Saturday’s rally at the Texas Capitol building was the culmination of a 27-mile march, modeled after the 1965 civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama that helped get the Voting Rights Act passed that year – under Texan President Lyndon Baines Johnson.
With Texas poised to pass a horrific voter suppression bill, Luci Baines Johnson, now 74, told MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart why she felt “I just have to do my part” to pressure Congress to protect voting rights with the For The People Act.
JOHNSON: Today, I'm 74 years old. Can you imagine what it would be like for me to meet my father one day in heaven and say I didn't do my part? This is the only place i can be, because generations of Johnsons are forever on the side of justice. And we shall not sleep until all of us shall overcome bigotry's strangle on our nation.
Capehart asked what her father would say about his daughter marching to protect the vote, 56 years after he signed the Voting Rights Bill.
JOHNSON: Well, I will not put words in Lyndon Johnson’s mouth in his death, as I can assure you I dared not in his lifetime, but I’d like to believe that he would feel that I am simply doing the right thing. That's what he always tried to do for all of our people, because, as he so eloquently said, when there is bigotry towards some, there is loss for all. And I have 16 beautiful grandchildren and five wonderful children, and I am very concerned about the state of affairs that we're handing over to them. And so I just have to do my part.
President Biden and Congress, are you listening?
