How Did Lbj Great Society Impact Arts and Media

Learning Objectives

By the cease of this section, y'all will be able to:

• Describe the major accomplishments of Lyndon Johnson's Smashing Social club
• Identify the legal advances made in the area of ceremonious rights
• Explain how Lyndon Johnson deepened the American delivery in Vietnam

On November 27, 1963, a few days after taking the adjuration of role, President Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress and vowed to attain the goals that John F. Kennedy had set and to expand the role of the federal regime in securing economic opportunity and civil rights for all. Johnson brought to his presidency a vision of a Dandy Society in which everyone could share in the opportunities for a ameliorate life that the The states offered, and in which the words "liberty and justice for all" would have existent pregnant.

THE Bang-up SOCIETY

In May 1964, in a oral communication at the University of Michigan, Lyndon Johnson described in detail his vision of the Great Lodge he planned to create. When the Eighty-Ninth Congress convened the post-obit January, he and his supporters began their attempt to turn the promise into reality. By combatting racial bigotry and attempting to eliminate poverty, the reforms of the Johnson administration inverse the nation.

In a spoken language at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor on May 22, 1964 (a), President Johnson announced some of his goals for the Neat Guild. These included rebuilding cities, preserving the natural environment, and improving education. Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Educational activity Human activity in his hometown of Johnson Urban center, Texas, alongside his childhood schoolteacher, Kate Deadrich Loney (b). (credit a: modification of piece of work by Cecil Stoughton)

One of the chief pieces of legislation that Congress passed in 1965 was the Elementary and Secondary Educational activity Act. Johnson, a onetime teacher, realized that a lack of teaching was the chief cause of poverty and other social problems. Educational reform was thus an important pillar of the society he hoped to build. This act provided increased federal funding to both elementary and secondary schools, allocating more than $one billion for the purchase of books and library materials, and the creation of educational programs for disadvantaged children. The Higher Teaching Act, signed into constabulary the same year, provided scholarships and depression-interest loans for the poor, increased federal funding for colleges and universities, and created a corps of teachers to serve schools in impoverished areas.

Instruction was not the only area toward which Johnson directed his attention. Consumer protection laws were also passed that improved the safety of meat and poultry, placed warning labels on cigarette packages, required "truth in lending" past creditors, and set condom standards for motor vehicles. Funds were provided to improve public transportation and to fund high-speed mass transit. To protect the environment, the Johnson administration created laws protecting air and water quality, regulating the disposal of solid waste product, preserving wilderness areas, and protecting endangered species. All of these laws fit within Johnson's plan to brand the United States a better identify to live. Mayhap influenced past Kennedy'due south delivery to the arts, Johnson also signed legislation creating the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities, which provided funding for artists and scholars. The Public Broadcasting Act of 1967 authorized the creation of the private, not-for-profit Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which helped launch the Public Dissemination Service (PBS) and National Public Radio (NPR) in 1970.

In 1965, the Johnson administration also encouraged Congress to pass the Immigration and Nationality Deed, which essentially overturned legislation from the 1920s that had favored immigrants from western and northern Europe over those from eastern and southern Europe. The law lifted severe restrictions on immigration from Asia and gave preference to immigrants with family ties in the U.s. and immigrants with desirable skills. Although the measure seemed less pregnant than many of the other legislative victories of the Johnson administration at the fourth dimension, it opened the door for a new era in clearing and fabricated possible the formation of Asian and Latin American immigrant communities in the post-obit decades.

While these laws touched on of import aspects of the Great Society, the centerpiece of Johnson's plan was the eradication of poverty in the U.s.. The state of war on poverty, as he termed it, was fought on many fronts. The 1965 Housing and Urban Development Human activity offered grants to improve urban center housing and subsidized rents for the poor. The Model Cities programme as well provided coin for urban development projects and the building of public housing.

