2007.07.15: July 15, 2007: Headlines: Figures: Staff: Journalism: Presidents - Johnson: Austin American-Statesman: Bill Moyers' eulogy for Lady Bird Johnson: She seemed to grow calmer as the world around her became more furious
Peace Corps Online:
Directory:
USA:
Special Report: Peace Corps Deputy Director Bill Moyers:
February 9, 2005: Index: PCOL Exclusive: Staffer Bill Moyers :
2007.07.15: July 15, 2007: Headlines: Figures: Staff: Journalism: Presidents - Johnson: Mercury News: Moyers eulogizes Lady Bird Johnson :
2007.07.15: July 15, 2007: Headlines: Figures: Staff: Journalism: Presidents - Johnson: Austin American-Statesman: Bill Moyers' eulogy for Lady Bird Johnson: She seemed to grow calmer as the world around her became more furious
Bill Moyers' eulogy for Lady Bird Johnson: She seemed to grow calmer as the world around her became more furious
She knew the ways of the world, and how they could be made to work for you, even when you didn't fully understand what was going on. She told me once, years later, that she didn't even understand everything about the man she married nor did she want to, she said, as long as he needed her. Oh, he needed her, alright. You know the famous incident. Once, trying to locate her in a crowded room, he growled aloud: "Where's Lady Bird?" And she replied: "Right behind you, darling, where I've always been." "Whoever loves, believes the impossible," Elizabeth Browning wrote. Lady Bird truly loved this man she often found impossible. "I'm no more bewildered by Lyndon than he is bewildered by himself," she once told me. Like everyone he loved, she often found herself in the path of his Vesuvian eruptions. During the campaign of 1960 I slept in the bed in their basement when we returned from the road for sessions of the Senate. She knew I was lonesome for Judith and our six-month-old son who were back in Texas. She would often come down the two flights of stairs to ask if I was doing alright. One night the Senator and I got home even later than usual. And he brought with him an unresolved dispute from the Senate cloakroom. At midnight I could still hear him upstairs, carrying on as if he were about to purge the Democratic caucus. Pretty soon I heard her footsteps on the stairs and I called out: "Mrs. Johnson, you don't need to check up on me. I'm alright." And she called back, "Well, I was coming down to tell you I'm alright, too." She seemed to grow calmer as the world around her became more furious. Journalist Bill Moyers was the Deputy Director of the Peace Corps under founding Director Sargent Shriver.
Bill Moyers' eulogy for Lady Bird Johnson: She seemed to grow calmer as the world around her became more furious
Bill Moyers' eulogy for Lady Bird Johnson
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Caption: Lady Bird Johnson greets Bill Moyers after the former White House press secretary addressed a gathering of family and friends attending the 31st annual wreath laying and birthday commemoration in September, 2004 at the LBJ Ranch honoring President Lyndon B. Johnson. Standard-Radio Post Photo by Terry Collier
Bill Moyers, the PBS journalist who served as special assistant to President Lyndon Johnson from 1963 to 1967, delivered a eulogy at Lady Bird Johnson's funeral service Saturday. He read from this text:
It is unthinkable to me that Lady Bird is gone.
She was so much a part of the landscape, so much a part of our lives and our times, so much a part of our country for so long that I began to imagine her with us always. Now, although the fields of purple, orange, and blue will long evoke her gifts to us, that vibrant presence has departed, and we are left to mourn our loss of her even as we celebrate her life.
Some people arriving earlier today were asked, "Are you sitting with the family?" I looked around at this throng and said to myself, "Everyone here is sitting with the family. That's how she would treat us." All of us.
When I arrived in Washington in 1954, to work in the LBJ mailroom between my sophomore and junior years, I didn't know a single person in town not even the Johnsons, whom I only met that first week. She soon recognized the weekends were especially lonesome for me, and she called one day to ask me over for Sunday brunch.
I had never even heard of Sunday brunch, must less been to one; for all I knew, it was an Episcopalian sacrament. When I arrived at 30th Place the family was there the little girls, Lady Bird and himself. But so were Richard Russell and Sam Rayburn and J. Edgar Hoover didn't look like Episcopal priests to me. They were sitting around the smallish room reading the newspaper except for LBJ, who was on the phone. If this is their idea of a sacrament, I thought, I'll just stay a Baptist. But Mrs. Johnson knew something about the bachelors she had invited there, including the kid fresh up from her native East Texas. On a Sunday morning they needed a family, and she had offered us communion at her table. In a way, it was a sacrament.
