A Sad, 'In The News'
I was going to blog about Rosie and Ellen today, but sad news popped up. Lady Bird Johnson, the wife of former President Lyndon Johnson passed away today. I'm sad. From everything I read and from interveiws I've heard she was a sweet, even tempered lady, with tons of patience.
She was given the nickname 'Lady Bird' by her black nursemaid as a baby. She was pretty as a 'lady bird' the woman thought. She had a genteel way about her that most southern ladies of her time had. The pauses in her speech, were as moving as her words.
Her husband, President Johnson had a rough go of it. He was a rough and tumble kind of man. He was the only Southern congressman of his day, to vote for an anti-lynching bill in 1938. He was President during Vietnam and all those race riots during the 60's. But, he did pass the most sweeping civil rights legislation in the history of this country. Lady Bird, after the legislation took a 4 day tour of the south, campaining on her husbands behalf.
As the train drew deeper South, the crowds grew menacing. In Mississippi, the Ku Klux Klan tried to blow up a railroad bridge. In Columbia, S.C., Klansmen burned a cross and thousands of hecklers assembled before the state capitol to jeer. Signs read: "Black Bird, Go Home," and "Johnson Is a Nigger Lover." In Charleston, 10,000 people gathered to shout her down. "Today," Lady Bird said, "the South, like the rest of the nation, is at a crossroads ... It is the choice between a new progress -- and a new nullification. Here in Charleston, once the hub of the Old South, you have to make that choice."
On one of her stops she said this, "I am proud that I am part of the South. I'm fond of the old customs," she said. Then she quoted Robert E. Lee's injunction after Appomattox, "Abandon all these local animosities and raise your sons to be Americans!" And she urged acceptance of the Civil Rights Act. "There is, in this Southland, more love than hate."
Although she suffered a mild stroke in 1993 and in her mid-80s was declared legally blind, she remained active at the L.B.J. Library.
“It has been a wonderful life,” she said in 1992. “I feel like a jug into which wine is poured until it overflows.” -mel
Civil Rights Article
Article: Lady Bird dies at 94
NPR article
She was given the nickname 'Lady Bird' by her black nursemaid as a baby. She was pretty as a 'lady bird' the woman thought. She had a genteel way about her that most southern ladies of her time had. The pauses in her speech, were as moving as her words.
Her husband, President Johnson had a rough go of it. He was a rough and tumble kind of man. He was the only Southern congressman of his day, to vote for an anti-lynching bill in 1938. He was President during Vietnam and all those race riots during the 60's. But, he did pass the most sweeping civil rights legislation in the history of this country. Lady Bird, after the legislation took a 4 day tour of the south, campaining on her husbands behalf.
As the train drew deeper South, the crowds grew menacing. In Mississippi, the Ku Klux Klan tried to blow up a railroad bridge. In Columbia, S.C., Klansmen burned a cross and thousands of hecklers assembled before the state capitol to jeer. Signs read: "Black Bird, Go Home," and "Johnson Is a Nigger Lover." In Charleston, 10,000 people gathered to shout her down. "Today," Lady Bird said, "the South, like the rest of the nation, is at a crossroads ... It is the choice between a new progress -- and a new nullification. Here in Charleston, once the hub of the Old South, you have to make that choice."
On one of her stops she said this, "I am proud that I am part of the South. I'm fond of the old customs," she said. Then she quoted Robert E. Lee's injunction after Appomattox, "Abandon all these local animosities and raise your sons to be Americans!" And she urged acceptance of the Civil Rights Act. "There is, in this Southland, more love than hate."
Although she suffered a mild stroke in 1993 and in her mid-80s was declared legally blind, she remained active at the L.B.J. Library.
“It has been a wonderful life,” she said in 1992. “I feel like a jug into which wine is poured until it overflows.” -mel
Civil Rights Article
Article: Lady Bird dies at 94
NPR article
posted by state of our nation at 3:36 PM
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