5 – The Preacher and the President

LBJ's War
L-R: President Lyndon B. Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr.

“I’ll try to be worthy of your hopes,” LBJ told Martin Luther King, just days into his presidency, and for the next two years, largely made good on that vow. Dr. King, for his part, recognized their common goal – racial and economic justice – and threw his own considerable weight behind it, until finally, the war in Vietnam made it impossible to do so any longer. A look back at the 1967 speech that broke their bond forever.

Featured commentator: Clayborne Carson, Professor of American History at Stanford University and director of the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute. 

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