carlanthonyonline's video: Lady Bird Johnson s 1968 Luncheon at which Eartha Kitt confronted her about LBJ s Vietnam War

January 18, 1968 Excerpts of remarks from a White House luncheon hosted by First Lady Lady Bird Johnson during which invited guest and activist actress Eartha Kitt (then famous for playing the Catwoman on the popular television show "Batman") created a controversy by her spontaneous and impassioned criticism of President Johnson's Vietnam War policy. For more information go to www.carlanthonyonline.com. This is public domain footage from the National Archives, LBJ Presidential Library I am a chronicler and historian, not an apologist or propagandist, for any president of any political affiliation. Some facts may provide a context for the presumption this incident between Miss Kiss and Mrs. Johnson was about racism, as opposed to being about anti-war protest. A white male, poet John Hersey, was castigated similarly to Eartha Kitt by the LBJ White House for reading his poem about Hiroshima during the first White House Festival of the Arts (1965) because he did so specifically as a protest against President Lyndon Jpohnson’s Vietnam War policy. I interviewed both Eartha Kitt (1986) and Lady Bird Johnson (1989) about this incident. Miss Kitt said that she could not continue to sit silently and listen to the women avoid the subject that she believed was at the root of the problem of a sudden spike in juvenile delinquency - and that was the Vietnam War and the threat of young people being ordered overseas to potentially be killed. However, there is a reason her words were not recorded. The only speakers who were recorded that day were scheduled and all came at the beginning of the luncheon. None of the conversation that took place after the luncheon were recorded, including that of Miss Kitt – who was invited as a guest and not one of the three formal speakers. Lyndon B. Johnson chose to place more African-Americans in upper executive government positions than any previous President. LBJ was the first president to appoint an African-American to a presidential cabinet; in 1966, he named Robert Weaver as Secretary of House and Urban Development Charles Weaver. LBJ was the President who signed the1964 Civil Rights Act. Among First Ladies, Lady Bird Johnson did not merely hold very rigid views on the need for full equality without regard to race but literally risked her life to publicly speak out against racial segregation. During the 1964 presidential campaign, weeks after President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, Mrs. Johnson took a whistlestop train tour into the deep heart of the South. From the back of the train she spoke about her vision of a "new South" without institutionalized racism and how the only way the South would ever be able to modernize and compete in the contemporary economy must be without the old racism. She was spit on and there were protest signs that said "Fly Away Black Bird." She also befriended the first mayor ever named in Washington, D.C. Walter Washington and raised millions of dollars which she had spent on improving the landscape and cityscape of impoverished African-American neighborhoods in Washington. Without regard to gender, race, age, region, political party, socioeconomic level or education, anyone criticizing or even questioning the Vietnam War policy was considered an enemy of the White House during this period of Vietnam War policy of not the Democratic (LBJ) and also Republican (Nixon) presidencies. The official White House reaction to Kitt had nothing to do with race or gender but her raising the issue of the Vietnam War hit a nerve with the President's staff at the time it took place in early 1968. That was a tipping point in terms of the organized anti-war movement. It was strong enough to influence LBJ not to seek another term as president that year. It is up to individual viewers to conduct their own individual research and draw their own conclusions.