Its also doubtful JFK could have got his own civil rights agenda passed in his second term.
The assassination helped LBJ get them through.
Johnson was a Southern Democrat who, like all Southern Democrats, hated President Kennedy and his policies, but he knew that he would alienate Kennedy voters if he did not sign the 1964 Civil Rights Act, President Kennedy’s landmark civil rights legislation.
Back in 1947, when President Truman pushed Congress to pass civil rights legislation, Johnson, a member of the House of Representatives, called it “a farce and a sham — an effort to set up a police state in the guise of liberty.’”
Johnson’s “mentor” during his twelve years in the Senate was Senator Richard Russell, who led the Senate filibuster of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, stating on March 30, 1964, “We will resist to the bitter end any measure or any movement which would have a tendency to bring about social equality and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our states.”
Lyndon Johnson and Richard Russell were “very, very close friends” in a relationship that started out with Johnson as “the student” and Russell as “the teacher.”
Vice President Johnson hosted a dinner “in Senator Russell’s honor” while Kennedy was President, and Johnson “told the assembled gathering that if he were able to personally choose the President of the United States, he would select Richard Russell.”
The “Southern Bloc” of Senators that filibustered the 1964 Civil Rights Act was comprised of Lyndon Johnson’s buddies from his twelve years in the Senate.
Johnson, however, had a plan to stop integration dead in its tracks and keep Southern Democrats happy.
Johnson knew that the civil rights legislation he was compelled to sign would give people of African descent the ability to fully integrate themselves into society with absolutely no restrictions.
He also knew that giving money to people in poverty would tend to remove their incentive to participate in the free market economy, where any man or woman can rise to the level of his or her ability. So, Johnson launched his “War on Integration” and called it a “War on Poverty” in order to hide his true intentions.
President Johnson’s basic premise was: “Give money to people in poverty and they won’t integrate themselves into society.”
Segregation, which was the law of the land in Southern Democratic states a few years earlier, became more and more of a sociological norm as demagoguery took root, African Americans were exploited, and identifying with one’s skin color became a basis for gravitating towards segregation. It was the same demagoguery used by segregationists in the early 1960s as they called for separate but equal.
Gone were the exhortations that African Americans become integral parts of society, judged only on the content of their character and not the color of their skin. In due time, a nation with a large percentage of segregated African Americans was told that, for the most part, black people are victims who cannot succeed without government help.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07V9JT65Y
