Скачать или смотреть MLK to LBJ: "Have a Negro in the Cabinet" (Transcript Below)

In this phone call from Jan. 15, 1965, Martin Luther King, Jr. tells President Lyndon Johnson, "It would mean so much... to have a Negro in the Cabinet."

King: Yes. Right. Well, Mr. President, I'll tell you the main thing I wanted to share with you. This really rose out of conversations that I've had with all of the civil rights leaders--I mean the heads of civil rights organizations--
President Johnson: Yeah.
King: --as well as many people around the country as I have traveled. We have a strong feeling that it would mean so much, first, to help with our whole democracy but to the Negro and to the nation, to have a Negro in the Cabinet. We feel that this would really would be a great step forward for the nation, for the Negro, for our international image. And it would do so much to give many people a lift who need a lift now. And I'm sure that it could give a new sense of dignity and self-respect to millions of Negroes who--there are millions of Negro youth who feel that they don't have anything to look forward to in life.
President Johnson: I agree with that. I have not publicly shouted from the house top, but I have had them sit in with me. I--the first move I made was to put one [an African American] on the [National] Security Council.
King: Yes.
President Johnson: And to put one in charge of every bit of the information that went to all of the 120 nations and take him out of an important ambassador post.1 And I am trying my best to get the housing and urban and city problems [sic], which is the number one problem in America as I see it, made into a Cabinet post.

You can listen to their entire conversation at http://millercenter.org/presidentialr....