"All the Way," Robert Schenkkan's play now on Broadway, dramatizes Lyndon B. Johnson's first year of the presidency that started upon John F. Kennedy's assassination on Nov. 22, 1963. Watching the show reminded me how my view of the man changed over the years.
It was a remarkable year for Johnson. With his seemingly diabolical skill, he maneuvered through Congress historically the most important civil rights act. He then went on to be elected president in one of the biggest landslides in American history.
There had been several civil rights acts before then, starting with the one of 1866, but the one Johnson signed into law on July 2, known since as the Civil Rights Act of 1964, was different.