6. Lyndon B. Johnson
Though some call him a champion of civil rights, getting people the right to vote for you and actually liking the people going out to vote for you seemed to be two very separate issues in the mind of LBJ.
A 2014 MSNBC article did a fantastic job at highlighting the fact that even though he pushed through necessary voting reforms for millions of black Americans, he did it to ensure Democrats would get the black vote in future elections, not because he actually liked them, or other people of color for that matter:
–“Johnson would calibrate his pronunciations by region, using “nigra” with some southern legislators and “negra” with others. Discussing civil rights legislation with men like Mississippi Democrat James Eastland, who committed most of his life to defending white supremacy, he’d simply call it “the nigger bill.” “
-“Johnson spent the late 1940s railing against the “hordes of barbaric yellow dwarves” in East Asia. Buying into the stereotype that blacks were afraid of snakes (who isn’t afraid of snakes?) he’d drive to gas stations with one in his trunk and try to trick black attendants into opening it.”
-“According to Caro, Robert Parker, Johnson’s sometime chauffer, described in his memoir Capitol Hill in Black and White a moment when Johnson asked Parker whether he’d prefer to be referred to by his name rather than “boy,” “nigger” or “chief.” When Parker said he would, Johnson grew angry and said, “As long as you are black, and you’re gonna be black till the day you die, no one’s gonna call you by your goddamn name. So no matter what you are called, nigger, you just let it roll off your back like water, and you’ll make it. Just pretend you’re a goddamn piece of furniture.” “
