There was big stuff going on in American politics today, including getting a new VP. Sometime soon I’ll write about Vance’s prospects for influence in the Trump administration. Here’s an earlier take on the challenges and opportunities that will face VP Vance. You can also read my analyses of the prospects of other recent VPs here and here.
But today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, when we honor a great American who led the struggle to end segregation and obtain the equal rights due to African-Americans. In doing this great deed, while rejecting violence and embracing peace, King renewed the promise of America by working to rectify one of its great failings.
In his efforts King worked with several vice presidents and shaped the careers of others. Here is a brief overview of those VPs, their work with King and their efforts on behalf of civil rights.
The Veeps who championed Civil Rights
Throughout their political careers Hubert Humphrey, Lyndon Johnson, and Nelson Rockefeller worked with King to end segregation and establish equality.
Nelson Rockefeller
Nelson Rockefeller’s grandfather was the oil baron John D. Rockefeller. The first true billionaire, John D. Rockefeller endowed Spelman and Morehouse Colleges—historic HBCUs. Throughout his career in public service and as a philanthropist, Nelson Rockefeller supported civil rights and anti-poverty programs. In his four terms as a liberal Republican governor of New York (1958-1973), Rockefeller was a consistent ally of MLK, rebuilding bombed churches in the South, bailing King’s allies out of prison, besides speaking out on Civil Rights and pushing through policies in New York State. In 1960, when Dr. King was arrested at a sit-in in Atlanta, Rockefeller spoke out at a Brooklyn church:
We’ve got to make love a reality in our own country. When the great spiritual leaders, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King finds himself in jail today because he had the courage to love, we have a long way to go in American.
King, in turn, said of Rockefeller, “If we had one or two governors in the Deep South like Nelson Rockefeller, many of our problems could be readily solved.”
Rockefeller ascended to the vice presidency five years after King’s assassination. Although he sought to use the vice presidency to enact domestic policy initiatives, the more conservative and budget-conscious President Ford blocked these efforts.
Hubert Humphrey
One of the most decent men to rise in American politics, Hubert Humphrey was known as “the happy warrior” and devoted much of his political career to advancing civil rights. He first came to national attention at the 1948 Democratic Convention when Humphrey, then Mayor of Minneapolis running for Senate, gave an impassioned address calling on the party to commit to opposing racial segregation, and supporting federal legislation against lynching, legalized school segregation in the South, and workplace discrimination based on race. Humphrey succeeded both in getting the civil rights plank adopted by the party and becoming the Senator from Minnesota. Over the next fifteen years, he was a leading voice for civil rights and other liberal causes in Congress including arms control and international humanitarian aid abroad, and food stamps and Medicare at home. In 1964 Humphrey was the Democratic Whip and played a critical role in the development and passage of the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Act.
Little surprise that this champion of civil rights had a long and warm relationship with Dr. King.
In 1964, Humphrey was elected vice president. President Johnson had been a friend and mentor to Humphrey as a Senator. But in the White House, Johnson treated Humphrey badly. Not merely ignoring him, as the Kennedy clan had done to LBJ during his time as VP, but out and out humiliating Humphrey. One of Humphrey’s few substantial assignments was point man on civil rights, which Johnson then publicly stripped from his VP.
When Johnson chose not to run for re-election in 1968, Humphrey became the Democratic nominee and lost in a close race to Richard Nixon. In 1970, Humphrey returned to the Senate and served there until he died in 1978.
Lyndon Baines Johnson
Lyndon Baines Johnson, at least on the surface, was a surprising advocate for civil rights. The giant Texan was on good terms with the clique of southern Democratic Senators who ruled the upper chamber for decades. But Johnson had grown-up impoverished and as a school-teacher devoted himself to educating Mexican-American children who had been ignored by the government and denied a quality education. There are innumerable cases of LBJ speaking on many subjects, including race, that would no longer be acceptable today. But these infractions are nothing compared to the mammoth deeds he did on behalf of ending segregation and battling poverty in the United States.
