Lyndon B Johnson
By - Mike Breton
How he became president.
Johnson became president after Kennedy’s Assassination
He completed Kennedy's term and then was elected President in his own term
In the election of 1964 LBJ won against Senator Goldwater
Goldwater voted against the civil rights act and was a conservative republican
Candidates: Senator Barry Goldwater (R) vs. Lyndon B. Johnson (R)
Issues: communism, civil rights, government activism
LBJ won
It Expands into Vietnam because of the Tonkin incident
The Great Society and the 24th Amendment
- Prohibited Congress and State Governments from Conditioning the Right to Vote (on payments of a poll tax and other taxes)
- Proposed by Congress to the States on August 27, 1962
- Ratified January 23, 1964
- A Poll tax was a tax on voting in elections
- Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Louisiana , Mississippi, Oklahoma , South Carolina and Wyoming have not ratified the amendment
- Texas and Alabama did not ratify the amendment until (2002 and 2009 )
- Illinois was the first state to ratify the 24 Amendment
- The Great Society
- It was the name of LBJ’s Democratic reform
- Under the Great Society different measures were taken
- Measure taken were (Medicare, Federal Aid to Education, Civil Rights Legislation, Food Stamp Act of 1964, and The Civil Right Act of 1964)
- Social Security Act of 1965 - authorized Medicare and provided federal funding for many of the medical costs of Americans
- Welfare
- Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966, Fair Packaging and Labeling Act, Wholesome Meat Act of 1967
Tonkin Gulf Resolution and Vietnam War
- Passed on August 7th, 1964
- Gave Johnson power to use conventional military force in Southeast Asia
- Had only two dissenting votes against the resolutions
- Vietnam War
- Firmly believed in the Domino Theory
- Wanted to stop the expansion of Communism expansion
- Expanded the number of troops sent after the Tokin Gulf Resolution
- He began U.S troops direct involvement in ground war in Vietnam
- He was afraid that China and the Soviets would get involved and create a full scale military intervention like the Korean War in 1950
Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act and 1968
- On April 4, 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated at a Memphis hotel. James Earl Ray, white man who resented the increasing black influence in society. King's murder set off a new round of riots across the country
- My Lai- The mass murder conducted by a unit of the U.S. Army on March 16, 1968 of hundreds of unarmed citizens in the South Vietnamese town of My Lai. Majority of victims were women, children (including babies) and elderly people. Lieutenant Calley, the officer who ordered the killings, was tried for murder. He claimed he was only following orders, but was convicted and served several years in prison
- Outlawed discrimination of race, color, religion, sex, and national origin
- It's duty was to guarantee all citizens equal protection of the fourteenth ammendment and fifthteenth ammendment
- imposing of any "voting qualification or prerequisite to voting, or standard, practice, or procedure in a manner which results in a denial or abridgement of the right to vote on account of" race or language minority was made illegal