A great thing to remember Lady Bird Johnson for

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http://www.pbs.org/ladybird/epicenter/epicenter_report_train.html

It was the fall of 1964. The November presidential election was looming as parts of the country still seethed over the Civil Rights Act President Lyndon Baines Johnson had signed into law just a few months earlier. The new legislation eliminated the so-called "Jim Crow" laws and guaranteed blacks access to all public accommodations and the right to equal employment opportunities.

Many white southerners and politicians considered the law an assault on their way of life. Southern Democrats threatened to bolt as racial politics threatened to splinter the party and cost Mr. Johnson the election.

It was during this tumultuous time that Lady Bird Johnson showed the country just how much she could contribute to her husband's presidency. In a four-day, 1,628-mile campaign trip aboard a train dubbed the Lady Bird Special, the First Lady traveled through eight southern states that were in such racial turmoil it had been deemed unsafe for President Johnson to go there himself.

The whistle-stop tour was key to garnering support for the president among rural southerners, and it propelled Lady Bird into the spotlight as an activist First Lady.

Born and raised in the deep, traditional South, Lady Bird understood the shock felt by southerners as they saw their lives altered by a distant government in Washington. She hoped to ease their anger and unrest by showing them that the end of segregation would improve the economic condition of the South and help move it into the modern world.

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This tour took a lot of guts and was planned by her alone. I never read about it until I saw an article in George Magazine. On this day I think it is great to remember a first lady who usually is remembered for more esoteric things for a true gutsy trip that helped change the south.

[monmouth]

1. I always admired her beautification projects and also the fact she

was left alone as most pols wives are to raise her girls by herself. They turned out to be lovely young women both parents could be proud of.

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2. true

[OzarkDem]

3. Those were very dangerous days in the south

It took tremendous courage for her to do that, not knowing how she would be received. An amazing woman with vision and patience (how else could she have managed to marry LBJ?)

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4. I can't believe that this trip isn't being mentioned in the coverage

of her death. I think it is at least as important a legacy as her wonderful highway work.

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5. kick