The Economic Opportunity Act (EOA) of 1964 established and funded a variety of programs to aid the poor in finding jobs. The Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO), get-go administered past President Kennedy's blood brother-in-law Sargent Shriver, coordinated programs such as the Jobs Corps and the Neighborhood Youth Corps, which provided job grooming programs and piece of work experience for the disadvantaged. Volunteers in Service to America recruited people to offer educational programs and other customs services in poor areas, merely equally the Peace Corps did abroad. The Community Activeness Program, also under the OEO, funded local Community Activeness Agencies, organizations created and managed by residents of disadvantaged communities to amend their own lives and those of their neighbors. The Head Start program, intended to fix low-income children for simple schoolhouse, was also nether the OEO until information technology was transferred to Department of Health, Education, and Welfare in 1969.

President Johnson visits a poor family in Appalachia in 1964. Government initiatives designed to combat poverty helped rural communities like this 1 past providing low-interest loans and housing. (credit: Cecil Stoughton)

The EOA fought rural poverty by providing low-interest loans to those wishing to meliorate their farms or commencement businesses. EOA funds were also used to provide housing and education for migrant subcontract workers. Other legislation created jobs in Appalachia, ane of the poorest regions in the Usa, and brought programs to Indian reservations. One of EOA'southward successes was the Rough Rock Demonstration School on the Navajo Reservation that, while respecting Navajo traditions and culture, also trained people for careers and jobs outside the reservation.

The Johnson administration, realizing the nation's elderly were among its poorest and most disadvantaged citizens, passed the Social Security Deed of 1965. The most profound alter made by this act was the cosmos of Medicare, a plan to pay the medical expenses of those over sixty-v. Although opposed by the American Medical Association, which feared the creation of a national healthcare organisation, the new program was supported by most citizens considering it would benefit all social classes, non only the poor. The human activity and subsequent amendments to it besides provided coverage for self-employed people in certain occupations and expanded the number of disabled who qualified for benefits. The following twelvemonth, the Medicaid program allotted federal funds to pay for medical care for the poor.

JOHNSON'S COMMITMENT TO CIVIL RIGHTS

The eradication of poverty was matched in importance by the Neat Society'southward advancement of ceremonious rights. Indeed, the condition of the poor could not be alleviated if racial bigotry express their access to jobs, teaching, and housing. Realizing this, Johnson drove the long-awaited civil rights act, proposed by Kennedy in June 1963 in the wake of riots at the University of Alabama, through Congress. Under Kennedy's leadership, the bill had passed the House of Representatives but was stalled in the Senate by a filibuster. Johnson, a master politician, marshaled his considerable personal influence and memories of his fallen predecessor to break the filibuster. The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the most far-reaching ceremonious rights human action yet passed by Congress, banned discrimination in public accommodations, sought to aid schools in efforts to desegregate, and prohibited federal funding of programs that permitted racial segregation. Further, information technology barred discrimination in employment on the basis of race, colour, national origin, religion, or gender, and established an Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

African American marchers in Selma, Alabama, were attacked past state law officers in 1965, and the resulting "Bloody Lord's day" helped create support for the civil rights move amidst northern whites. (credit: Library of Congress)

Protecting African Americans' right to vote was every bit important equally ending racial inequality in the U.s.a.. In January 1964, the Twenty-Quaternary Amendment, prohibiting the imposition of poll taxes on voters, was finally ratified. Poverty would no longer serve equally an obstacle to voting. Other impediments remained, withal. Attempts to register southern African American voters encountered white resistance, and protests confronting this interference oftentimes met with violence. On March 7, 1965, a planned protest march from Selma, Alabama, to the state capitol in Montgomery, turned into "Bloody Sunday" when marchers crossing the Edmund Pettus Span encountered a cordon of land police, wielding batons and tear gas. Images of white brutality appeared on television screens throughout the nation and in newspapers effectually the world.

