How a Tragic Gap of 6 Days Turned into 99 More Years of Injustice - the Story of 2 Johnsons, a Civil War and Civil Rights

Sunday, 9 April 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered, ending the Civil War.
Saturday, 15 April 1865, Abraham Lincoln died after being shot the night before.

Thursday, 2 July 1964 - 99 years after the Civil War ended and Lincoln was killed - LBJ signed Civil Rights legislation that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.

One of the biggest tragedies of the Civil War is that Lincoln got to win the war but not the peace that followed.

The Republican Abraham Lincoln had run for reelection on a unity ticket, naming Andrew Johnson - a Democrat - as his Vice President. Johnson had been a senator from Tennessee and was the only southern senator not to give up his seat when his state seceded.

When Lincoln's assassination made Johnson vice president, Johnson made a number of concessions to the south, among other things bringing them back into the union without protection for the rights of former slaves. Furious at his betrayal of Lincoln's and the Republican party's goals, the Republican-dominated Congress impeached Johnson. He was acquitted by the Senate by one vote, narrowly escaping removal from office.

The result of Johnson giving southern states what they wanted was that many Blacks throughout the south were betrayed, their right to own property and vote denied and their rights as workers often brutally ignored. For instance, Black orphans or indigent children could be made apprentices, even against their will, to an employer until age 21 for males and 18 for females. Masters (notice this doesn't say employer) had the right to inflict moderate punishment on their apprentices and to recapture runaways. This was not what hundreds of thousands of Americans had died to create.

The sins of the Johnson who was made president by Lincoln's assassination were finally undone by the Johnson who was made president by Kennedy's assassination.

Less than one week separated Lincoln's victory and assassination.
99 years separated the Civil War and Civil Rights. 

Lincoln's assassination was one of this country's greatest tragedies and one huge reason for it is that it added a century to the inhumane treatment of our fellow Americans.

#juneteenth