These conversations show that Johnson encouraged King to focus media attention on voting-rights injustices, leaned hard on aides to seek legal and legislative remedies for those wrongs, and acknowledged the importance of the Selma events — and King’s role in them — to the passage of the Voting Rights Act.
But they also reveal Johnson’s discomfort with being seen as too close to King, his fear that the Selma demonstrations were complicating his judicial strategy for voting rights, and his initial reluctance in using federal power to protect the marchers.
In short, the tapes highlight the complicated nature of policymaking, the push-and-pull between federal officials and grass-roots activists, and the messy realities — including the sometimes ugly political realities — of effecting social change.