Lyndon Baines Johnson (LBJ)

• Grew up in TEXAS• Grandfather was cowboy• Father was a businessman• Never wealthy, but never missed a meal

Political Career

• Entered politics in 1937 (U.S. House of Reps)• He was a New Deal Democrat• FDR liked him…helped with career…friends• 1948 U.S. Senate• 1955 Senate Majority Leader• 1960 VP with Kennedy• 1963 President

New Sheriff in Town

• Tax Cut Bill and Civil Rights Bill that JFK could NOT get done…LBJ got through Congress quickly…PASSED into law in 1964.

• Good relationship with Congress

WAR on Poverty

• Inspired by The Other America by Michael Harrington

• EOA (Employment Opportunity Agency)– Job Corps (youth job training)– VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America) was

like Peace Corps only within USA– Head Start Free public pre-school to give kids

a “head start” before elementary school

1964 Election

• (D) Lyndon B. Johnson– VP Hubert Humphrey

*(R) Barry Goldwater

- Conservative Senator from Arizona

- “Vote AuH2O”

Lyndon Johnson

• Main issue was this conflict in that there Vietnam place

• LBJ said “your boys are not going to be sent to do what Asian boys should be doing for themselves.”

• He ran as the “peace candidate”

Barry Goldwater

• Very anti-communist … he swore that to stop the spread of international communism he would “use the bomb in Vietnam”

• Disliked Eastern politicians … liberals from Northeast

• Seen as a diehard, radical conservative

“Extremism in defense of liberty is no vice.”

Daisy Ad

• Lyndon Johnson TV ad that changed campaign

• Pictured a little girl picking daisies … atomic bomb … world unsafe if Goldwater wins!– Daisy Ad

Mandate

• When a candidate wins by a VERY LARGE margin it is called a landslide or a mandate

• Mandate means the candidate has overwhelming support from the people for his ideas and programs

Great Society

• Looking to capitalize on landslide victory (mandate) Johnson initiated a “New Deal type” package of programs to help the poor, elderly, minority and uneducated.

• Called the Great Society

Great Society

• Medicare / Medicaid – aid to elderly for medical care

• Voting Rights Act – ensure blacks the right to vote (1965)

• PBS – Public television (Sesame Street, etc.)

• Student Loans (help young people pay for college)

Great Society

Other Key Players

• George Wallace– Governor of Alabama– “Segregation now,

segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!”

– Violent reaction to civil rights marches in Selma and Birmingham

• Martin Luther King Jr.– Civil Rights activist– Argued against money and

political effort on behalf of Vietnam

– Too many soldiers being sent were black

– Attention to discrimination here at home

– Voting Rights Act