Johnson was elected to the Senate in 1948 and quickly rose to become to become Democratic Whip, minority leader, and then served as Senate Majority Leader from 1955 to 1961. He was renowned as master of the Senate, both knowledgeable parliamentary tactics and strategy—and how to ingratiate and bully to get what he needed. He played a key role in the 1957 and 1960 Civil Rights Acts. They had limited impact and were weakened by the Southern Democrats, but they were the first civil rights bill passed since Reconstruction.
LBJ sought the presidency in 1960, but JFK became the nominee and Johnson joined the ticket as vice president. Johnson did not fit with the highly educated and glib crowd of north easterners of the Kennedy clique. Among other things, Johnson was frustrated that his legislative acumen was ignored by the Kennedy White House, particularly passing Kennedy’s civil rights bill. As VP, Johnson was given the Committee on Equal Opportunity, which had a mandate to counter racial discrimination by government contractors. It was thin gruel of a man of Johnson’s capacity. Johnson did deliver some stirring speeches on civil rights as vice president. He also, briefly counseled Kennedy on civil rights. In spring 1963, protests organized by King and brutally countered by Birmingham police forced Kennedy to give his full attention to civil rights. Johnson offered counsel both on legislative tactics, but also urged the president to deliver a statement of moral commitment to the cause. On June 11, 1963 Kennedy delivered his address and proposed legislation to address the continuing racial inequality in the United States. For a brief time, Johnson joined Kennedy in meetings with Congressional and civil rights leaders.
When Johnson became president, after Kennedy’s assassination in November 1963, he urged Congress to pass this legislation as the best possible way to honor JFK. This became the Civil Rights Act of 1964. After his landslide victory in 1964, Johnson pushed for and succeeded in passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
During this period, Dr. King and President Johnson were close allies, speaking frequently as Johnson pursued his expansive agenda. King, a pacifist, believed the Vietnam War to be reprehensible and broke with Johnson, and avoided speaking to him. In March 1968 King publicly stated that he could not support Johnson in the upcoming election. A few days later Johnson announced that he would not seek reelection. Was King’s repudiation a factor in Johnson’s decision? Johnson truly believed in his vision of a Great Society, was this loss of a critical and prestigious ally a final blow?
A Veep Surprise
Richard Nixon
Rockefeller, Humphrey, and Johnson were well-known progressive voices—it is little surprise that they worked closely with Dr. King. Nixon’s relationship with King seems less likely, but was significant in its own right. Nixon was generally seen as a hard-right anti-Communist conservative. But within the Eisenhower administration, he was a voice for civil rights. Nixon was asked to chair the President’s Committee on Government Contracts, which tried to counter discrimination in government contracting. Eisenhower was ambivalent about civil rights. Nixon was more interested. He genuinely sympathized with African-American aspirations for a better life. He also wanted African-American votes and recognized the racism in the U.S. was seen worldwide and damaged U.S. standing in the world.
In March 1957 Nixon travelled to Ghana to take part in their independence celebrations. There he met Dr. King who was also attending. They hit it off. King was pleasantly surprise to find Nixon to not be a racist and to have a real talent for diplomacy and winning people over. Nixon invited King to meet with him in Washington and King, who really wanted to meet with Eisenhower, knew this was a step in the right direction.

They met in June 1957 for almost three hours. Meeting with the vice president was an important source of legitimacy for King, and he did get his meeting with Eisenhower later. King urged Nixon and the GOP to do more for African-Americans. King stated that he was committed to nonviolence, but he could not ensure that African-Americans would not turn to violence if progress were not made. He told Nixon, “Once an oppressed people rise—they cannot be stopped.”
King came away impressed with Nixon, but perhaps saw his dark shadow, stating:
He has one of the most magnetic personalities that I have ever confronted…. When you are close to Nixon he almost disarms you with his apparent sincerity…. And so I would conclude be saying that if Richard Nixon is not sincere, he is the most dangerous man in America.
Nixon helped spearhead the 1957 Civil Rights Act on behalf of the administration and the two men stayed in touch. Nixon hoped to win a greater number of African-American votes in the 1960 election. King was arrested in Georgia in 1960 and sentenced to four months of hard labor. His wife, Coretta Scott King was (quite reasonably concerned) her husband would be killed. The King family and their friends frantically reached out to both campaigns for support. Nixon was unresponsive, while Kennedy called her and offered his support. Bobby Kennedy reached out to the governor of Georgia and arranged King’s release.
