Lyndon B. Johnson fails to mention the 1966 White House Conference
on Civil Rights
in his autobiography and the conference has been equally ignored by
historians. Yet this conference,
promised in Johnson's famous Howard University speech in 1965, was
to be the high point of
Johnson's already considerable efforts on civil rights. Underlying
the confusion and rancour that
characterized the conference held in June 1966 (but more especially
the ‘planning conference’, held in
November 1965) was a struggle to maintain the integrative impetus of
the ‘American Creed’ against
the realization that integration was unlikely to take place except in
the very long term. The conference
transcripts, recorded verbatim, provide a useful reminder of the very
different mood of the mid-1960s,
suggesting that the extent of panic after the Watts riot went beyond racial
issues into fears for the
survival of political and governmental institutions. Especially evident
is the fragmentation of
Johnson's liberal civil rights coalition before dissent on the Vietnam
War ensured his downfall.