LBJ’s daughter: Obama fulfilling filling her father’s legacy On Tuesday, President-elect Obama is expected to break President Johnson’s inaugural attendance record of approximately 1.2 million people. And that’s just fine with LBJ’s daughter, Luci Baines Johnson.
“We’re thrilled to be on the sidelines clapping for President-elect Obama,” said Johnson in an interview.
She said she views Obama’s swearing-in as the fulfillment not only of Martin Luther King’s dream, but of her father’s dream. “His hope was that men and women of color could fulfill their destiny to the best of their God-given abilities,” she said.
She even points out that Barack and Michelle Obama were beneficiaries of some of LBJ’s (she still calls him “Daddy”) work, including higher-education grants. “The Great Society legislation was about opening these doors,” she said. “Obama is about fulfilling them.”
“Inequality has not evaporated from the American landscape,” she added. “It’s not the utopia that we wish it were. But we’ve come a long way.”
It will be a family affair for the Johnsons. Luci be in Washington with her sister, Lynda Bird Johnson, three of her four children, and the “bulk” of her grandchildren.
On the agenda: a number of events set up for her by Lyndon Boozer, an AT&T lobbyist whose mother was LBJ’s personal assistant and who was named after the former president.
She said she’s “tickled about the fact that there’s an opportunity for our young people to enjoy some of their favorite entertainers.”
