{"id":608,"date":"2026-10-10T14:59:26","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T14:59:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/adventureaday.blog\/?p=608"},"modified":"2026-10-10T14:59:27","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T14:59:27","slug":"visiting-the-lbj-presidential-library-austin-tx","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/adventureaday.blog\/index.php\/2026\/10\/10\/visiting-the-lbj-presidential-library-austin-tx\/","title":{"rendered":"Visiting the LBJ Presidential Library, Austin, TX"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

(Sept. 25, 2026) One of my very first memories as a child was the black-and-white console television in our living room showing the aftermath of the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I think I was struck by the profound sadness that pervaded our household. The TV stayed on for hours with news reports and updates. I was three. And mostly, I remember the horses. It was a horse-drawn caisson that carried the corpse of the fallen president for what seemed like an eternity for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then came the era of Lyndon B. Johnson as the new president. As a toddler-analyst, I thought LBJ was a scary man. Certainly, he faced more unforgiving criticism that JFK ever did. The TV images of Kennedy were replaced by coverage of the war in Vietnam. I was too young to understand why we were fighting, but adults didn\u2019t have a firm grasp on that, either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sixty years post-Johnson, I visited the LBJ Presidential Library in Austin, Texas. I\u2019m not exaggerating when I say the few hours spent there changed a lifetime of misperceptions about the man. Given our current White House predicament, it was easy to contrast the capable, steady leadership of LBJ and his efforts the build The Great Society based in part on civil rights reform with the white supremacist dismantling of those reforms as we watch threats to our republic mount each day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Located on the University of Texas campus, the museum features many artifacts from Johnson\u2019s days in the Oval Office, including the presidential limo, election promotional items, pop culture references, and a replica of Johnson\u2019s Oval Office. It\u2019s not a huge space, but several clocks were very prominent in the room. The exhibit made it clear that LBJ was always on the telephone, and I was able to pick up a receiver and push a button to listen to actual recordings of phone conversations he had with foreign diplomats, adversaries, allies and persons of interest. The most riveting feature was a tech device that allowed me to place a rectangular plate on a table, and magically, documents were projected on the surface. How did they do that?!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Finally, on the 10th<\/sup> floor next to the Oval Office was Lady Bird Johnson\u2019s office. It was her actual office in Texas after the presidential library was established. On the desk was an engraved paperweight with the words: \u201cCan Do.\u201d What a great slogan!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

All told, Johnson was a kind man, less scary, who ached to see the racial inequities that plagued the 1960s. His legacy is stained, however, by his unwillingness and inability to end a war that sent thousands of American soldiers into harm\u2019s way, where many of them would never return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
A life-sized statue of Lyndon Baines Johnson stands near the entrance to the library.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
This is the tech-savvy document reader in the library. The faint outline of the document plate is left and slightly lower than the instructions. When you put the plate in the center, the document is somehow projected onto the table.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
A replica of the White House Oval Office features this architectural plaster rendering of the Presidential Seal on the ceiling.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"\"
LBJ’s presidential limo. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Sept. 25, 2026) One of my very first memories as a child was the black-and-white<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":615,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29,48],"tags":[202,201,199,200,203,204],"class_list":["post-608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-history","category-interesting-people","tag-austin","tag-ladybird-johnson","tag-lbj","tag-lyndon-baines-johnson","tag-presidential-library","tag-u-s-presidents"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/adventureaday.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/adventureaday.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/adventureaday.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adventureaday.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adventureaday.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/adventureaday.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":616,"href":"https:\/\/adventureaday.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/608\/revisions\/616"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adventureaday.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/615"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/adventureaday.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adventureaday.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/adventureaday.blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}