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Often considered to be the more human side of a presidential administration, the East Wing, emboldened by a first lady’s global platform, has been utilized for decades to help shore up a West Wing strategy, or put a continuation on a policy, or even heal temperaments and rifts, at times caused by the President.
Her public statements, calling for peace and healing amidst two weeks of protests in cities across the United States, have been sporadic, put out with the click of a “send” button on social media.
She has not made a public appearance in more than two weeks, the most recent a visit to the Pope John Paul II National Shrine in Washington, DC, where as she stood outside for a photograph with the President, nudged by him to smile, as noted in a video clip, which she reluctantly did.
Outside of that, she has visited the Federal Emergency Management Agency headquarters to attend a briefing on hurricane preparedness, which was a private meeting, and had a session with educators about Social Emotional Learning practices in education, again, a closed event.
The first lady’s office did not respond to a CNN request for comment about any future events.
Using a spotlight
First ladies’ movements and actions have served to define a broader administration agenda.
In 1989, Barbara Bush used the spotlight to hold a baby who was HIV-positive in the midst of the AIDS crisis in America, a simple yet poignant gesture that from a first lady relayed the message of empathy and kindness. For Bush, it was humanizing a disease that in the late 80s still felt unknown and scary to many Americans; her holding the baby helped remove the stigma at the time associated with HIV/AIDS patients.
Michelle Obama traveled from Washington to Chicago to attend the funeral of Hadiya Pendleton, a girl killed by gun violence in 2015. For Obama, simply attending Pendleton’s funeral, alone, without President Barack Obama, was making a statement as first lady, about repeated, senseless tragedies at the hands of guns, growing exponentially in places such as Chicago.
“Hadiya Pendleton was me, and I was her,” said Obama, drawing a personal connection to her own early years growing up on Chicago’s South Side.
Laura Bush, in the wake of 2005’s Hurricane Katrina, was forced to cope with both a human tragedy and a public relations mess, left by George W. Bush. Criticized for his handling of the storm in its aftermath, Bush relied heavily on his wife to fix relationships in the storm-ravaged areas. Laura Bush visited New Orleans 26 times post-Katrina, by herself, to try to ensure citizens living there that her husband, and she, was not going to forget the region. She implemented assistance, funding and a crucial spotlight using her platform as first lady.
Melania Trump has yet to meet with victims of coronavirus, now months after the first cases were reported in the United States.
Dual tragedies
But coronavirus isn’t the only force challenging American life right now. The country also is finally facing a racial reckoning — years in the making — following the killing of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police last month.
Perhaps there was no other first lady from the past who has a more parallel path with what is happening today than Claudia Taylor “Lady Bird” Johnson.
As America took crucial steps to desegregate the country, with the passage of President Lyndon Johnson’s Civil Rights Act of 1964, Lady Bird sensed she should, and could, use her role to step in and help soothe a country grappling with change. And unlike Melania Trump, Johnson was keen to do so in person, knowing the power of her voice in the South could be all the more impactful than a letter-writing campaign, or even at an appearance alongside the President.
In October of 1964, Lady Bird Johnson embarked on a solo whistle-stop tour of the South, in a customized train with a special caboose, trimmed with a striped awning and a giant “Lady Bird Special” sign. She visited eight states in four days, traveling from DC’s Union Station to New Orleans, making 47 stops, and speeches, along the way.
The South was a place Lady Bird knew well, having grown up in East Texas and spent time as a child in Alabama with family. Yet with the passage of the Civil Rights Act by her husband, the South was embroiled in change, there was anger and frustration.
“Lady Bird Johnson put her life on the line in 1964, as the first first lady to campaign without her husband,” said Kate Andersen Brower, author of “Team of Five: The Presidents Club in the Age of Trump.” “The Civil Rights Act had infuriated voters. Lady Bird was from the South, and she spoke their language. There were death threats, but she persisted.”
There were bomb threats, and protesters, signs saying: “Black Bird! Go Home!” and chants of anger. At every stop, for as many supporters as showed up by the thousands to catch a glimpse of the five-foot-four-inch, 51-year-old first lady with the lilting Southern accent, there was opposition.
Need to heal
Mark Updegrove, presidential historian and president and CEO of the LBJ Foundation, said Johnson “knew exactly what she was going to do, she was walking into a hailstorm.”
One of Johnson’s deepest concerns the entire trip, Updegrove said, was the Secret Service train that traveled a few miles ahead of hers, knowing full-well if someone had indeed placed explosives on the tracks meant for her, they would be met with them first.
“It weighed heavily on her conscience,” he said.
But the drive of the first lady, and her need to try to heal a country on the precipice of historic reform, pushed her through. And, unlike the opposing sides of the current East and West Wing messaging happening today in the Trump White House, LBJ knew his wife was just what the country needed in that moment.
“He had total faith in Lady Bird,” said Updegrove, who added that the entire tour was executed in plan and process by women. “Luci and Lynda, the Johnson daughters, both traveled for parts, and there were wives of senators and congressmen who joined, Lady Bird’s press secretary, also a woman — it was not just an intrepid and heroic act, it was all conducted by women at a time when women were as marginalized as people of color, who had been oppressed throughout the South.”
Lady Bird was inspired by another important woman who broke the mold in the role of first lady: Eleanor Roosevelt, Updegrove said.
“She studied her, she watched how Eleanor was literally the ‘legs’ for her husband when he needed her to be, and that left an impact,” he said. “She was there to help advance his agenda, to act for him in an ambassadorial way, and that was key to how Lady Bird approached being first lady when it was her turn to do so.”
It’s difficult to predict how history will view the tenure of Melania Trump. But in the near term, it doesn’t seem that she is choosing to use her role to effect change, even as millions of Americans are in the throes of confusion and tumult.
“Melania Trump has shown that she struggles to use one of the most important duties of being first lady,” Brower said, “and that is to unify and console in times of crisis.”
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