Local Author Chronicles Lady Bird Johnson’s 1964 Whistle Stop Tour

In “Rollin’ On Down the Line: Lady Bird Johnson’s 1964 Whistle-Stop Tour for Civil Rights” (Sleeping Bear Press, 2024), authors Helen Kampion and Reneé Critcher Lyons describe the former first lady’s trip and explore its larger meaning.

Kampion and Lyons met at Vermont College while both were earning MFAs in writing for children and young adults. When Lyons suggested that they write about the whistle-stop tour, “I jumped on board,” Kampion said in an email interview last week. “Who wouldn’t want to write about a gutsy first lady who ignored her own safety and comfort to extol the virtues of the Civil Rights Act, and for the first time ever for a first lady, campaign for her husband’s reelection — alone?”

The book, geared to readers ages 6 to 10 and illustrated by Erin McGuire, won the Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Award.

It was 60 years ago this month, on July 2, 1964, that President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law. With an election coming up in four months, the president worried about voters’ reaction to the bill, particularly in the south. The idea was hatched for the first lady, born in Texas and with family in Alabama, to campaign through the south.

In October, Lady Bird Johnson made the daring whistle-stop tour giving speeches at every stop despite her fear of public speaking and the crowds that were sometimes hostile to her message. False information came through saying the train bridge up ahead was bombed.

Kampion and Lyons devoted about five months to reading books about Lady Bird Johnson “to understand her as a person. We listened to her speeches, pored over photographs, reviewed newspaper articles, and reached out to libraries and museums.”

The book offers a “Whistle-Stop Time-line” of the towns where Johnson gave her speech. The tour began on Oct. 6 in Washington, D.C., and concluded on Oct. 9 in New Orleans. The “Lady Bird Special,” as the train was called, was 19 cars long. It carried Johnson, First Daughters Lynda and Luci, 150 members of the press and hundreds of additional people. Johnson addressed the crowds from a podium built out from the last train car which was decorated in red, white and blue.

Kampion, who divides her time between Chatham and Wayland, began writing for children after she retired from a career in high-tech sales. Lyon and McGuire live in North Carolina.

Kampion is currently working on two middle grade novels. She will sign “Rollin’ On Down the Line” at Yellow Umbrella Books in Chatham on July 26 and on Saturday, Aug. 10 from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.