With Democrats increasingly attacking each other with a vitriol they once reserved for President Trump, an anecdote involving President Lyndon Johnson fits the moment. As recounted in the riveting memoir of Joseph Califano, Johnson’s top domestic adviser, the president was meeting with civil rights leaders in the hot racial summer of 1967.

Dems were sharply divided over several issues, including how to respond to riots in Detroit and Newark, and LBJ hoped to corral NAACP leader Roy Wilkins and Urban League executive director Whitney Young into his corner.

At a White House meeting, Johnson recited his Great Society accomplishments, but Wilkins and Young appeared numb and in despair, saying they couldn’t control the young rioters, Califano writes in "The Tragedy and Triumph of Lyndon Johnson.”

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at July 09, 2019 06:56 AM (IJhtV)

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