“You liberals,” Lyndon Johnson said, “You think that you fight for civil rights in the North. Well, I want to tell you how civil rights came to Johnson City, Texas!” And he launched into a story about an incident he said had occurred during his boyhood, when a road was being built through the town, and the road gang included “some Negras.”

“At that time,” Lyndon Johnson said, “niggers weren’t allowed to stay in Johnson City” after sundown, but the road was coming “nearer and nearer,” and obviously the foreman of the road gang was planning to have the gang sleep in town.

“The town bully found” the foreman in the barbershop, and said, “Get them niggers out of town,” Johnson said. And then he said, the foreman “got off the chair, took the towel off his neck, put it aside, and they wrestled up and down Main Street.” And finally, Johnson said, the foreman “got on top” and took the bully’s head in both hands and started banging it against the pavement, asking with each bang, “Can I keep my niggers? Can I keep my niggers? Can I keep my niggers”—until finally the bully agreed that he could.

“And that’s how civil rights came to Johnson City,” Lyndon Johnson concluded.

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