Deeply disturbed past the violence in Alabama and the refusal of Governor George Wallace to address it, Johnson introduced a pecker in Congress that would remove obstacles for African American voters and lend federal support to their crusade. His proposal, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, prohibited states and local governments from passing laws that discriminated against voters on the basis of race. Literacy tests and other barriers to voting that had kept ethnic minorities from the polls were thus outlawed. Post-obit the passage of the act, a quarter of a million African Americans registered to vote, and by 1967, the bulk of African Americans had done so. Johnson's concluding piece of civil rights legislation was the Civil Rights Deed of 1968, which prohibited discrimination in housing on the basis of race, color, national origin, or faith.

The Voting Rights Act (a) was signed into law on August 6, 1965, in the presence of major figures of the ceremonious rights move, including Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King, Jr. (b).

INCREASED COMMITMENT IN VIETNAM

Building the Bang-up Society had been Lyndon Johnson's biggest priority, and he finer used his decades of feel in edifice legislative majorities in a style that ranged from diplomacy to quid pro quo deals to bullying. In the summer of 1964, he deployed these political skills to secure congressional approval for a new strategy in Vietnam—with fateful consequences.

President Johnson had never been the cold warrior Kennedy was, but believed that the credibility of the nation and his role depended on maintaining a foreign policy of containment. When, on August 2, the U.S. destroyer USS Maddox conducted an arguably provocative intelligence-gathering mission in the gulf of Tonkin, it reported an attack by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. Two days later, the Maddox was supposedly struck once more, and a second ship, the USS Turner Joy, reported that information technology also had been fired upon. The Due north Vietnamese denied the second attack, and Johnson himself doubted the reliability of the crews' report. The National Security Agency has since revealed that the August iv attacks did not occur. Relying on data available at the time, however, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara reported to Congress that U.S. ships had been fired upon in international waters while conducting routine operations. On August 10, with only 2 dissenting votes, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving President Johnson the authority to use military force in Vietnam without request Congress for a declaration of state of war. The resolution dramatically increased the ability of the U.S. president and transformed the American role in Vietnam from advisor to combatant.

In 1965, large-scale U.S. bombing of North Vietnam began. The intent of the campaign, which lasted iii years nether various names, was to force the North to end its support for the insurgency in the S. More than than 200,000 U.South. combat troops were also sent to South Vietnam. At first, nearly of the American public supported the president's actions in Vietnam. Support began to ebb, all the same, as more troops were deployed. Frustrated by losses suffered by the S'southward Army of the Commonwealth of Vietnam (ARVN), General William Westmoreland called for the United States to take more than responsibility for fighting the war. Past April 1966, more Americans were being killed in battle than ARVN troops. Johnson, even so, maintained that the war could be won if the United states stayed the form, and in November 1967, Westmoreland proclaimed the end was in sight.

To hear one soldier'south story nigh his time in Vietnam, mind to Sergeant Charles Chiliad. Richardson's recollections of his experience on the basis and his reflections on his military service.

Westmoreland'southward predictions were called into question, however, when in Jan 1968, the Northward Vietnamese launched their most aggressive assault on the South, deploying close to 80-five thousand troops. During the Tet Offensive, as these attacks were known, near i hundred cities in the South were attacked, including the uppercase of Saigon. In heavy fighting, U.S. and South Vietnamese forces recaptured all the points taken past the enemy.

During the 1968 Tet Offensive, North Vietnamese and South Communist rebel armies known as Viet Cong attacked South Vietnamese and U.S. targets throughout Vietnam (a), with Saigon every bit the focus (b). Tet, the lunar New year, was an important vacation in Vietnam and temporary ceasefires usually took place at this time. (credit a: modification of piece of work by Central Intelligence Agency)

Although North Vietnamese forces suffered far more than casualties than the roughly 40-one hundred U.Southward. soldiers killed, public opinion in the U.s., fueled by graphic images provided in unprecedented media coverage, turned against the war. Disastrous surprise attacks like the Tet Offensive persuaded many that the state of war would not be over presently and raised doubts almost whether Johnson's administration was telling the truth about the existent state of affairs. In May 1968, with over 400,000 U.S. soldiers in Vietnam, Johnson began peace talks with the North.

