KC Johnson

Black Americans in Congress website: http://baic.house.gov

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Audio files:

President Johnson and Adam Clayton Powell, 1 March 1965, 9.32pm, discussing the fate of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965

President Johnson: Hello?

Congressman Adam Clayton Powell: How’s my friend?

President Johnson: [stonily] Fine, Adam.

What the hell’s been happening to your [Education and Labor] Committee? I thought you told me two months ago that you were going to pass a [education] bill for me.

Powell: That’s right. Well, what happened: all hell’s broken loose, because—

President Johnson: Well, now, what the hell are you blackmailing me on a—

Powell: That’s not—

President Johnson: —four hundred . . . Well, hell, you didn’t—[because] you want a $400,000 appropriation for you, we couldn’t pass a billion, two hundred million [dollar funding bill] for the schoolkids.

Now, you know I’m for you, and you know that I’m going to help you any way I can. I’ve got nothing to do with what you’re doing in the House investigation [of Powell’s personal finances]. But you damn near defeated the best education bill I’ve got. And I hope you’re going to be proud of it.

Powell: No. Now, you know your Appalachia bill, that there is—

President Johnson: Well, now, Appalachia ain’t got a damn thing to do with you. If you handle your committee and let us handle the other one!

Powell: Yeah, but there’s a clause in there, Mr. President—

President Johnson: There’s a clause that’s been in there for a long time.

And if you’re going to let [Ohio congressman William] Ayres [the committee’s ranking Republican] and [Oregon congresswoman] Edith Green [a conservative Democrat] lead you off the reservation, well, then I ran for nothing last year—

Powell: No—

President Johnson: [continuing] With 15 million votes. If you’re going to tie up this Congress, and screw it up—which you’ve done for three weeks, by running off [to Bimini, in the Bahamas] till you got a 400,000 [dollar] appropriation—why, we never can get anywhere.

And you defeat this [bill], and you hold it up, and you delay it, and you get us in this kind of shape, why, we can’t pass anything.

And that’s all right. But I think you’ll beat a hell of a bunch of your liberal Democrats [in the 1966 midterm elections]. I’m going to be here—it’s not going to bother me. But I just sure thought I had better leadership on that committee than what I’ve got without even talking.

Powell: Well—

President Johnson: And I’m awfully disappointed. Just very disappointed.

Powell: Now, Mr. President, don’t you think I have an entitlement to—

President Johnson: [forcefully] No, I don’t think you’re entitled to a damn thing that you did.

I think you told me, and looked me straight in the eye—

Powell: Mm-hmm.

President Johnson: [continuing] And said, “I’ll report this bill, and I’ll get it on the floor.” And you didn’t do it.

Powell: [By] March 1^st.

President Johnson: And you did not do it.

Powell: It was [by] March 1^st, because—

President Johnson: Well, Adam—

Powell: It was March—

President Johnson: [voice rising] No. Oh, hell no, you didn’t say till March 1^st. you told me you were going to do it. And then you ran off for three weeks and they couldn’t even locate you . . . And your people [African-Americans] are being damn well taken care of in it [the bill].

[Break.]

President Johnson: Hey, listen: if you can’t trust me on Appalachia, you damn sure can’t trust an amendment, or the Secretary of Commerce, or anybody else.

Powell: Mm-hmm. Yeah—

President Johnson: If there’s anything that’s going to happen in Appalachia that’s anti-Negro, I won’t let it happen. Period.

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Maps:

North Carolina's "majority-minority" House districts

Photos:

Former Los Angeles mayor Tom Bradley, unsuccessful Democratic nominee for governor, California, 1982

Virginia's Douglas Wilder, first African-American elected governor (1989)

Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois, first African-American woman elected to the Senate, 1992

Videos:

Barbara Jordan, 1976 Democratic National Convention, keynote address:

Jesse Jackson, 1988 Democratic National Convention speech, conclusion:

Clarence Thomas confronts the Senate Judiciary Committee, 1991:

Barack Obama, 2004 Democratic National Convention, keynote address

Handout:

I. Early Generation (1960s/1970s)

1. Machine Politicians (Harlem, Chicago’s South Side, African-Americans as part of urban Democratic machines; Powell and black political power; national prominence; committee chairmanships; scandal and expulsion; defeat)

2. A Different Mold (Shirley Chisholm and outsiders’ approach; presidential bid; Barbara Jordan: background and election, role in Watergate hearings, 1976 Democratic keynote speaker, approach to politics, Senate or national bid?, decision to retire) “I am neither a black politician nor a woman politician. Just a politician, a professional politician.”

II. The 1980s

1. The Bradley/Wilder Effect (Bradley background; California demography; polling lead and theories on result; Wilder background; built-in advantages—abortion decision, lieutenant governorship; polling lead and theories on result)

2. Majority-Minority Districts (NAACP and new interpretation of Voting Rights Act; peculiar political alignment; Court willingness—mid-1980s on; effects—increase in black (and Hispanic) House membership; “ghettoization” of minorities?; inward-looking House campaigns: Bobby Rush)

III. Grievance Politics

1.  Jackson & Sharpton (Jackson background; token 1984 bid; gearing up for 1988—strengths and weaknesses; brief flirtation with frontrunner’s position; demands on Dukakis and change in Democratic nominating rules; Sharpton as even more extreme version?

2. Thomas (background—Holy Cross, Yale Law, role of religion; affirmative action as harmful to talented minorities; movement into Reagan administration; Marshall resignation and nomination to Court; emergence of Anita Hill allegations; reaction and confirmation; subsequent performance)

3. New Generation