Celebrating the Life & Legacy of MLK

On November 25, 1963, three days after President Kennedy’s assassination, our most distinguished alumnus, President Lyndon B. Johnson called Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to thank him for “your cooperation and communication.” During this phone call, King suggested to Johnson that, “I think one of the great tributes that we can pay in memory of President Kennedy is to try to enact some of the great, progressive policies he sought to initiate.”   

For the next two years they strategized together—behind closed doors and during secretly recorded phone calls. During Johnson’s time as president, he signed into law the most significant Civil Rights legislations in over a century: The 1964 Civil Rights Act, which ended legal segregation, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which prohibited laws meant to suppress Black voters, and the 1968 Civil Rights Act, which focused on Fair Housing policy. Johnson referred to these civil rights laws as “the greatest achievement of my administration.” 

Johnson and King’s relationship was as critical to those legislative victories as Johnson’s public speeches and dealings with Congress. King’s efforts towards racial equality had been in the public eye since the 1955 Birmingham Bus Boycott. In 1963, as president of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), King coordinated another high-profile anti-segregation campaign in Birmingham, Alabama. The collective pressure of Birmingham and other civil rights efforts compelled President John F. Kennedy to submit a landmark Civil Rights Act in the summer of 1963. That August, the March on Washington and King's “I Have a Dream” speech increased public pressure to pass the Kennedy civil rights bill. Following the Civil Rights Act, King offered public support to Johnson during the 1964 presidential campaign. King’s reputation was immense, and he had just been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. King’s support of the Democrat nominee helped Johnson win the largest share of the popular vote in over a century.