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Senator Barry Goldwater's Speech at Madison Square Garden
On May 12, senator and presidential candidate Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) (1909–1998) delivered a speech before a crowd of 18,000 at Madison Square Garden in the first large rally of the 1964 presidential campaign. In the speech he accused the Johnson administration of fomenting "violence, destruction, and disobedience," an allusion to civil rights protests. He also said that integration was "a problem of the heart and of the mind . . . You cannot pass a law that will make me like you -- or you like me." Goldwater voted against cloture and the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Roy Wilkins sent this telegram in response to the speech. |