It was also very good politics. She told me something that summer that would make a difference in my life. She was shy, and in the presence of powerful men, she usually kept her counsel. Sensing that I was shy, too, and aware I had no experience to enforce any opinions, she said: Don't worry. If you are unsure of what to say, just ask questions, and I promise you that when they leave, they will think you were the smartest one on the room, just for listening to them. Word will get around, she said.
She knew the ways of the world, and how they could be made to work for you, even when you didn't fully understand what was going on. She told me once, years later, that she didn't even understand everything about the man she married nor did she want to, she said, as long as he needed her.
Oh, he needed her, alright. You know the famous incident. Once, trying to locate her in a crowded room, he growled aloud: "Where's Lady Bird?" And she replied: "Right behind you, darling, where I've always been."
"Whoever loves, believes the impossible," Elizabeth Browning wrote. Lady Bird truly loved this man she often found impossible. "I'm no more bewildered by Lyndon than he is bewildered by himself," she once told me.
Like everyone he loved, she often found herself in the path of his Vesuvian eruptions. During the campaign of 1960 I slept in the bed in their basement when we returned from the road for sessions of the Senate. She knew I was lonesome for Judith and our six-month-old son who were back in Texas. She would often come down the two flights of stairs to ask if I was doing alright. One night the Senator and I got home even later than usual. And he brought with him an unresolved dispute from the Senate cloakroom. At midnight I could still hear him upstairs, carrying on as if he were about to purge the Democratic caucus. Pretty soon I heard her footsteps on the stairs and I called out: "Mrs. Johnson, you don't need to check up on me. I'm alright." And she called back, "Well, I was coming down to tell you I'm alright, too."
She seemed to grow calmer as the world around her became more furious.
Thunderstorms struck in her life so often, you had to wonder why the Gods on Olympus kept testing her. She lost her mother in an accident when she was five. She was two cars behind JFK in Dallas. She was in the White House when Martin Luther King was shot and Washington burned. She grieved for the family of Robert Kennedy, and for the lives lost in Vietnam.
Early in the White House, a well-meaning editor up from Texas said, "You poor thing, having to follow Jackie Kennedy." Mrs. Johnson's mouth dropped open, in amazed disbelief. And she said, "Oh, no, don't pity for me. Weep for Mrs. Kennedy. She lost her husband. I still have my Lyndon."
She aimed for the consolation and comfort of others. It was not only her talent at negotiating the civil war waged in his nature. It was not just the way she remained unconscripted by the factions into which family, friends, and advisers inevitably divide around a powerful figure. She kept open all the roads to reconciliation.
Like her beloved flowers in the field, she was a woman of many hues. A strong manager, a canny investor, a shrewd judge of people, friend and foe and she never confused the two. Deliberate in coming to judgment, she was sure in conclusion.
But let me speak especially of the one quality that most captured my admiration and affection, her courage.
It is the fall of 1960. We're in Dallas, where neither Kennedy nor Johnson are local heroes. We start across the street from the Adolphus to the Baker Hotel. The reactionary congressman from Dallas has organized a demonstration of women pretty women, in costumes of red, white, and blue, waving little American flags above their cowboy hats. At first I take them to be cheerleaders having a good time. But suddenly they are an angry mob, snarling, salivating, spitting.
A roar a primal terrifying roar swells around us my first experience with collective hate roused to a fever pitch. I'm right behind the Johnsons. She's taken his arm and as she turns left and right, nodding to the mob, I can see she is smiling. And I see in the eyes of some of those women a confusion what I take to be the realization that this is them at their most uncivil, confronting a woman who is the triumph of civility. So help me, her very demeanor creates a small zone of grace in the midst of that tumultuous throng. And they move back a little, and again a little, Mrs. Johnson continuing to nod and smile, until we're inside the Baker and upstairs in the suite.
Now LBJ is smiling he knows that Texas was up for grabs until this moment, and the backlash will decide it for us. But Mrs. Johnson has pulled back the curtains and is looking down that street as the mob disperses. She has seen a dark and disturbing omen. Still holding the curtain back, as if she were peering into the future, she says, "Things will never be the same again."
