Jessica Jin's Reviews > Master of the Senate

Still don't understand Senate procedure more than I did when I started this, but I do think I understand LBJ more. Phew, what a thorough book on a huge personality. A horrible husband, a horrible boss, an ass-kissing and calculating political climber, an absolute workhorse, got shit done like no other, a magnetic and fearsome powerhouse, and way more inconsistent on Civil Rights than I'd originally assumed, in that it wasn't always a strongly held conviction for him, but he did come around to genuinely passionately believing in it when the political circumstances (and necessities) led him to its doorstep.

*CONTENT WARNING*: fucked up racist language:
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Another big takeaway was that white segregationists, and even often the political leaders elected to represent them in the south would publicly say shit that was 100X more vile than any grade school curriculum would ever have you know. I couldn't believe my ears at times. I feel like a lot other accounts of this era's racial inequities are often reduced to policies and actions but man, the things people would actually write and say give the evil a whole new dimension.
Senator Eastland of Mississippi, for example:
"In every stage of the bus boycott we have been oppressed and degraded because of black, slimy, juicy, unbearably stinking n****rs … African flesh-eaters. When in the course of human events it becomes necessary to abolish the Negro race, proper methods should be used. Among these are guns, bows and arrows, slingshots and knives… All whites are created equal with certain rights, among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of dead n****rs."

WTAF. Should also note that Eastland was one of the guys Joe Biden referenced when he talked about fond days back in the 70s when folks used to be "civil" with each other across the aisle. Eastland called Biden "son" and mentored him in his early days in DC. This shit wasn't very long ago, y'all. And it also didn't ever really go away.