Groundbreaking planned for LBJ monument

The city on Thursday will host a groundbreaking for a previously announced monument to President Lyndon B. Johnson to be erected in a downtown park.

Plans for the monument have been in the works for years, and the groundbreaking will start at 10:30 a.m. at Little Tranquility Park. Johnson’s daughter, Luci Baines Johnson Turpin, is expected to attend.

“LBJ is a Texan true and true, and the connection to the city is a really strong one,” Mayor Sylvester Turner said.

Johnson was born in Stonewall, Texas, in 1908, and came to Houston in 1930 to teach public speaking at Sam Houston High School before leaving a year later to become an assistant to Texas’ “Cowboy Congressman” U.S. Rep. Richard Kleberg. During that time, he became close friends with Houston icons George R. Brown and William P. Hobby.

Houston immigration lawyer Charles Foster, who spearheaded the private fundraising for the $2.2 million project, said the location of the eight-foot bronze statue makes sense, given Johnson’s support of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. Johnson Space Center, the home of NASA’s human spaceflight program in Clear Lake, is named after him.

The Houston Holocaust Museum still honors the 37th president with the annual presentation of its Lyndon Baines Johnson Moral Courage Award, and one of the county’s safety net hospitals is named after him.