Latest news with #LBJFoundation
The Hill
5 days ago
- Politics
- The Hill
A reason for hope, at a time of deep division
As we approach America's 250th birthday, our country faces complex challenges. A 2025 Marist survey found that Americans are concerned — 77 percent say the issues that divide us are a serious threat to the future of our democracy. Yet our common humanity is much deeper and more powerful than our differences. It's important to recognize that, as a nation, we are stronger because we are able to express and debate different points of view respectfully. As the executive directors of two presidential centers — one Republican, one Democratic — we have found inspiration through hundreds of leaders who have come together, across partisan lines, to learn from each other and make a difference in their communities. Ten years ago, Presidents George W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George H.W. Bush teamed up with the LBJ Foundation to create the Presidential Leadership Scholars — a program aimed at developing leaders who work with, not against, those with different perspectives and beliefs to make a positive, lasting impact in the United States and around the world. Throughout the program, scholars encounter bold examples of presidential collaboration: President Johnson uniting an unlikely coalition to pass landmark civil rights legislation. President George H.W. Bush bringing together both parties to end discrimination through the Americans with Disabilities Act. President Clinton working across the aisle to balance the budget for the first time in a generation — reducing the national debt and leaving the country with a record surplus. President George W. Bush rallying bipartisan support for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, which has saved more than 26 million lives. These examples give scholars insights into how, even amidst division and disagreement, we can work together to create something better. A decade later, the program has nearly 600 alumni. While they are of different political affiliations, work across different sectors, and are from various parts of the country, these leaders share a common trait: their desire to work across divides to make positive change. The most critical piece of this program is a charge for these leaders to develop personal leadership projects that address a challenge and make a difference in their communities. Jon Bennion, a 2018 alum of the scholars program, built a program that brings Republicans and Democrats from the Montana state Legislature together for a literal 'sausage-making' event — creating an opportunity to build trust and relationships that can help elected leaders reach consensus on divisive issues. Steve Lopez, a 2023 Scholar, discovered the shortage of mechanics was threatening Dallas Fire-Rescue's ability to quickly respond to emergency situations. Inspired by a program started by a fellow Scholar, Lopez led an overhaul of the mechanic recruitment and training process and is building a school-to-work pipeline to bring students into the field. From last year's class of scholars, Keely Cat-Wells developed a talent acquisition and learning platform for disabled professionals. Cat-Wells became disabled at age 17, and through her new platform, she has already supported more than 3,000 disabled people and connected employers with a highly qualified and often-overlooked talent pool. President Johnson once said, 'There are no problems we cannot solve together, and very few that we can solve by ourselves.' At a time of great division, the Presidential Leadership Scholars program gives us hope and inspiration that our common humanity can prevail, and the next generation can come together to solve problems in ways that will bring us together, not tear us apart. David J. Kramer is executive director of the George W. Bush Institute and Stephanie S. Streett is executive director of the Clinton Foundation.
Axios
22-03-2025
- Politics
- Axios
LBJ tied Latinos, civil rights in "Selma" speech 60 years ago
In what some historians consider one of the best political speeches of the 20th century, former President Lyndon B. Johnson, 60 years ago this month, evoked memories of his former Mexican American students in Texas while urging Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act. The big picture: As the nation marks the 60th anniversary of the historic march from Selma to Montgomery, many have forgotten the LBJ speech that made Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. cry and connected Latinos to the nation's civil rights struggle. The speech led to the passage of the landmark law. The American Promise speech, delivered on March 15, 1965, drew attention when the Texas-born Johnson told the nation that bigotry still stained the country, "and we shall overcome." State of play: The speech stands in stark contrast to the State of the Union that President Trump gave earlier this month when he said "wokeness is trouble" and called some Latino immigrants "savages." LBJ told the nation to wake up to racism and tried to humanize his former Mexican American students, who endured racism and segregation, Mark K. Updegrove, the LBJ Foundation's president and CEO, tells Axios. "Imagine Donald Trump saying that Black Lives Matter after the murder of George Floyd, right? That's exactly what Lyndon Johnson does when he says, 'We shall overcome.' Wow." Context: On March 7, 1965, future U.S. Rep. John Lewis and 600 other civil rights demonstrators crossed the bridge from Selma for a planned march to Montgomery to protest voting discrimination against Black Americans. State troopers violently attacked the unarmed demonstrators with batons and tear gas — images that shocked the nation and prompted LBJ to give his emergency address to Congress. Yes, but: LBJ then shocked the nation by recalling a transformative experience he had as a teacher in Cotulla, Texas, at a segregated Mexican American school. "Few of them could speak English, and I couldn't speak much Spanish," Johnson said. The students were poor, hungry and aware that people hated them, but they didn't know why, Johnson said, and he often wished there was more he could do for them. "Somehow, you never forget what poverty and hatred can do when you see its scars on the hopeful face of a young child," Johnson said. LBJ said he never thought he'd have the opportunity to help the children of those students, and others like them. "But now I do have that chance. And I'll let you in on a secret: I mean to use it." Five months later, Johnson got Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act. Flashback: Mike Herrera, son of the late Houston civil rights attorney John J. Herrera, said in a 2013 interview that his father wept when Johnson brought up Cotulla. LBJ's Cotulla experience and his time teaching at Sam Houston High School in Houston were widely known among Mexican Americans in Houston, but not among the wider public, Mike Herrera said. "Dad felt that, finally, a president was saying we mattered." Mike Herrera died in 2015. Between the lines: Johnson often repeated his teaching experience in private and never forgot those children, Updegrove said.