That’s where the friendship ended.
When Nixon ran again for president in 1968, we deployed his notorious “Southern strategy,” exploiting the split in the Democratic party caused by the Civil Right Movement. The south began its long shift from being a Democratic stronghold to becoming a Republican one. Nixon, however, couched his rhetoric in the terms “states’ rights” and “law and order” so that he appeared the moderate between the liberal Humphrey and the arch-segregationist Alabama Governor George Wallace who ran for president as an independent.
The Nixon Foundation offers a hagiographic take on civil rights during the Nixon presidency. There were some useful initiatives, but overall the civil rights movement was stymied and Johnson’s Great Society was partially dismantled.
Humphrey, Mondale, Rockefeller, and Johnson all did great works for civil rights and equality. After Lincoln, probably no one did more for African-Americans than Johnson. But none of these men did their most significant work on civil rights as vice president. That honor must go to Nixon. The civil rights movement was still far from its zenith in the 50s. The 1957 Civil Rights Act was limited compared to what came later, but it was important groundwork. Nixon as VP helped legitimate King as a leading figure in the movement. Later Nixon was far from a champion of civil rights, but as VP he played a small, but not inconsequential role in advancing the cause.
Veeps and King’s Assassination
Walter Mondale
Following in the footsteps of his mentor, Hubert Humphrey, Mondale was also a crusader for civil rights. He certainly met and interacted with MLK. But giants like King have an impact that extends beyond their years. As a relatively junior Senator, Mondale volunteered to take on the fair housing issue. It seemed like a foolhardy task. But, after King was assassinated in April 1968 and the riots that followed, there was a belief that something needed to be done. Mondale seized the moment and shepherded the Fair Housing Act through the Senate and it was signed by LBJ.
Nearly a decade later, Mondale served on the Church Committee, which investigated abuses by the intelligence community. Among these were the FBI’s spying on Dr. King. Mondale went on as vice president to lead the Carter administration’s intelligence reform efforts including establishing a CIA charter and the FISA Court.
Spiro Agnew
I have no idea if Agnew ever met Martin Luther King. Agnew ran for office in Maryland as a GOP moderate when the Democrats were split between reformers and old-line segregationists. Maryland then was very much a southern state. As Baltimore County Executive and then Governor, Agnew was a surprising GOP success and a moderate reformer. Agnew positioned himself as a Rockefeller Republican.
After King was assassinated, Baltimore was one of many cities that experienced terrible riots. Stokely Carmichael, a Black Power activist, reportedly told a crowd, “The only way to deal with a white man is across the barrel of a gun.”
Angry, Agnew called a meeting with about a hundred of Baltimore’s moderate African-American leaders and, surrounded by state troopers, castigated them for failing to stand up to the radicals. The African-American leaders stormed out of the meeting. The confrontation made national news. Nixon heard about it and ultimately chose Agnew as his running mate. Agnew dove into the role of political hatchet man with relish, delivering
As he got to know Agnew, Nixon took a dislike to him. Agnew in turn offered little to the experienced Nixon and bungled most of the tasks he was assigned.
When the Supreme Court ordered school desegregation, Agnew was tasked with leading the task force. Agnew however, was frankly lazy, so Secretary of Labor George Schultz led the effort and had some modest success.
The other VPs discussed here were great men in their own right. Agnew was a two-bit local politician who was in the right place at the right time. King’s assassination played a critical role in propelling this small man to a giant stage.
Looking Ahead
This Martin Luther King Day coincides with the inauguration of Donald Trump, who appears to hold less than progressive views on race and diversity. King said, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.”
Today, for many Americans it does not feel that way—and yet…
Trump has appointed many people of color to positions in his administration. He seriously considered an African-American Senator who was a respected figure as a possible VP. While much of Trump’s rhetoric is retrograde and reactionary—he has appealed directly to minority voters. He has insisted he has been and will be a great president for African-Americans. The old-line segregationists would never make such an appeal (thanks to voter suppression they didn’t need to.)
I’m worried about what comes next and I have no illusions about the new administration. Nonetheless, I try to keep my view on the long arc, and in that I find a little hope.