LBJ and Grassroots Federalism: Congressman Bob Poage, Race, and Change in Texas. By RobertHarold Duke. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2014. 248 pp.

Abstract

LBJ and Grassroots Federalism: Congressman Poage, Race, and Change in Texas. By Robert Harold Duke. College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 2014. 248 pp. Historian Robert Harold Duke conducts a commendable analysis of how government officials, prominent community members, and local activists in Waco, Texas, worked together on various projects during the New Deal and Great Society eras. Duke particularly focuses on the relationship between Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ) and W. R. Bob Poage. Readers need little introduction to Johnson, who embarked upon a political career that led him to the White House, but may be less familiar with Poage, who represented Texas's 11th Congressional District from 1937 to 1978 and served as the powerful chairperson of the House Agriculture Committee for most of these years. Although LBJ and Poage worked together as allies to bring crucial federal funds to the Lone Star State, the Waco representative's refusal to support LBJ's civil rights initiatives strained their once-close relationship. Duke further contends that New Deal and Great Society programs provided opportunities for African Americans and Mexican Americans in central Texas to express agency and to improve their communities in the midst of brutal segregation. After discussing LBJ's and Poage's distinct backgrounds, Duke provides three case studies that examine the legacy of their complicated partnership. Although LBJ and Poage hailed from and eventually represented the neighboring 10th and 11th Congressional Districts, respectively, the author maintains that these areas of central Texas possessed differing characteristics, especially regarding matters of race. LBJ's Austin and Hill Country region, while plagued by segregation, held more tolerant elements than Poage's Waco. Johnson grew up exposed to a large German population in the Hill Country, which historically had rejected the inclinations of the Old Confederacy. Austin, itself, as the state's capital, served as the central location for Texans to debate varying viewpoints, which LBJ enjoyed contemplating. Waco, on the other hand, experienced sadistic violence, as its white citizens attempted to maintain a segregationist order. Lynching in the region occurred several times during the early decades of the twentieth century, most infamously with the 1916 Waco Horror, which attracted national attention for its barbarity. Duke argues that such events profoundly affected the young Poage's conception of race relations, forming the basis for his later refusal to vote for LBJ's civil rights legislation. …