LBJ's American Promise: The 1965 Voting Rights Address
Garth Pauley, Professor of Communication Arts and Sciences, Calvin College
Texas A&M University Press
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Nearly eight minutes into the delivery of his “We Shall Overcome” speech, Lyndon Johnson claimed that the history of the United States is by and large the history of the expansion of the right to vote “to all
of our people.” LBJ’s idealistic statement suggested that the current of history was on his side, but it also simplified the contested history of suffrage in the United States. Johnson’s sense of history is a common one
inasmuch as many Americans (and foreigners) infer that the trajectory of
voting rights in the United States has been straight, steady, and always
aimed at universal suffrage since the Revolution. Actual progress toward expanding the franchise, however, has come in fits and starts, and episodes that restricted the privilege are as common as those that extended it. By exploring this winding path of voting rights history, we can better understand and evaluate Johnson’s construction of a historical argument for the Voting Rights Act of 1965. This exploration passes through five historical periods, beginning with the nation’s founding and ending with the civil rights revolution of the 1960s. My aim throughout is to reveal the broader context that occasioned and shaped President Johnson’s speech and to provide the basis for determining whether his depiction of the past is accurate, full, and completely persuasive.

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