These Negroes, they're getting pretty uppity these days and that's a problem for us since they've got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we've got to do something about this, we've got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference.
Perhaps more the Machievellian and less the benevolent humanitarian you portray him as. That's the consensus of those who knew LBJ personally.
Even JFK blew off Martin Luther King Jr. and didn't give him an audience until racial violence and riots in cities nationwide had occurred, that JFK finally gave King Jr. an audience to try and limit it escalating even further. LBJ didn't dream up this legislation, but continued legislation that preceded his inauguration in JFK's name. To complete JFK's legacy.
LBJ also gave us the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution that vastly escalated the Vietnam war, over an incident where a ship was allegedly fired on in the Gulf of Tonkin, but it was during a heavy storm and may never have actually been fired upon. But in the name of that incident, LBJ was authorized to take any action he felt appropriate in Vietnam. So deception and manipulation of public opinion for reasons other than the stated reason seems a pattern for LBJ.
