Forty years before Democrats nominated their first candidate of color, President Lyndon Johnson told 1968 presidential nominee Hubert Humphrey that he should pick a Japanese-American as his running mate.

It was Sen. Daniel Inouye, who was awarded a silver star in World War II, and who lost an arm in battle.

"He answers Vietnam with that empty sleeve. He answers your problems with Nixon with that empty sleeve. He has that brown face," Johnson said.

Humphrey, though he was one of the Senate's foremost liberals, balked.

"I guess maybe, it's just taking me a little too far, too fast," Humphrey said. "Old, conservative Humphrey."