October 24, 1964. Today President Johnson visits Memphis, Chattanooga, and Baltimore. In Memphis, President Johnson urges citizens to vote:
“And whether you are Democrats or Republicans, you go in that polling booth and do what you know is right in your heart.”
Follow the campaign with our On the Road with LBJ map, updated daily!
LBJ Library photos 430-2-WH64, 430-82-WH64, 430-86-WH64, 430A-59A-WH64, 430A-127A-WH64; images are public domain.
October 20, 1964. The campaign on the road continues tomorrow. For now, voters must rely on television ads for campaign information.
Check in on our On the Road with LBJ map to see where the campaign left off before it continues tomorrow.
Campaign video from the Democratic National Committee.
October 19, 1964. Today, President Johnson issues a proclamation declaring October 25-October 31, 1964 National First Voters Week. Television campaign ads remind voters why it is important to voice their opinion.
Campaign video from the Democratic National Committee.
November 8, 1966. Election Day. LBJ casts his vote at the Pedernales Electric Coop, Johnson City, Texas.
The campaigning in these midterm elections has been fierce: after the 1964 Demoratic sweep, the Republicans have rebounded and are focused on issues of inflation; the costs of the Great Society programs, and those programs’ failures and disappointments; crime; racial strife and riots; a stalled Vietnam War effort, as well as its rising toll in money and lives; and the perceived "credibility gap“ of the Johnson administration on many of these issues.
Democrats had enjoyed two years of a 295/140 majority in the House, and 67/33 majority in the Senate, and have controlled the majority of state governors and legislatures. Few Democrats expect to keep all of their contested seats: the question is how many they will lose. LBJ, for his part, was too good a student of politics to not expect a backlash against his policies–as early as February 1965 he warned his staff that their days of effective leadership were numbered.
LBJ Presidential Library photo #3849-30a. Public domain.
Three and a half centuries ago the first Negroes arrived at Jamestown. They did not arrive in brave ships in search of a home for freedom. They did not mingle fear and joy, in expectation that in this New World anything would be possible to a man strong enough to reach for it.
They came in darkness and they came in chains.
And today we strike away the last major shackle of those fierce and ancient bonds. Today the Negro story and the American story fuse and blend.
August 6, 1965. LBJ signs the Voting Rights Act. Full text of his speech here. This legislation, which the nationally televised turmoil in Selma helped shape, is now the law of the land.