Johnson
Johnson's Presidency & The Election of 1964
- Finished Kennedy's term after assassinated
When:
- November 3, 1964
Candidates:
- Republican: Barry Goldwater
- Democrat: Lyndon B. Johnson (winner)
Election:
- Easily won
- Had electoral and popular vote
- 61.1 % of the votes
- Voters liked his fondness for Kennedy
The Great Society
- The 4 big legislation achievements: aid to education, medical care for elderly and indigent, immigration reform, and new voting bill rights
- Largest reform agenda since the New Deal
- 2 new cabinet offices: Department of Transportation and Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
- First black cabinet secretary- Robert C. Weaver
- National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities designed to lift American culture
- 1965 Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor
- 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act abolished quota from 1921 and double number of immigrants allowed, while setting limit of immigrants from Western Hemisphere
24th Amendent
- Ratified January 1964
- Abolished poll tax in federal elections
- Chief goal of black movement in the South
Tonkin Gulf Resolution & Vietnam War
- Passed in 1964
- Passed in response to the Gulf of Tonkin Incident
- Was not formal decree of war by Congress
- Gave expansion of Vietnam War
Civil Rights Act of 1964 & Voting Rights Act
- Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave federal government more muscle to enforce school desegregation orders and prohibit racial discrimination
- Problem with voting rights still remained
- Poll tax, literacy tests, and barefaced intimidation kept blacks from voting
- Voting Rights Act of 1965
- Signed into law on August 6
- Outlawed literacy tests and sent federal voter registrars into souther states
- Voting Rights Act climaxed abuse for African Americans and did not end discrimination
1968
- Martin Luther King, Jr. and Bobby Kennedy assassinations
- Riots at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago
- 1968 Johnson couldn't avoid that the U.S. couldn't win Vietnam War
- April 4, 1968 Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated
- King's murder set off riots across the country
- My Lai- mass murder by the U.S. Army on March 16, 1968 on hundreds of unarmed citizens in the South Vietnamese town of My Lai