Lyndon B. Johnson

Served as President from 1963-1969
Era: The Sixties
American Identity and Culture
During President Johnson’s presidency, there was a shift in ideas with social and cultural revolutions occurring. Beginning in the mid-1960s, large groups of college students began to rebel the oppressive laws established in universities and colleges. At Port Huron, Michigan in 1962, students led by their leader Tom Hayden formed the Students for a Democratic Society(abbreviated SDS). The SDS wanted to be involved in the decision making process that will affect their future lives and therefore proposed their Port Huron Statement which demanded for decisions of the university to be decided with participatory democracy.The New Left was people who supported the ideas of the SDS. In 1964, students protested at the University of California Berkeley demanding a stop to the rules on student-ran political events. This protest eventually became known as the Free Speech Movement which led to students all over the country to protest against a variety of rules imposed by the university which included members of the opposite sex visiting dorms and drinking alcohol. They also demanded for student involvement in the decisions made by the university board.
With student protests going on, younger generations began rebelling against the traditional American styles.Hippies began to grow out beards and long hair, as well as wear jeans and beads. The youth began to listen to rock and roll music by popular bands that emerged during the time like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. The youth also began to become more promiscuous by engaging in more sexual activities as birth pills and other contraceptives became available to the public. A survey completed by Alfred Kinsey showed that divorces, homosexuality, and sex before marriage were becoming more common and common.
Economic Transformations and Globalization
After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, President Johnson stepped in and wanted to expand the forms of the New Deal. President Johnson convinced Congress to pass an extended form of the civil rights bill and an income tax cut that was earlier passed under Kennedy’s administration. The enactment of the income tax cut provided more jobs for the American public, more spending in consumer goods, and a long term expansion in the economy during the 1960s.In 1962, author Michael Harrington’s book The Other America became a best-selling book. The book emphasized the staggering amount of 40 million Americans living in poverty. In 1964, as a response to the amount of poverty in the United States, President Johnson launched the war on poverty. President Johnson asked Congress to create an Office of Economic Opportunity which focused on setting up programs for the poor like Head Start which provided education for preschoolers. Congress set aside a one billion dollar budget for the Office of Economic Opportunity to sponsor more programs that will aid in goal of decreasing poverty. The establishment of the Community Action Program gave jobs to the poor to set up their own programs that aids in decreasing poverty in their own neighborhoods.
Environment
In 1965, President Johnson encouraged Congress to pass the Immigration Act of 1965. The immigration act called for a change in policy directed at non-Europeans. Based on information of the Office of Economic Opportunity, immigrants from Europe made up for about 60 percent of the foreign population during the time. Between the years of 1965 and 1970, the amount of immigrants doubled in the United States. The Immigration Act of 1965 also increased opportunities for Latin Americans and Asians to enter the United States as immigrants. In 1965, author Ralph Nader published his book Unsafe at Any Speed. As a response, Congress passed acts to help regulate the driving industry and as a response to the publication of Rachel Carson’s depiction of pesticides in her book Silent Spring, Congress passed laws to keep the air clean and to keep the water pure.
Politics and Citizenship
Between 1965 and 1966, President Johnson launched his Great Society reforms in which would establish a permanent effect on the United States society. President Johnson’s Great Society reforms included: health insurance for people 65 and older (Medicare), government supported health care for disabled people and the poor (Medicaid), an establishment of the National Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities which provided government funding for “creative and scholarly” projects, the passage of an Elementary and Secondary Education Act which provided government aid to school districts that lacked money, more funding for education, more funding for public housing, more funding to reduce crime rates, an immigration law that would abolish quotas that discriminated people based on their national roots, and the addition of two cabinet departments known as the Department of Transportation and the Department of Housing and Urban Development.
During President Johnson’s presidency, Earl Warren was the chief justice of the Supreme Court. In the case of Escobedo v. Illinois in 1964, Chief Justice Warren ruled that polices have to tell a person who has been arrested that he or she has the right to not talk. In 1966, the Miranda v. Arizona case used the ruling that was made in the Escobedo v. Illinois case. In the Miranda v. Arizona case, Chief Justice Warren added onto the ruling that a person has the right to not talk that a person also had the right to have a lawyer with him or her while being interviewed by the police.
Slavery and its legacies in North America
President Johnson was an avid supporter of civil rights for African Americans. Even before President Johnson was elected president, Johnson helped African Americans by persuading the Republicans and Democrats in Congress to ratify the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which made segregation in public buildings (restaurants, hotel, etc.) illegal. The Act also gave more power to the federal government, so that they can enforce desegregation. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 paved the way for the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission to be established. The commission’s purpose was to stop people from racial discrimination in jobs. The same year, the twenty-fourth amendment was passed which eliminated the activity of gathering a voting tax which had been an activity that stopped people from the lower classes from voting since they were unable to afford it. In 1964, a violent riot broke out in Selma, Alabama. The protest was led by Martin Luther King Jr. and as a result of the violenceexperienced; Congress enacted the Voting Rights Act of 1965. The act stopped literacy tests from being given and sent federal employees to supervise in regions where African Americans would vote.
War and Diplomacy
The Vietnam War was initially headed by President Kennedy and later President Lyndon Johnson.President Johnson entered the war just as South Vietnam began to internally fall apart. South Vietnam had a massive amount of seven different kinds of governments. Republican Goldwater attacked Johnson’s cabinet for not supporting the efforts of South Vietnam trying to defeat North Vietnam or the communists. In the month of August of 1964, President Johnson and Congress used the naval conflict that occurred in the Gulf of Tonkin (near the coast of Vietnam) to establish American forces entering the warzone. Since North Vietnam had sent boats to shoot at United States warships, President Johnson convinced Congress to help him send American troops. As a result, Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution. The resolution made President Johnson the chief of the war and gave President Johnson the power to make any actions necessary to protect the United States and its allies against Northern Vietnam. However, some declared the enforcement of sending out American troops to Vietnam was illegal because Congress did not follow the rules of the Constitution by never officially declaring war against Vietnam.