Information technology was too tardily to save Johnson himself, however. Many of the near outspoken critics of the war were Autonomous politicians whose opposition began to erode unity within the party. Minnesota senator Eugene McCarthy, who had chosen for an terminate to the war and the withdrawal of troops from Vietnam, received nearly as many votes in the New Hampshire presidential master equally Johnson did, even though he had been expected to fare very poorly. McCarthy's success in New Hampshire encouraged Robert Kennedy to announce his candidacy as well. Johnson, suffering health problems and realizing his actions in Vietnam had hurt his public standing, announced that he would not seek reelection and withdrew from the 1968 presidential race.

THE END OF THE GREAT SOCIETY

Perhaps the greatest prey of the nation's war in Vietnam was the Great Social club. Equally the war escalated, the money spent to fund it also increased, leaving less to pay for the many social programs Johnson had created to elevator Americans out of poverty. Johnson knew he could not attain his Great Gild while spending coin to wage the war. He was unwilling to withdraw from Vietnam, yet, for fearfulness that the globe would perceive this action as evidence of American failure and dubiousness the power of the United States to carry out its responsibilities as a superpower.

Vietnam doomed the Swell Society in other ways as well. Dreams of racial harmony suffered, as many African Americans, angered past the failure of Johnson'southward programs to alleviate severe poverty in the inner cities, rioted in frustration. Their acrimony was heightened past the fact that a disproportionate number of African Americans were fighting and dying in Vietnam. Nigh ii-thirds of eligible African Americans were drafted, whereas draft deferments for college, exemptions for skilled workers in the military industrial circuitous, and officer grooming programs immune white middle-class youth to either avoid the draft or volunteer for a armed forces branch of their choice. Equally a result, less than one-third of white men were drafted.

Although the Great Social club failed to eliminate suffering or increase ceremonious rights to the extent that Johnson wished, it made a meaning difference in people'due south lives. Past the end of Johnson's administration, the percentage of people living below the poverty line had been cut near in half. While more than people of color than whites continued to live in poverty, the percentage of poor African Americans had decreased dramatically. The creation of Medicare and Medicaid likewise as the expansion of Social Security benefits and welfare payments improved the lives of many, while increased federal funding for instruction enabled more people to attend college than e'er before. Conservative critics argued that, by expanding the responsibilities of the federal government to care for the poor, Johnson had hurt both taxpayers and the poor themselves. Aid to the poor, many maintained, would not only fail to solve the trouble of poverty just would also encourage people to become dependent on government "handouts" and lose their desire and ability to care for themselves—an argument that many found intuitively compelling but which lacked conclusive testify. These same critics also defendant Johnson of saddling the The states with a big debt as a upshot of the deficit spending (funded by borrowing) in which he had engaged.

Department Summary

Lyndon Johnson began his assistants with dreams of fulfilling his fallen predecessor'south civil rights initiative and accomplishing his ain plans to meliorate lives past eradicating poverty in the United States. His social programs, investments in education, support for the arts, and commitment to civil rights changed the lives of countless people and transformed society in many ways. However, Johnson's insistence on maintaining American commitments in Vietnam, a policy begun by his predecessors, hurt both his ability to realize his vision of the Nifty Society and his support among the American people.

Review Question

1. How did the deportment of the Johnson administration improve the lives of African Americans?

Answer to Review Question

1. The social programs of the Great Society, such equally Medicaid, chore training programs, and rent subsidies, helped many poor African Americans. All African American citizens were aided by the passage of the Ceremonious Rights Act of 1964, which concluded discrimination in employment and prohibited segregation in public accommodations; the Voting Rights Deed of 1965, which prohibited literacy tests and other racially discriminatory restrictions on voting; and the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which outlawed discrimination in housing.

Glossary

Great SocietyLyndon Johnson's plan to eliminate poverty and racial injustice in the Usa and to improve the lives of all Americans

state of war on povertyLyndon Johnson's plan to terminate poverty in the Unites States through the extension of federal benefits, job training programs, and funding for community development

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