police brutality and attacked King for suggesting that police actions had contributed in any way to the outbreak of violence. Jackson, From Human Rights to Civil Rights, 241. Now, what is frightening about it is that you hear all of these tones of violence. The people out there in the Watts area, they’d assumed the National Guard indeed were going back in. The minute that happens there will be retaliation in the White community this time. Last time there was not, which was wonderful. But the people have bought up guns, and Chief Parker went on television the other day, they need to do an anti-riot crew, and all of that.
So that I’m fearful that if something isn’t done to give a new sense of hope to the people in that area—and they are poverty-stricken—that a full-scale race war can develop here. And I’m concerned about it, naturally, because I know that violence—a riot at the end of the day wouldn’t—doesn’t help.
That’s right. Now, what should we do about it? What’s your recommendation?
Well, the problem is I think that poverty—if they could get, in the next few days, this poverty program going in Los Angeles, I believe that it would help a great deal.
I’ll get him over here in the morning. We’ll get at it. Where are you going to be?
I’ll be in Atlanta [Georgia] in the morning.
All right. We’ll call you back. Lee [C. White] will call you, or I’ll call you if I have time, and we’ll explore it. Is that the net of what you’re recommending?
That’s right. [President Johnson acknowledges.] I think this would be greatly—this would help greatly.[note 15] End of 2021 revisions.
All right, now, you better get your thinking cap on on this [civil rights] conference, because we’re going to have to rush it. We don’t want to rush it too much; we want to have plenty of preliminary work on the panels and things. [King acknowledges.] But you better—you can see here that my Howard University speech wasn’t any too early.[note 16] The Johnson administration was planning the White House Conference on Civil Rights that would occur 1–2 June 1966 and have the title “To Fulfill These Rights,” echoing the title of the President’s 4 June 1965 commencement address at Howard University and Harry S. Truman’s 1947 report To Secure These Rights. At Howard, President Johnson had discussed the remaining challenges facing the nation in overcoming the consequences of slavery and decades of segregation and discrimination. In the address, entitled “To Fulfill These Rights,” the President had stated that “freedom is not enough. You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: Now you are free to go where you want, and do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please. You do not take a person who, for years, has been hobbled by chains and liberate him, bring him up to the starting line of a race and then say, ‘You are free to compete with all the others,’ and still justly believe that you have been completely fair.” The address is often seen as a starting point for affirmative action policies designed to bring African Americans—and later, other minorities and women—into a position of equal opportunity in U.S. society. “Commencement Address at Howard University: ‘To Fulfill These Rights,’" 4 June 1965, Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965 (Washington, DC: GPO, 1966), doc. 301 For an assessment of the significance of the speech and the White House Conference on Civil Rights, see David C. Carter, The Music Has Gone Out of the Movement: Civil Rights and the Johnson Administration, 1965–1968 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009), 1–31, 75–102; and on the Howard speech, see Ira Katznelson, When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America (New York: W. W. Norton, 2006), 1–24, 142–72.
That’s right. That’s right. You said . . . you said it right there. That’s right. Well, we’ll—I’ve been doing some thinking on [unclear]—
Well, you refer to that some in your statements. You just point out that we’ve seen this national thing, that you’ve been in here. We were talking about it last week. Wasn’t it last week you were here?[note 17] On 5 August 1965, one day before the signing of the Voting Rights Act, President Johnson hosted King and several leaders of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference for an almost two-hour meeting at the White House.
That’s right.
And we were talking about Howard University last month.
That’s right.
And say that! [King acknowledges.] And just say that the clock is ticking, that the . . . the hands are moving, and we just—the Good Lord is going to allow us some time, and he’s trying to give us some warnings. [King chuckles.] But the country has got to stand up and support what I’m doing. And I can’t have these poverty things hitting me 43 to 43.
Yeah, that’s right.
Forty-four to 42. That’s just too close for the United States Senate.
That’s right.
And I’ve been seeing you on television every night. You make a reasonable, and fair, just thing. But I think you ought to say that the President recognized this thing months ago and has talked to you about it, and all the leaders—he had all the leaders in here and he talked to them at Howard University. And the speech is available and they ought to read it. And that we’re going to have a meeting—nationwide meeting and try to form it. But we can’t wait.
