Page 154 - Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows

NOT EVERY BATTLE IS THE END OF THE WAR

influential leaders who had helped propel him into the national spotlight.
In fact, one who had played a vital behind-the-scenes role in Weaver’s rise
to the top was the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
It was January 15, 1965, and Dr. King, who had just won the Nobel
Peace Prize, waited patiently for President Lyndon Johnson to accept his
telephone call. The civil rights movement had made great strides over the
last few months, but there was still much to do, and King intended to issue
a challenge to the president that day that, if Johnson chose to accept it,
would signify a momentous step on the road to equality for minorities in
the United States. The president recently had signed into law the Civil
Rights Act of 1964, which put an official end to segregation in employ-
ment, public places, and schools, making it illegal for the federal govern-
ment or state governments to discriminate against people because of their
race, color, religion, sex, or national origin. However, despite the new leg-
islation, discrimination was still rampant throughout the country; the old
social order was proving difficult to dislodge.
The fight for the Civil Rights Act had been a long and bitter one dur-
ing which President Johnson and like-minded congressional leaders had
squared off against an indignant band of Southern lawmakers led by the
president’s old friend and former mentor, Georgia Senator Richard Rus-
sell, who had declared, “We will resist to the bitter end any measure or
any movement which would have a tendency to bring about social equal-
ity and intermingling and amalgamation of the races in our [Southern]
states.” After a filibuster lasting fifty-four days and much political wran-
gling, the historic measure passed the Senate in spite of the southern
bloc’s opposition and was sent to President Johnson for his signature on
July 2, 1964.
It had been six months since the president had signed that bill, and
the dust had begun to settle, relatively speaking. King believed the time
had come for President Johnson to make perhaps his boldest move yet and
set a precedent for establishing racial equality at the highest reaches of the
federal government. It was time for him to appoint an African American
to his cabinet.
“We have a strong feeling that it would mean so much to the health
of our whole democracy, to the Negroes of the nation, to have a Negro in
the Cabinet,” King said during the call that President Johnson secretly

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