Chapter 20: Lyndon Johnson Confronts George Wallace

Chapter Summary:

     This chapter describes the events leading up the the final march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, and the roles of President Lyndon B. Johnson and racist, pro-segregation Governor of Alabama George Wallace in the voting rights struggle. It begins with an introduction of the violent marches leading up to the events of March 13th, the "culmination of a series of steps that had pitted George Wallace against the civil rights movement and against the federal government." After the death of Jimmy Lee Jackson in Alabama during a bloody attack upon a crowd of demonstrators, which was ordered by Wallace, African Americans were outraged and decided to march to the state capital of Alabama to address Wallace himself. Wallace "issued an edict banning it," yet the civil rights movement still occurred. But not for long - on Wallace's orders, the demonstrators encountered state troopers who attacked the peaceful marchers. More bloodshed and violence caused outrage among white and blacks all over America, who called upon Johnson to take some sort of action. This led up to Wallace calling for a meeting with Johnson to discuss the "racial agitators and the growing menace of the Communist demonstrators in Alabama," but he was quickly shamed to silence by LBJ's rant which accused Wallace of police brutality in Alabama, as well as refusing educated blacks the right to vote. 
     At the end of the meeting, Johnson had "achieved what he set out to do- to make undeniably clear that the governor was not going to be able to wriggle out of letting the march take place." He made the governor a sort of scapegoat, and addressed the people of America, saying that what Wallace had done was wrong, and that "whether the governor agrees or not...law and order would prevail in Alabama." He ordered Wallace to let the march to Montgomery occur without opposition, and he ordered a voting rights bill to be passed that would "mass the power of the national government behind the right of African Americans to vote in elections in the Deep South." Johnson further instructed Wallace that he must employ the Guard to protect the demonstrators involved in the march, but Wallace broke his agreement by "claiming that the state could not afford to activate the Guard and he shifted responsibility for policing the march to the federal government," angering the president greatly. Johnson, however, did employ the guard to protect the demonstrators in the march, which in turn "[signaled] the overwhelming popular support for the president's new program of far-reaching voting rights legislation."

Chapter Reflection:

     I thoroughly enjoyed the narrator's description of Lyndon B. Johnson's scornful and somewhat demeaning rant against Wallace - he was witty, he was charming, but he was harsh and angry. He made it know the injustices that Wallace performed, and exactly how he felt about it. This chapter was clearly set out and I could see the process of the events and how they affected each other, which helped me to better understand what was going on and how it impacted America and the voting/civil rights movements. I loved the triumphant return of the march, this time protected on all sides by Johnson's Guard, while Wallace hid in the capitol. Very symbolic.