“We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. We have talked for one hundred years or more. It is time now to write the next chapter, and to write it in the books of law.” The books of law. A law. That was what Johnson felt mattered. An executive order, as we’re all learning now to our sorrow, is just a piece of paper and can be repealed by another piece of paper. But to write it in the books of law—once you succeed in that, it’s not so easy to change.
