Blog discussion:
Background: from south, he was a senator. He was put on Kennedy's ticket to help get southern votes. took over for JFK when he was assassinated. 1. he was great in helping the poor and African Americans. 2. the Vietnam war destroyed him.
Elections:1964, He was very popular, he had the highest percent of popular votes 61.1%. His running mate was Hubert Humphrey. Barry Goldwater-conservative republican from Arizona. Shift in the electorate-major voting shift. South always voted democrat because republicans were the saviors for African Americans. It flip flopped with Johnson. Now they are the strongest republican states in the country.
He didn't run again in 1968. He did not accept the nomination so his vice pres Humphrey ran against Nixon.
Accomplishments/Civil rights:
In 1964, Johnson overcame southern resistance and passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This act outlawed most forms of racial segregation. John F. Kennedy originally proposed the bill. After Kennedy’s death, Johnson planned to finish what Kennedy started.
In 1965, he was able to pass a second civil rights bill, the Voting Rights Act, which outlawed discrimination on voting. This allowed millions of southern blacks to vote for the very first time. Not until 1965 did the goal of the civil rights movement shift from an end to segregation to the beginning of social and economic equality.
Johnson did many things for education. He hoped that his elementary and secondary education act in 1965 would help children get our of the ghettos. Poor states benefited greatly from the federal funding. In the late 60s the percentage of African Americans obtaining a high school diploma rose to 60% (up from 40%). Johnson passed the Higher Education act in 1965 to give aid to poor black colleges. It led to the number of African American college students to quadruple within a decade.. Another first also happened for the Supreme Court. In, 1967, Johnson nominated civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshall to be the first African American Associate Justice of the Supreme Court.
put together warren commission.
Started affirmative action laws: forcing companies and colleges to accept or hire a certain number of minorities.
Passed immigration Act of 1965- allowed more non-European people to immigrant to US. Immigration more than doubled between 1965-1970.
The great society (name of Johnson's plan):
- aid education
- attack disease
- medicare and medicaid
- urban renewal
- war on poverty
- prevent crime
- beautification, conservation, development of depressed regions
- removal of obstacles to the right to vote
- against KKK
- Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965-college numbers went up. Also if you went to college, you had an unlikely chance of going toward in Vietnam.
- Higher Education act of 1965
- National Endowment -aimed to help science and the arts
- Economic Opportunity Act helped start Head Start(for struggling younger kids), food stamps, Work Study, Medicare and Medicaid.
Gun Control Act of 1968-regulates firearms. Johnson and Vietnam: Vietnam wore him down, he didn't want to go to war but he did anyway which was super unpopular . Believed in Domino Theory
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