President Lyndon B. Johnson:
- Johnson won the election against Berry Goldwater
- There was a major flip-flop in the electoral college votes as the Democrats won all the states except for the south
- This is due to Johnson's passing of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which gave all the rights to African Americans that they should have had a hundred years ago
- Johnson's Presidential Accomplishments:
- Put together the Warren Commission to investigate the JFK assassination
- Passed Civil Rights Act of 1964 which outlawed most forms of racial segregation
- Passed Voting Rights Act of 1965 which outlawed discrimination iin voting thus allowing millions of African Americans to vote for the first time
- Started affirmative action laws which required businesses and colleges to hire and accept African Americans and other minorities
- Passed Immigration Act of 1965 which allowed more non-European people to immigrate to the US. As a result, Immigration more than doubled between 1965-1970
- The Great Society was Johnson's version of the FDR's New Deal. All democratic presidents had a name for their domestic policy (things they did to help people in need)
- This included: Aid education, attacking disease, Medicare and Medicaid, urban renewal, beautification, conservation, development of depressed regions, war on poverty, control and prevention of crime, and the removal of obstacles to the right to vote
- One of the biggest things was helping with education
- He passed many acts which helped give federal money to students and public schools
- This opended the door for lower income students to have the opportunity to go to college and get a better education
- Acts included Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965, Higher Education Act of 1965 and the Economic Opportunity Act
- Also passed the Gun Control Act of 1968 which regulates the firearms industry and firearms owners in response to the assassinations of JFK, his bother Robert, and Martin Luther King
- Johnson and Vietnam:
- The Vietnam Conflict dominated much of Johnson's presidency
- He believed in the Domino Theory which says that if one country falls to communism, it will continue to spread and democracy will fall down like dominoes
- Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964) was when Congress gave Johnson the power to wage war in Vietnam as he saw fit
President Richard Nixon (Republican 37th):
- Vice-President of Eisenhower
- Lost 1960 election to JFK
- Was the only person to be elected twice to both the Presidency and the Vice Presidency
- Only President to resign from office (he was about to be impeached)
- Nixon was very paranoid and thought that everyone was out to get him
- Nixon's Presidential Accomplishments:
- Vietnam Conflict dominated much of his presidency and war became very unpopular
- Promised to end the war---"Peace with honor"
- Expanded the war to Cambodia and Laos-bombing Ho Chi Minh Trail
- Started pulling troops out of Vietnam as promised
- The Nixon Doctrine--"Vietnamization" of the war which was pulling our troops out and let the Vietnamese fight their own war
- Paris Peace Accords signed in 1973 stopped the fighting and got the US out of the war
- Environmental Decade:
- Nixon was the first president to actually do a lot to help the environment
- Passed a lot of acts to clean up the environment and established a lot of governmental agencies
Comments