LBJ's 1965 emotional voting rights speech to Congress

Former President Lyndon B. Johnson
President Lyndon B. Johnson addressed members of Congress about voting rights on March 15, 1965.
Cecil Stoughton | LBJ Library 1965

Fifty years ago this weekend President Lyndon B. Johnson gave a special address to Congress that was televised to the nation.

The March 15, 1965, speech came one week after the bloody events in Selma, Ala. Martin Luther King Jr. watched the address on television in Selma. It is reported that he wept when hearing Johnson's words.

Part two features an excerpt of Johnson's December 1972 speech to the Civil Rights Symposium at the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin. It was his last public speech. He died a few weeks later.

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