Lyndon Baines Johnson 1908 1973 The Great Society

Lyndon Baines Johnson 1908 - 1973 The Great Society War on Poverty Civil Rights Act of 1964 Voting Rights Act of 1965

As the thirty-sixth president of the United States, Lyndon B. Johnson created the Great Society programs which included antipoverty programs civil rights legislation, the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, the passage of environmental protection acts, and the creation of laws to help protect consumers.

Lyndon Johnson had a lifelong commitment to the belief that education was the cure for both ignorance and poverty, especially for minorities who endured poor facilities and tight-fisted budgets from local taxes. He made education a top priority of the Great Society, with an emphasis on helping poor children.

President No. : 36 th Served: 1963 -1969 Party: Democrat From: Texas Married: Lady Bird Johnson Born: August 27, 1908 Died: January 22, 1973 Education: Southwest Texas State College, Georgetown University Law School

Jobs Before President: Teacher, Rancher, Congressman, U. S. Senator Height: 6 feet, 3 inches Hobbies: Fishing, hunting, riding Pets: Dogs, beagles named Him and Her Transportation: Helicopter, airplane, car Communication Methods: Telephone, typed letter

-born near Stonewall in Gillespie County Johnson, the first of five children, was born in a three-room house in the hills of south-central Texas.

The Johnson family stands in front of the birthplace in 1897. Lyndon Johnson's birthplace was reconstructed in 1964 at his request.

The ranch house as it appeared in 1963, the year Lyndon R. Johnson assumed the Presidency. It looks essentially the same today.

Lyndon Baines Johnson, his wife Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Taylor, and daughters Lynda Bird Johnson and Luci Baines Johnson.

Lyndon Johnson’s work for minorities began in 1928 when he obtained his first job as an elementary school teacher. It was a segregated school attended by only Mexican Americans. Johnson had 28 pupils who he recalled were "mired in the slums", "lashed by prejudice" and 1927 "buried half- alive in illiteracy". Johnson believed that their only way out was by education. “Education is not a problem. Education is an opportunity. ”

Mr. Johnson began as a teacher but quickly moved into politics. He was the Director of National Youth Administration in Texas (1935 -37) and then elected as a U. S. Representative where he served from 193749.

While a congressman, Lyndon Johnson joined the navy to fight in World War II. He was awarded the Silver Star.

In 1949, he was elected to the U. S. Senate, becoming the Democratic Majority Leader in 1955. He served until 1951 when he became Vice-President under John F. Kennedy.

left to right: Vice President Johnson, Eleanor Roosevelt, and President Kennedy….

Lyndon Johnson became President in November 1963 after the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

After being sworn in as the 36 th President of the United States, Lyndon Johnson announced his vision of a "Great Society" for America, with "an end to poverty and racial injustice". Johnson felt he and Congress owed it to the late president to see his civil rights bill passed. He was convinced that discrimination was morally wrong.

In 1964 President Johnson was nominated to run for the Democratic party for the presidency with Hubert Humphrey as his vice-president. Johnson easily won with 61% of the popular vote.

The Head Start Program and the Job Corps are two programs from President Johnson’s 1964 Economic Opportunity Act which was in association with the “War on Poverty”. Job Corps students participated in an episode of Extreme Makeover.

Job Corps is a free, residential education and training program that helps students between 16 and 24 gain the experience to get a better job and take control of their lives. The program offers an opportunity to learn a trade, the chance to obtain a high school diploma or GED, and help finding a job after graduation.

“Poverty must not be a bar to learning and learning must offer an escape from poverty. ” “This administration here and now declares unconditional war on poverty. ”

The Great Society program, with its name coined from one of President Johnson's speeches, became his agenda for Congress in January 1965: aid to education, attack on disease, Medicare, urban renewal, beautification, conservation, development of depressed regions, a wide-scale fight against poverty, control and prevention of crime, and removal of obstacles to the right to vote. “We have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society. ”

March 17, 1965, President Johnson sent The National Voting Rights Act of 1965 to Congress. After the Senate and House passed the bill, and differences were resolved, President Johnson signed the Act into law on August 6, 1965. “A man without a vote is man without protection. ”

President Johnson with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1963 1966

The Voting Rights Act outlawed discrimination in voting practices (particularly in the South) that disenfranchised African Americans. Southern states had historically required otherwise qualified voters to pass literacy tests, a practice that excluded blacks and illiterate whites from voting.

Lyndon Baines Johnson signs the Civil Rights Bill, April 11, 1968

Three important pieces of Civil Rights legislation: 1. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 which did not allow discrimination in employment or in the use of public facilities. 2. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 which outlawed discriminatory practices that kept blacks from voting. 3. The Civil Rights Act of 1968 which outlawed discrimination for housing. Also during President Johnson's administration, Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated in 1968.

“You aren't learning anything when you're talking. ”

Thurgood Marshall, nominated in 1967 by President Johnson for the Supreme Court - “Johnson was focused on what the achievement would say to all the African American children in the land, what they could aspire to in their own lives. ”

Millions of elderly people were aided by the 1965 Medicare amendment to the Social Security Act. President Johnson gave the first two Medicare cards to former President Harry S Truman and his wife after signing the medicare. Lower income people received medical care funded by the government through the Medicaid program.

President Johnson did not run for re-election in 1968 and his last public appearance was at a civil rights conference. He retired on January 20, 1969 to his ranch in Texas. He did not return to politics. He died on January 22, 1973 of a heart attack.

“Doing what's right isn't the problem. It is knowing what's right. ”

Lyndon Johnson was motivated by memories of his own poverty ridden childhood and also his strong belief that helping minorities would be of spiritual and economic benefit to all Americans. Johnson also believed that racial discrimination was damaging the economy of his beloved South and that the area would have to abandon its racist attitudes to gain economic prosperity. “We must open the doors of opportunity. But we must also equip our people to walk through those doors. ”

President Johnson's vision of "A Great Society" in America led him to change the face of America forever. President Johnson advocated for voting rights, civil rights, education, and Medicare.

“Until justice is blind to color, until education is unaware of race, until opportunity is unconcerned with the color of men's skins, emancipation will be a proclamation but not a fact. ” “We have talked long enough in this country about equal rights. It is time now to write the next chapter - and to write it in the books of law. ”