Repeat After Me: ‘I Am Somebody’ 

There is a great story with the makings of an epic poem, and at its center are two men: Lyndon Johnson and Governor George Wallace. The 36th president summoned the segregationist governor of Alabama to the White House to make a personal appeal. Wallace had refused to protect Blacks trying to exercise their right to vote from assault, harassment, and even murder. To quell the tumult, and to move toward curing the white supremacist-inflicted disease of democracy, Johnson proposed that Wallace enlist...