Johnson
Kailyn Lee 7th
Election of 1964
Becomes president after assassination of Kennedy
Democrat Lyndon B. Johnson
Republican Barry Goldwater
Johnson overwhelmingly won the election with 486 electoral votes as to 52 (Goldwater)
The Great Society
- Congress created two new cabinet offices: Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
- Legislative achievements LBJ's Great Society program were: aid to education, medical care for the elderly and poor,immigration reform, and a new voting rights bill
- Biggest reform since the New Deal
- Aided to eliminate racial injustice
- 1965 came Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor.
- The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 abolished the quota system that had been in place since 1921
Tonkin Gulf Resolution and Vietnam War
- August 1964, U.S. Navy ships had been helping South Vietnam attack the coast of North Vietnam.
- On August 2th and August 4th, two U.S. ships were allegedly fired upon. Johnson called the attack "unprovoked" and moved to make political gains out of the incident.
- Passd Tonkin Gulf Resolution: lawmakers virtually gave up their war-declaring powers and handed the president a blank check to use further force in Southeast Asia.
Civil Rights
- Voting Rights Act of 1965: banned literacy tests and sent federal voter registers into several southern states.
- The Civil Rights Act of 1964: gave the federal government more power to enforce school-desegregation orders and to prohibit racial discrimination in all kinds of public accommodations and employment.
- The 24th Amendment: 1964 abolished the poll tax in federal elections, yet blacks were still severely hampered from voting.
1968
- In January 1968, the Viet Cong attacked 27 key South Vietnamese cities
- Eugene McCarthy and Robert F. Kennedy both entered the race for the 1968 Democratic presidential nomination.
- Tet Offensive adds to Vietnam War
- June 5, 1968 Robert Kennedy was shot and killed by an Arab immigrant
- Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated
- Richard Nixon won election of 1968
- American Independent Party: George C. Wallace