Herman Talmadge told Robert Caro that he saw no indication that Lyndon Johnson sympathized with Black people or wanted to improve their circumstances, and said Johnson was aligned with the white Southern senators “in his heart.”

“And now quoting Caro's recounting of this exchange, quote, "Master and servant. So I," Caro, "asked, 'Well, didn't Johnson have any sympathy for Blacks?”

“Any desire to improve their lot?' My notes say, long pause. And then I wrote Talmadge's two-word reply. None indicated. Another pause, and then, 'He was with us in his heart.”

“I believed him. I believed him.'" End quote. Of course, we know that once he became president, Johnson spearheaded the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the most important civil rights laws since Reconstruction.”