Lyndon B. Johnson
Alex Johnson
How He Became President
Takes Kennedy's Place
- LBJ was vice president to Kennedy
- after Kennedy was assassinated LBJ took office
Election of 1964
- Democrats nominated LBJ
- Republicans nominated Barry Goldwater
- Goldwater attack LBJ's policies
- LBJ gains popularity with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution and ends up winning by a large majoirty
The Great Society
- The Great Society was LBJ's domestic plan
- escalated the billion dollar War on Poverty
- Department of Transportation
- Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
- gave aid to education
- Medicare for the elderly and Medicaid for the poor
- Immigration and Nationalist Act of 1965 abolished the quota system and doubled the immigrant cap annually
- Project Head Start gave impoverished children access to preschool, money for food, and health aid
24th Amendment
- the problem was that very few blacks were registered to vote
- 1964, the 24th Amendment destroyed the federal poll tax to make it easier for blacks to vote
- literacy tests were not destroyed along with other methods to keep blacks from voting
Vietnam War
- 1964 after two American ships were fired upon with provocation, the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution gave the president the power to demand more forces for the war
- 1965 after Viet Cong attack an air base at Pleiku in the South, Operation Rolling Thunder marks the start of regular full scale bombings
- the war tied America up so they couldn't help when Israel attacked Egypt and the Palestinians
- 1968 after Viet Cong attacked 27 Southern cities the Tet Offensive successfully recaptured most of those cities
- after the offensive the public demanded an immediate end to the war
- the war had became too long and extremely unpopular
- the casualties and costs were extremely high
- LBJ was convinced by others that speedy victory would come from bombings
- the war sucked the life and energy out of LBJ
Civil Rights
- LBJ is the most active president for civil rights in American history
- Freedom Summer began June 1964 as a campaign to register as many blacks as possible to vote
- Civil Rights Act of 1964 banned discrimination in private places open to the public
- Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) stopped discrimination when hiring
- Voting Rights Act of 1965 banned literacy tests and sent voter registers to the south to help blacks register
1968: A Watershed Year
- it's a watershed year because an incredible amount changed during the year
- LBJ announced that no more troops would go to Vietnam, bombings would decrease, responsibility would shift into the hands of the Vietnamese, and LBJ would not run for president again
- April 4 MLK Jr was shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee
- on the night of the California primary, presidential nominee Robert Kennedy was killed by an Arab who disliked his pro-Israeli views
- at the Democratic Convention of 1968 anti-war protesters fought with police outside the convention, yet the still nominated pro-war Hubert Humphrey
- Nixon won the presidential election
- the sexual revolution was in full swing
- gay and lesbians were demanding tolleration
- Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) were a group of youngsters who showed how radical and demanding younger populations could be