Flashback

Hail to the Chief!

PRESIDENTIAL VISITS TO ONONDAGA COUNTY

BY THOMAS HUNTER

November 2020 is a national election month and Syracuse and Onondaga County have hosted some sitting U.S. presidents throughout the past 200 years. The first was Martin Van Buren on Sept. 10, 1839. The most recent was Barack Obama on Aug. 22, 2013. In between, Millard Fillmore, Grover Cleveland (who spent his boyhood living in Fayetteville), Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, John Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson and Bill Clinton also came.

President Lyndon Baines Johnson visited Syracuse twice — on Aug. 5, 1964 and again on Aug. 19, 1966. LBJ first came to the Salt City to dedicate the new $15 million S.I. Newhouse Communications Center at Syracuse University. S.U. bestowed on Johnson an honorary Doctor of Laws degree and invited him to give the dedication speech. On Aug. 2, a confrontation occurred between the USS Maddox and North Vietnamese torpedo boats in the Gulf of Tonkin. At the last minute, a solemn Johnson changed his dedication speech to address the incident and “rap North Viet ‘aggression.’” After his momentous Gulf of Tonkin speech, LBJ and Mrs. Johnson, along with the Newhouse family, cut four orange ribbons to open the communications center.

During Johnson’s second visit, he spoke from the steps of the Onondaga County Courthouse about his Great Society domestic programs aimed at eliminating poverty and racial injustice. He resolved to make American cities “better places in which to live, work and play,” frequently citing Syracuse’s achievements and aspirations. The 25,000 listening to Johnson’s impassioned speech in Columbus Circle repeatedly applauded him. When finished, LBJ shook the hands of numerous onlookers who pressed against the barricades. Once the president left, street sweepers cleaned the area, as if to bolster LBJ’s dream.

Onondaga Historical Association owns a coffee cup made by Syracuse China that features a pair of cowboy boots with spurs and the initials LBJ in a light brown airbrushed design. U.S. Representative James Wright Jr. of Texas bought a set of cups and saucers and presented them to President Johnson in 1964.

THOMAS HUNTER IS CURATOR OF COLLECTIONS AT ONONDAGA HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION. President Lyndon Baines Johnson shakes hands with supporters at the Syracuse Hancock International Airport on Aug. 19, 1966. Later that day, he would speak about the Great Society from the steps of the Onondaga County Courthouse.

PHOTO COURTESY OF OHA