Johnson
By: Thomas Han
How Johnson Became President
- After Kennedy was murdered on November 22, 1963, Johnson took over the President.
- He kept most of Kennedy's cabinet and was similar to Kennedy
Election of 1964
- Democratic candidate - Lyndon B. Johnson
- Republican candidate - Barry Goldwater
- Johnson won with 486 electoral votes against Goldwater's 52
- introduce his Great Society plan, similar to the New Deal
The Great Society
- an ambitious social program in the US in the late 1960's intended to further the American promise to the poor and needy that was begun under the New Deal programs.
- biggest reforms since the New Deal
- aimed to eliminate racial injustice in America.
- attempt to achieve domestic reforms
24th Amendment
- passed in 1964
- prohibiting any poll tax in elections for federal officialism's Southern states adopted a poll tax in the late 1800s.
Tonkin Gulf Resolution and Vietnam War
- in August 1964 President Johnson reported to the nation that American ships had been attacked by North Vietnam gunboats in the Gulf of Tonkin, in international waters.
- Johnson used the attack to order a retaliatory air raid against North Vietnamese bases
- Tonkin Gulf Resolution - The Congressional resolution authorizing the deployment of US combat forces to South Vietnam, which occurred following a naval engagement between the US and North Vietnam
- The Vietnam War was meant to stop the spread of communism
- Operation Rolling Thunder was an early campaign in which North Vietnam was continually bombed
Civil Rights Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act
- Ended segregation in public places
- Signed by Johnson, originally conceived by Kennedy
- the Voting Rights Act of 1965 stopped racial discrimination in the voting process passed in 1965.
1968 - A "Watershed" Year
- in January, the Viet Cong attacked 26 South Vietnamese cities
- The Tet Offensive intensifies Vietnam War
- Johnson began to freeze troop levels and then reduced them on March 31, in an effort to pass the responsibility of the war to South Vietnam
- Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated
- Robert Kennedy was assassinated
- After Kennedy's death, Nixon matches up with Humphrey in the 1968 election and closely wins.