321: Give Us the Ballot: From LBJ and the Great Society

By his own account, and by many others as well, the Voting Rights
Act of 1965 was Lyndon Johnson’s greatest achievement – the jewel
in the crown of the Great Society, and widely considered the most
effective piece of civil rights legislation in American
history.



This episode, "Give Us the Ballot," will focus on the
extraordinarily eventful eight-month period — January to August
1965 — when the battle for Voting Rights was joined and
ultimately fought to a successful conclusion. The outcome was
hard won, and in doubt up until the last frantic weeks of
negotiation and maneuvering. Why and how Johnson prevailed, where
so many before him had failed, is the central story in this
episode, which looks at the complex and precarious alliance
forged between the President on the inside, and Dr. Martin Luther
King and the civil rights movement on the outside. 



Source notes: This episode includes interview
excerpts from Washington University Libraries, drawn from the
Henry Hampton Collection. This digitized resource includes
complete video interviews with Civil Rights Movement leaders,
known and unknown, captured for the influential and award-winning
documentary film, Eyes on the Prize.



LBJ and the Great Society was funded by the National Endowment
for the Humanities and distributed by PRX.



https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/lbj-and-the-great-society/id1276340470