Today In History (March 15 1965) Lyndon Baines Johnson

[WhiteHealer]

TODAY IN HISTORY

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1965: President Lyndon Baines Johnson, addressing a televised joint session of Congress, demands legislation nullifying state and local qualifications for voting (such as literacy tests, civics tests, poll taxes, and other measures designed to restrict the franchise to the more intelligent and responsible part of the population), with the goal of massively increasing the voting power of non-Whites. He concludes his remarks with the words “we shall overcome,” a line taken from the Communist anthem of the same name being used to promote the so-called “civil rights movement.”