Will LBJ's reputation ever be rehabilitated?

[MATTROSE94]

RFK was really overrated when it came to civil rights.
Please watch the documentary "Freedom riders".  RFK called the Freedom Riders foolish, and thought they deserved to be taught a lesson (apparently for making him and his brother look bad) when the Mississippi police arrested them.  He only really began to care about civil rights when he realized that not doing anything made him look bad.
Also, lets not forget that his brother gave speeches to segregated (white only) audiences in the South while other prominent Democrats such as Stuart Symington refused to do so.
Ted was the only truly liberal Kennedy, fully capable of articulating progressive positions (because there's more to being a good politician than casting a vote) but he had his demons too.

Not to mention he ordered the FBI to wiretap MLK.

As of JFK, as Senator he voted for the bill that let the state courts try (and naturally acquit) those who prepeared and/or participated in lynchings. This bill was strongly opposed by the people such as Humphrey and Symington.

I read that Symington actually had the best record on Civil Rights issues out of all the candidates running for the 1960 Democratic Nomination, although he came across as being ambivalent regarding the issue.

[MATTROSE94]

Assuming these are true (of which you've provided no evidence) does it surprise you that a man who was raised in a racist society would use racist terms to describe black Americans? Abraham Lincoln didn't even think blacks and whites could live together for the majority of his life, and wanted to deport blacks back to Africa as late as 1862.

Actually, he wanted to establish a voluntary colonization program.  Colonization was a very common position among abolitionists.

Lyndon Johnson was a racist man, like nearly all white Southerners (in both parties; Southern Republicans were anti-CRA too). Being a racist doesn't mean you can't be a civil rights supporter either. Lyndon Johnson also said this:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

There were plenty of Southern Republicans who were pro-civil rights, like Charles Pickering and Frank M. Johnson.  As a Senator, LBJ fought to block the 1957 Civil Rights Act and made it nothing but a nominal bill.  JFK also opposed that bill.

While granted that Frank M. Johnson was always pro-civil rights, Charles Pickering was not, at least at first. In 1964, he said that "the people of Mississippi were heaped with humiliation and embarrassment at the Democratic Convention" in Atlantic City, New Jersey, after the national party seated two civil rights activists from the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party with the all-white delegation that he had strongly supported.