A Profile In Courage

President Johnson sits quietly in the Oval Office. A Camel cigarette, his sixtieth of the day, dangles from the corner of his mouth. Smoke swirls past black-framed glasses as he leans back in his leather chair. He exhales with a great sigh as he stares at his reflection in black patent leather shoes propped up on the desk in front of him. Sounds of protest can be heard from outside the gates of the White House. He hears the muffled, shrill voice of someone screaming into a handheld megaphone with chants of “No Justice, No Peace!!”. His gaze slowly turns toward the three TVs across the room. One flashes images of protesters burning an American flag in Lafayette Square across from the White House. On a second screen, there are scenes of burning buildings and rioters fighting with police. On the third, he watches in horror as snarling police dogs attack a crowd of black civil rights protesters in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Gushing fire hoses pound them from above with a torrent of water as they struggle to stay on their feet. He knows that his actions over the coming months will determine whether the nation will split apart in a sea of hatred and division, or come together in unity to face the massive problems facing the nation together. The words of his murdered predecessor echo in his mind……” If not us, who? If not now, when?”

I recently watched the HBO movie, All The Way. It tells the story of the numerous and overwhelming obstacles LBJ had to overcome to get civil rights legislation passed through congress and onto his desk. LBJ, played masterfully by Bryan Cranston, is seen struggling with the many forces at play swirling around the issue of civil rights, all taking place in the backdrop of the brewing conflict in Vietnam.  On one side, there were the members of his party, mostly from the deep southern states, who were opposed to any efforts at desegregation and any changes to the Jim Crow laws enacted to keep black Americans from voting. On the other, were the various pro-civil rights groups fighting among themselves for the soul of their movement and against the headwinds of change at the same time.

It got me thinking about the many parallels between the climate of divisiveness we see in today’s America and the turmoil in the ’60s surrounding the struggle for civil rights. What does the civil rights crisis faced by Lyndon Johnson in 1964 have in common with the current strife we are facing now? What can our leaders today learn from how LBJ navigated the country through those trying times?  

In the 60’s the two main groups engaged in the pro-civil rights movement were the Black Nationalists and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. 

The Black Nationalist movement, primarily represented by the Nation of Islam, advocated economic self-sufficiency, racial superiority of the black race, and segregation of the country into two separate states, one white and one black. The group called for using any means necessary to achieve civil rights, including violence.  The head of this group was Elijah Mohammad but their most vocal spokesperson was Malcolm X. Their goal was to destroy the system from the outside and rebuild it into a society separate from the establishment.

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference was founded by Dr. Martin Luther King and several other prominent black pastors. The group came together in the months after the Montgomery bus boycott which was famously sparked by Rosa Parks and her refusal to give up her seat in the colored section for a white person on a segregated city bus. The SCLC promoted non-violent means of affecting change primarily through marches, sit-ins, and boycotts. Through their display of civil disobedience, they hoped to change the system from within by using peaceful means to influence public opinion and to pressure politicians into expanding and enforcing the rights of citizens of color. Their approach was to affect change from within the system with the realization that destroying the system would not be beneficial to them or anyone in the long run. 

Mahatma Gandhi, one of King’s role models, was once asked to explain the reasoning behind his non-violent resistance to the British colonial government ruling over India. He pointed out that how you achieve a goal is just as important as the goal itself, especially when it comes to long-lasting peace. He illustrated this by pointing to the reporter’s watch and telling him that there were three ways he could get it from him. First, he could simply ask for it and he would give it to him. Second, he could offer to buy it and he would sell it to him for a fair price. Third, he could bash the man over the head and take it from him. All three methods resulted in getting the man’s watch but all three would also result in a different relationship between them in the long run. 

Similarly, Johnson and King knew that to achieve their respective ends by destroying the country was no victory at all. Using cold war language, it would result in mutually assured destruction of both sides by decimating the very thing they wanted to preserve. Moreover, the after-effects would be a lasting animosity between the groups for generations as toxic as the fallout from a nuclear war. Therefore, LBJ had two choices. He could engage in a head-to-head battle with the extremes of the other side by ordering more troops into the cities to quell the violence. This in turn would fire up the hard-core anti-segregation wing of his party resulting in a short-term boost in his poll numbers but would stoke the fires of anger and division he hoped to avoid.

The second choice was to reach across to the other side and engage the peaceful groups and seek common ground through compromise.  He realized that extremists on both sides did not represent the vast majority of people on these issues, they were just more vocal. He was willing to take the short-term political heat from his party for the greater good of the country. 

Miriam Webster defines the act of compromise as the “ coming to an agreement by mutual concession; to find or follow a way between extremes”.  John F. Kennedy wrote of such men of compromise and courage in our history who did just this in his book,  Profiles in Courage. He writes, “Compromise does not mean cowardice. Indeed it is frequently the compromisers and conciliators who are faced with the severest tests of political courage as they oppose the extremist views of their constituents”. 

Lyndon B. Johnson was facing the same resistance from the extremes of his party as he dealt with the issue of civil rights. The same courage needed then is needed today to deal with the issues dividing and threatening our nation.

While many of the issues we face today are similar, the environment is quite different and more toxic. Today, the fires started by the vocal minority are continuously flamed 24 hours a day by social media and opinion-based media outlets purporting to be news. In my blog post, “The Age of Personal Propaganda”, I discuss the segregation of news and information into silos, each firing targeted information to a certain segment of people based on their likes, desires, and fears. 

Unfortunately, political leaders of both parties have used this new form of propaganda to stoke the anger and fear of their political bases to stay in power. While effective as a short-run political tactic, the long-run effect has been disastrous. How long will it take before the fuel of hatred and fear burn down the whole country, destroying democracy itself? 

While there are no simple answers to any of the problems dividing us today, we must look for leaders on both sides who are willing to dodge the punches thrown by the extremists on their own side while reaching out to those interested in peace and compromise on the other side.  

They must be able and willing to reach across and find those in the middle who are willing to peacefully sit down and listen to each other just as MLK and LBJ did. The extremes will attack these peacemakers just as the militant black movement attacked MLK and the racist southern whites attacked LBJ. It took courage on both sides to move to the middle and find solutions together to save the nation. 

However, leaders who possess the integrity and humility needed to accomplish this will be hard to come by as long as the trend of voting for policies over character continues. This may seem to get us what we want in the short term, but selecting leaders this way will only destroy the union, not unite it, for even if the policy goals are achieved, the ultimate goal of preserving the union will fail. It is not policies that made America great, it was the conviction of brave men of character in pursuit of those policies who were willing to sacrifice small victories for larger ones for the good of the nation.

As we head into election season, let’s look for leaders of faith who exhibit the character of humility, self-sacrifice, and patience rather than those who tell us what we want to hear and who can only offer us division, fear, and hatred. It is our only hope. 

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God

Matthew 5 : 9