(p. 587)
executive orders alone to guarantee the civil rights of all Americans.
Such a profound social change in American society required the
concerted action of all three branches of government, and by 1963 the
drive for strong civil rights legislation had made such legislation
the paramount domestic political issue. Lyndon Johnson fully
understood its importance. "We have talked long enough in this country
about equal rights," he told his old colleagues in Congress, "we have
talked for one hundred years or more. It is time now to write the next
chapter, and to write it in the books of law."[23-19]

[Footnote 23-18: _Benjamin Muse, The American Negro
Revolution: From Nonviolence to Black Power,
1963-1967_ (Bloomington: University of Indiana
Press, 1968). The following survey is based on Muse
and on Robert D. Marcus and David Burner, eds.,
_America Since 1945_ (New York: St. Martin's,
1972), especially the chapter by James Sundquist,
"Building the Great Society: The Case of Equal
Rights, From Politics and Policy," and that by
Daniel Walker, "Violence in Chicago, 1968: The
Walker Report"; _Report of the National Advisory
Commission on Civil Disorders_; Otis L. Graham,
Jr., ed., _Perspectives on 20th Century America,
Readings and Commentary_ (New York: Dodd, Mead,
1973); Zinn, _Postwar America, 1945-1971_; Roger
Beaumont, "The Embryonic Revolution: Perspectives
on the 1967 Riots," in Robin Higham, ed., _Bayonets
in the Street: The Use of Troops in Civil
Disturbances_ (Lawrence: University Press of
Kansas, 1969); Woodward's _Strange Career of Jim
Crow_.]

[Footnote 23-19: Lyndon B. Johnson, "Address Before a
Joint Session of the Congress," 27 Nov 63, _Public
Papers of the Presidents: Lyndon B. Johnson,
1963-1964_ (Washington: Government Printing Office,
1965), I:9.]

He was peculiarly fitted for the task. A southerner in quest of
national support, Johnson was determined for very practical reasons to
carry out the civil rights progr