*********
Now it is 1964. The disinherited descendents of slavery, still denied their rights as citizens after a century of segregation, have resolved to claim for themselves the American promise of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. President Johnson has thrown the full power of his office to their side, and he has just signed the Civil Rights Acts of 1964 the greatest single sword of justice raised for equality since the Emancipation Proclamation. A few weeks later, both Johnsons plunge into his campaign for election in his own right. He has more or less given up on the South, after that legislation, but she will not. These were her people, here were her roots. And she is not ready to sever them. So she sets out on a whistlestop journey of nearly seventeen hundred miles through the heart of her past. She is on her own now campaigning independently across the Mason-Dixon line down the buckle of the Bible Belt all the way down to New Orleans. I cannot all these years later do justice to what she faced: The boos, the jeers, the hecklers, the crude signs and cruder gestures, the insults and the threats. This is the land still ruled by Jim Crow and John Birch, who controls the law with the cross and club to enforce it. 1964, and bathroom signs still read: "White Ladies" and Colored Women."
In Richmond, she is greeted with signs that read: "Fly away, Lady Bird." In Charleston, "Blackbird Go Home." Children planted in front rows hold up signs: "Johnson is a Nigger Lover." In Savannah they curse her daughter. The air has become so menacing we run a separate engine fifteen minutes ahead of her in case of a bomb; she later said, "People were concerned for me, but the engineer in the train ahead of us was in far greater danger." Rumors spread of snipers, and in the Panhandle of Florida the threats are so ominous the FBI orders a yard-by-yard sweep of a seven-mile bridge that her train would cross.
She never flinches. Up to forty times a day from the platform of the caboose she will speak, sometimes raising a single white-gloved hand to punctuate her words always the lady. When the insults grew so raucous in South Carolina, she tells the crowd the ugly words were coming "not from the good people of South Carolina but from the state of confusion." In Columbia she answers hecklers with what one observer called "a maternal bark." And she says, "This is a country of many viewpoints. I respect your right to express your own. Now is my turn to express mine."
An advance man called me back at the White House from the pay phone at a local train depot. He was choking back the tears. "As long as I live," he said, in a voice breaking with emotion, "I will thank God I was here today, so that I can tell my children the difference courage makes."
Yes, she planted flowers, and wanted and worked for highways and parks and vistas that opened us to the Technicolor splendors of our world. Walk this weekend among the paths and trails and flowers and see the beauty she loved. But as you do, remember she also loved democracy, and saw a beauty in it rough though the ground may be, hard and stony, as tangled and as threatened with blight as nature itself. And remember that this shy little girl from Karnack, Texas with eyes as wistful as cypress and manners as soft as the whispering pine grew up to show us how to cultivate the beauty in democracy: The voice raised against the mob . . . the courage to overcome fear with convictions as true as steel. Claudia Alta Taylor Lady Bird Johnson served the beauty in nature and the beauty in us and right down to the end of her long and bountiful life, she inspired us to serve them, too.