And we’ve got to have some of these housing programs, and we’ve got to get rid of these ghettos, and we got to get these children out from where the rats eat on them at night, and we got to get them some jobs. I had a youth job—but we got 2 million unemployed. I got 500,000 of them as a goal. I set up the Vice President [Hubert H. Humphrey Jr.] and [John T. “Jack”] Connor, and we got all the businessmen to give them jobs, and we reached our goal to 500, so we increased it to 750, and we reached that yesterday.[note 18] Hubert H. Humphrey Jr. was the Democratic mayor of Minneapolis, Minnesota, from July 1945 to November 1948; a U.S. senator [D–Minnesota] from January 1949 to December 1964 and January 1971 to January 1978; Senate Majority Whip from January 1961 to December 1964; vice president of the United States from January 1965 to January 1969; and the Democratic U.S. presidential candidate in 1968. John T. “Jack” Connor was president of the pharmaceutical giant Merck and Company, and U.S. secretary of commerce from 1965 to 1967. And now—we reached 800 yesterday. [King acknowledges.] So today I increased it to a million, so that’ll be a million of 2 million. But I told the crowd today we’re just 50 percent. Well, when you bat 50 percent, that’s not very good.
That’s right, that’s right.
We—So there’s a million still that got no place to go when they get up, these youngsters.
Yes, yes. Well, that’s right.
But you put a little of that stuff in your thing. [King attempts to interject.] Refer to that Howard University speech. Nobody ever publicized that.[note 19] This statement was not accurate. Johnson’s Howard University speech had received extensive coverage in major publications, and just three days before, New York Times columnist Tom Wicker had called it “one of the greatest Presidential speeches of our time.” Johnson had also emphasized the same theme about Howard in his 7 July 1965 conversation with King. Tom Wicker, “The Other Nation: No Place to Hide from It,” New York Times, 17 August 1965; President Johnson and Martin Luther King Jr., 7 July 1965, Conversation WH6507-02-8311-8312-8313. For earlier examples of discussions of the speech (including reflections by civil rights leaders), see Roy Wilkins, ”Johnson Reveals ALL the Negro Problem,” Los Angeles Times, 14 June 1965; “Trying to Be Both,” Time, 11 June 1965; and “Johnson Address to Howard University Graduates,” New York Times, 6 June 1965 (including a full transcript of the speech).
I’ve been quoting it in almost every speech I’ve made because I think it’s the best statement and analysis of the problem I’ve seen anywhere. Certainly no president has ever said it like that before.[note 20] The Presidential Recordings Program revised the following section of text in 2021 for inclusion in The LBJ Telephone Tapes, a project produced by the Miller Center in partnership with the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library to commemorate the library's 50th anniversary.
Well, we were ahead of it, and we got to keep ahead of it, and we’re not now unless we do. But they never publicized it any, and you—you have—you’re on television, and you ought to make them. Hell, tell them to read it, write and get it, [King acknowledges] and let’s get busy. And let’s get into this housing. Let’s get into this unemployment. Let’s get into this health. Let’s get into this Social Security situation. Let’s get into this education. Let’s get into—I said this morning, “I spent the biggest part of my life for the last four years on civil rights bills, but it doesn’t—all of it comes to naught if you have a situation like war in the world or a situation in Los Angeles.”
Yes.
And I said, “A man’s got no more right to destroy property with a Molotov cocktail in Los Angeles than the Ku Klux Klan has to go out and destroy a life. And what we’ve got to do is all obey the law. But there’s no use giving lectures on the law as long as you got rats eating on people’s kid—children, and unemployed, and no roof over their head, and no job to go to, and maybe with a dope needle in one side, and a cancer in the other.”
Yeah, that’s it.[note 21] End of 2021 revisions.
Because they don’t have very good judgment. [King acknowledges.] People don’t that got that kind of condition.
That’s right. And they—
And we’re not doing enough to relieve it and we’re not doing it quick enough.
Yes.
And then I’m having hell up here with this Congress.
Yes.
I’m supposed—
You know, I didn’t know the vote was that close.
Oh, I had a tie vote, 43 to 43!
Is that so?
And if—the amendment was to cut me 900 million [dollars] and—no, 791 million—791 million out of a billion-six—just cut me in half, and if the amendment that had been adopted they’d have cut it, but an amendment fails when it’s a tie; it’s not adopted. So it was a tie; that’s how close it was.[note 22] Johnson actually referred to two different amendments. On 18 August, Senator Gordon L. Allott [R–Colorado] proposed an amendment that would have cut the Senate authorization for the bill from $1.65 billion to $947.5 million (its fiscal 1965 funding level); this amendment was defeated 48–39. The 43–43 tie had been on an amendment proposed by Senator Winston Prouty [R–Vermont] that would have retained the governor’s veto through fiscal 1966. A series of other similar amendments were narrowly rejected. Congressional Quarterly Almanac vol. 21, 1965, pp. 418, 1066.
