What exactly was the ladybird johnson and eartha kitt incident??
EARTHA KITT: In 1968, during the Vietnam War, I was invited by Lady Bird Johnson to give my opinion about the problems in the United States, specifically, “Why is there so much juvenile delinquency in the streets of America?” The First Lady seemed to be more interested in decorating the windows of the ghettos with flowerboxes. I mean—it’s fine to put flowers in the ghettos, but let’s take care of the necessities first: give people jobs, and find a way to get us out of poverty. When it came my turn to speak, I said to the president’s wife, “Vietnam is the main reason we are having trouble with the youth of America. It is a war without explanation or reason.” I said that the young ghetto boys thought it better to have a legal stigma against them—then they would be considered “undesirable” and would not be sent to the war. In their opinion, in this society the good guys lost and the bad guys won.