Links to Related Topics (Tags):
Headlines: July, 2007; Staff Member Bill Moyers; Figures; Staff; Journalism; Peace Corps Library; Peace Corps Countries of Service; Peace Corps History; Bulletin Board; Recent Peace Corps News
When this story was posted in July 2007, this was on the front page of PCOL:
Peace Corps Online The Independent News Forum serving Returned Peace Corps Volunteers
| Dodd issues call for National Service Standing on the steps of the Nashua City Hall where JFK kicked off his campaign in 1960, Presidential Candidate Chris Dodd issued a call for National Service. "Like thousands of others, I heard President Kennedy's words and a short time later joined the Peace Corps." Dodd said his goal is to see 40 million people volunteering in some form or another by 2020. "We have an appetite for service. We like to be asked to roll up our sleeves and make a contribution," he said. "We haven't been asked in a long time." |
| Public diplomacy rests on sound public policy When President Kennedy spoke of "a long twilight struggle," and challenged the country to "ask not," he signaled that the Cold War was the challenge and framework defining US foreign policy. The current challenge is not a struggle against a totalitarian foe. It is not a battle against an enemy called "Islamofascism." From these false assumptions flow false choices, including the false choice between law enforcement and war. Instead, law enforcement and military force both must be essential instruments, along with diplomacy, including public diplomacy. But public diplomacy rests on policy, and to begin with, the policy must be sound. Read more. |
| Ambassador revokes clearance for PC Director A post made on PCOL from volunteers in Tanzania alleges that Ambassador Retzer has acted improperly in revoking the country clearance of Country Director Christine Djondo. A statement from Peace Corps' Press Office says that the Peace Corps strongly disagrees with the ambassadors decision. On June 8 the White House announced that Retzer is being replaced as Ambassador. Latest: Senator Dodd has placed a hold on Mark Green's nomination to be Ambassador to Tanzania. |
| Peace Corps Funnies A PCV writing home? Our editor hard at work? Take a look at our Peace Corps Funnies and Peace Corps Cartoons and see why Peace Corps Volunteers say that sometimes a touch of levity can be one of the best ways of dealing with frustrations in the field. Read what RPCVs say about the lighter side of life in the Peace Corps and see why irreverent observations can often contain more than a grain of truth. We'll supply the photos. You supply the captions. |
| PCOL serves half million PCOL's readership for April exceeded 525,000 visitors - a 50% increase over last year. This year also saw the advent of a new web site: Peace Corps News that together with the Peace Corps Library and History of the Peace Corps serve 17,000 RPCVs, Staff, and Friends of the Peace Corps every day. Thanks for making PCOL your source of news for the Peace Corps community. Read more. |
| Suspect confesses in murder of PCV Search parties in the Philippines discovered the body of Peace Corps Volunteer Julia Campbell near Barangay Batad, Banaue town on April 17. Director Tschetter expressed his sorrow at learning the news. Julia was a proud member of the Peace Corps family, and she contributed greatly to the lives of Filipino citizens in Donsol, Sorsogon, where she served, he said. Latest: Suspect Juan Duntugan admits to killing Campbell. Leave your thoughts and condolences . |
| Warren Wiggins: Architect of the Peace Corps Warren Wiggins, who died at 84 on April 13, became one of the architects of the Peace Corps in 1961 when his paper, "A Towering Task," landed in the lap of Sargent Shriver, just as Shriver was trying to figure out how to turn the Peace Corps into a working federal department. Shriver was electrified by the treatise, which urged the agency to act boldly. Read Mr. Wiggins' obituary and biography, take an opportunity to read the original document that shaped the Peace Corps' mission, and read John Coyne's special issue commemorating "A Towering Task." |
| Chris Dodd's Vision for the Peace Corps Senator Chris Dodd (RPCV Dominican Republic) spoke at the ceremony for this year's Shriver Award and elaborated on issues he raised at Ron Tschetter's hearings. Dodd plans to introduce legislation that may include: setting aside a portion of Peace Corps' budget as seed money for demonstration projects and third goal activities (after adjusting the annual budget upward to accommodate the added expense), more volunteer input into Peace Corps operations, removing medical, healthcare and tax impediments that discourage older volunteers, providing more transparency in the medical screening and appeals process, a more comprehensive health safety net for recently-returned volunteers, and authorizing volunteers to accept, under certain circumstances, private donations to support their development projects. He plans to circulate draft legislation for review to members of the Peace Corps community and welcomes RPCV comments. |
| He served with honor One year ago, Staff Sgt. Robert J. Paul (RPCV Kenya) carried on an ongoing dialog on this website on the military and the peace corps and his role as a member of a Civil Affairs Team in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have just received a report that Sargeant Paul has been killed by a car bomb in Kabul. Words cannot express our feeling of loss for this tremendous injury to the entire RPCV community. Most of us didn't know him personally but we knew him from his words. Our thoughts go out to his family and friends. He was one of ours and he served with honor. |
Read the stories and leave your comments.
Some postings on Peace Corps Online are provided to the individual members of this group without permission of the copyright owner for the non-profit purposes of criticism, comment, education, scholarship, and research under the "Fair Use" provisions of U.S. Government copyright laws and they may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner. Peace Corps Online does not vouch for the accuracy of the content of the postings, which is the sole responsibility of the copyright holder.
Story Source: Austin American-Statesman
This story has been posted in the following forums: : Headlines; Figures; Staff; Journalism; Presidents - Johnson
PCOL38308
84