Mm-hmm.
They’re doing the same thing with my other things. They’re just—they think that I’m getting far away from election, and that I haven’t got the crowds supporting me anymore. And I carried all but five states, but they say, “Well, [Barry M.] Goldwater wasn’t any good, and Johnson’s not either, and he’s got Vietnam on his side.”[note 23] Barry M. Goldwater was a U.S. senator [R–Arizona] from January 1953 to January 1965 and January 1969 to January 1987, and a Republican presidential candidate in 1964. They all got the impression, too, that you’re against me in Vietnam.[note 24] On 2 July 1965, King reportedly told a crowd in Petersburg, Virginia, that the United States needed to seek a negotiated settlement in Vietnam and should consider peace rallies to push for it. Five days later, King and Johnson held a long conversation in which Johnson provided a detailed, spirited explanation of his rationale for escalating U.S. military involvement in the conflict. See President Johnson and Martin Luther King Jr., 7 July 1965, Conversation WH6507-02-8311-8312-8313. You don’t leave that impression. I want peace as much as you do and more so, because I’m the fellow that had to wake up this morning with 50 marines killed. But these folks will not come to the conference table. And I’m—
I have said this, Mr. President, that I am concerned about peace, and I have made it very clear. I think my [unclear], but I’ve made it very clear, that at the present time, two things: first, that it’s just unreasonable to talk about the United States having a unilateral withdrawal. On the other hand, you have called 14 or 15 times for unconditional talks, and it’s Hanoi and [unclear]—
That’s right.
—that haven’t responded. [Unclear]—
[speaking over King] That’s just—that’s the perfect position. That’s just exactly the position. And we got to get you with [Arthur J.] Goldberg when you get up here, and let him tell you what he’s trying to do behind the scenes to shove them some more.[note 25] Arthur J. Goldberg was part of the general counsel of the Congress of Industrial Organizations and United Steelworkers of America from 1948 to 1961; U.S. secretary of labor from January 1961 to September 1962; an associate justice on the U.S. Supreme Court from September 1962 to July 1965; and U.S. ambassador to the United Nations from July 1965 to June 1968. Goldberg had been in his new ambassadorial office for almost one month at the time of this call. And if we got enough strength out there to hold on and they get discouraged, [if] we ever get them to the table and we just got to get them to the table [King acknowledges], because there’s no use of shooting when you can talk.
Yes, yes. Well, I got a call from Goldberg, I guess, two days ago.
Mm-hmm. Well, that’s—
He wants to talk with me. [President Johnson attempts to interject.] I’m going to talk with him next week.
I told him last week to go talk to you and to talk to [Dwight D.] Eisenhower and talk to everybody.[note 26] Dwight D. Eisenhower was a five-star general of the U.S. Army; governor of the American Zone of Occupied Germany from May 1945 to November 1945; chief of staff of the U.S. Army from November 1945 to February 1948; Supreme Allied Commander in Europe from April 1951 to May 1952; president of Columbia University from 1948 to 1953; and president of the United States from January 1953 to January 1961. Let’s don’t let this country get divided. Because—
Well, I’ll be sure to do that next week.
That’s good. Thank you, and I’ll have Lee White—I’ll have Lee White call you in Atlanta sometime tomorrow.
All right. Thank you so much—
Now, is there any other suggestion you got?
Well, that’s really the main one.
Well, I appreciate your doing this. This is the way to function. You did a good service going out there and trying to give some leadership, and then call in to us and report, and if you got any suggestions or recommendations, why, I’m just as close as a telephone, if you’ve got enough money to pay it, and if you haven’t, why, call collect.
[chuckling] All right.
Good-bye. [King attempts to interject.] I want you to get your bus—people busy on this conference, though.
Yeah. We’re working on it.
Fine.
All right.
Bye.
Cite as
“Lyndon B. Johnson and Martin Luther King Jr. on 20 August 1965,” Conversation WH6508-07-8578, Presidential Recordings Digital Edition [Lyndon B. Johnson and Civil Rights, vol. 2, ed. Kent B. Germany] (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2014–). URL: http://prde.upress.virginia.edu/conversations/4005551