Caro shows how Johnson’s brilliance, charm, and ruthlessness enabled him to become the youngest and most powerful Majority Leader in history and how he used his incomparable legislative genius--seducing both Northern liberals and Southern conservatives--to pass the first Civil Rights legislation since Reconstruction. Brilliantly weaving rich detail into a gripping narrative, Caro gives us both a galvanizing portrait of Johnson himself and a definitive and revelatory study of the workings of legislative power.
Background Information
The rights guaranteed in the Constitution by the Fourteenth Amendment were not adequately enforced before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The smaller and more prestigious house of the United States Congress, the Senate has two members from each state who serve terms of six years. Lyndon B. Johnson, a powerful Democratic Senator from Texas, was JFK's vice-president in the 1960 election and succeeded him in November 1963.