Early in his career as a Congressman, Johnson was promoted by one of the most unabashed white supremacists in the Senate, Richard Russell of Georgia, the leader of the Southern Caucus. Johnson had a solid record of opposing all civil rights legislation until the mid-1950s and quickly befriended and became a steadfast ally of Russell. However, Russell tried to win the Democratic nomination in 1952 and lost, largely because his support for segregation made him unpalatable outside the South. Russell's own ambitions foiled, he saw in the younger LBJ a politician with the potential to be the first Southern president since the Civil War, if he could somehow escape from the trap that all Southern politicians were in: namely, that if they did not support Civil Rights, they could not win the Democratic nomination, but if they did support Civil Rights, they would lose support at home and the support of the powerful Southern bloc. So when Russel co-authored the pro-segregation Southern Manifesto after the Brown vs Board of Education Supreme Court decision, he allowed LBJ to abstain from signing it. More importantly, he supported LBJ, who was at the time the Senate Majority Leader, in crafting the landmark 1957 Civil Rights bill, which was a very weak bill that accomplished virtually nothing, but nevertheless was the first Civil Rights bill passed since the Restoration. LBJ argued, and Russell agreed, that a weak civil rights bill would forestall a stronger bill that liberals wanted - and it would allow LBJ to claim credit for the bill's passage. This was important for LBJ's ambitions, as it would neutralize some of the opposition the Texan faced from Civil Rights leaders and liberals.

As to LBJ's personal feelings about Civil Rights, it is not always easy to discern. He did not seem to have any personal animus towards blacks or Mexicans, and although he used racist language sometimes that would nowadays disqualify him from higher office, it was rather mild compared to other Southern senators. On the other hand, he had taught at an impoverished Mexican school as a young man, and had worked to secure employment for black workers during the Great Depression. LBJ's principles, at any rate, always took a back seat to his ambition. Civil Rights was a big issue in the 1950s and 1960s, and eventually he saw the political advantage in supporting it.