Lyndon B. Johnson in Civil Rights Movement: "Black Power" Era
Lyndon B. Johnson (1908–1973) was the 36th president of the United States, assuming the office after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963.
Prior to serving as Kennedy's vice president, Johnson had long represented Texas in the United States Senate.
In his first address before Congress, President Lyndon B. Johnson called for the immediate passage of civil rights legislation. "No memorial or eulogy," he said, "could more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought." (Source)
Between January 1964 and April 1968, President Johnson pushed through more civil rights legislation than all presidents before and after him. In his four years in the White House, he authorized the kind of sweeping reforms only matched by the revolutionary—and nation-dividing—work of the radical Reconstruction governments during the 1860s and 1870s.