LBJ's Speech

What evidence does LBJ offer as proof of the widening economic gap between black and white Americans? How does he explain this gap?How are the sentiments he expressed represented in this cartoon:

In his speech at the Commencement Address at Howard University in 1965, President Johnson (LBJ) offered evidence that the economic gap between African Americans and whites was disparaging. Some of the evidence that he provided was the rising unemployment of young African American men. The unemployment rate for both whites and African Americans in 1948 was 8%. By 1964 African American unemployment was 23%. This is compared to 13% unemployment for white Americans. Also from 1952 to 1963 the median income of African American families compared to white Americans actually dropped from 57% to 53%. This translates into an overall decline in income and economic wellbeing for African Americans.

One of the ways that LBJ explains this widening gap is the unstable African American family. The theory that LBJ came up with was that the instability in the African American family was due to centuries of discrimination and economic oppression at the hands of white Americans. Also he stated that white Americans were to blame for the years of oppression and discrimination. Another way that LBJ explains this widening gap is the constant degradation of African Americans. He states that the constant belittling of this particular group of people affects self-esteem, thus preventing them from obtaining the “American Dream.” LBJ offered that this group of people starts life with a weight on their shoulders that is hard to shed. Discrimination and segregation are the weights of oppression that has essentially kept African Americans from obtaining and maintaining equality. Years of discrimination resulted in economic inequalities that led to unstable family structures. Unstable families resulted in children growing up in poor economic conditions with little expectation for improvement which led to the “cycle of poverty.”

In the first few frames of the cartoon, the weight that is on the African American boy is the weight of slavery of several hundred years. This ball and chain was removed following the Civil War with the 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments to the United States Constitution. Here we see that the boy has freedom from slavery however, without equal rights. The white boy is climbing to a better life on the back of the African American boy. By the fifth frame in the cartoon, the African American boy is standing up for his rights like what was beginning to happen in the 1950s with the Civil Rights movement. However, the white boy is doing what many white Americans were doing; he is saying that he was wrong for all of the years of oppression without true understanding. In the last frame of the cartoon there are many different things occurring. The African American in the top of the frame is asking for help from the white boy to reach the shelf of economic prosperity. The white boy is saying that if he helped it would be reverse discrimination and not consistent with the whole point of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In the bottom part of the last frame, the white boy seems to forget that he didn’t get to his level of economic prosperity by himself but rather on the backs of African Americans.

The amendments of the Constitution granted freedoms. However, the purposes of the Civil Rights Acts were to address equality because a person who has freedom but is not treated equally is not likely to feel free. Truly the argument that LBJ made was the difference between civil rights and civil liberties.