Harry+A.+-+LBJ+-+FA09

=Presidential Wiki Assignments For AP US History= If given a grade for his presidential performance, Lyndon B. Johnson would earn an A from the liberals and closer to an F from conservatives. In my opinion, LBJ should be ranked at a solid B. His policies on education and civil rights should overshadow his handling of the Vietnam War. His presidency was shaped by a tsunami of public opinion concerning a classic rift between the powers of States vs. Federal government. In spite of the clear mandates concerning equal rights and opportunities for all citizens regardless of race, creed, gender, etc. individual states continued to permit and even enforce discrimination. In a sweeping move, Johnson passed legislation that insisted civil rights be protected. As a former teacher, it was natural that he would believe education was the key to the changes that the country needed, and in that regard his legislation addressing education provided mandates that were enforced by the threat of loosing federal funding for noncompliance. President Johnson’s presidency was shaped by the times, and, to quote Bob Dylan, the sentiment of the day was “The times, they are a changin’”: Come senators, congressmen Please heed the call Don't stand in the doorway Don't block up the hall For he that gets hurt Will be he who has stalled There's a battle outside And it is ragin'. It'll soon shake your windows And rattle your walls For the times they are a-changin'. (Dylan). As musician and poet Bob Dylan explained, the order was rapidly “fadin’” and the last would be first and the first last, meaning the old way of viewing the world with rules and blind faith and obedience placed in the leaders was not lasting because of disillusionment caused by poverty and promises of equality that had taken too long to be fulfilled. There was a generation of young people who had the numbers and voice and who were sufficiently harmed by the old order to rise up and demand change. Sadly for President Johnson, all his efforts to make America a better place through a social order that did bring consequences to those who were still unable or unwilling to accept minorities as equals and his efforts toward cleaning up and keeping the United States a place where all could live in relative prosperity (for example his war against poverty and efforts toward funding education) was overshadowed by the strife of the Vietnam War and the rift of the races that had been tearing at the country since its birth. In the South, Jim Crow Laws were still enforced. Blacks and whites still had separate entrances to public places, they couldn’t sit together on busses or in movie theaters, they couldn’t use the same public water fountains and were unable to live without fear of the either rational or irrational beliefs that young black men would rape their daughters or whites would lynch or beat or burn out negro homes as vigilante justice for real or imagined acts. There were literacy tests administered to voters, which had the bottom line effect of keeping African Americans off voter lists. Times such as these required change. It was the young people who didn’t believe in the cause of the Vietnam War who were being drafted who rose up and demanded that change. It was the youth who organized marches and rallied the people through war songs and demonstrations. Sit-ins and passive resistance turned into riots at college campuses and armed slaughtering of students by police (Kent State), and ultimately to a protest so strong that it forced President Johnson into pulling out of the Vietnam War and deciding to not run for another terms as President. Not unlike several other presidents, Lyndon B. Johnson became president when President John F. Kennedy was assassinated. He continued Kennedy’s plans for a involved citizens and wanted the whole world to join with the United States in reaching the goals of fighting against “the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.” (Kennedy), but was able to do so in a less politically polarized way than the charismatic and young Kennedy. Johnson pushed through quite a bit of legislation aimed at reducing or eliminating poverty in the US and elevating the quality of education, which he viewed as a tool to the elimination of poverty and injustice. He worked toward gaining civil rights for all, but the efforts of any leader during the time would have been nearly impossible. To the day when he announced troop withdrawals he was still claiming that the United States was in the war to as a force with international responsibilities to aid in the democratic ideals for all nations. President Kennedy was well known for his social policy that embodies a doctrine of giving. He asked that we all ask not what our country could do for us but what we could do for our country. Johnson’s elaboration of that theme was to ask not how much but “how good; not only to create wealth but how to use it; not only how fast we are going, but where we are headed.” (Johnson, State of Union Address). His Great Society was a series of legislation that push civil rights, public broadcasting, Medicare, Medicaid, education and an end to poverty. Johnson was the first president to appoint an African American to the Supreme Court. Thurgood Marshall, a great grandson of a slave was appointed on June 13, 1967. In his war against poverty, Johnson didn’t just give the poor money, but instituted programs such as job build and established Head Start programs where preschool children could be reached and given an opportunity to be more like the experiences of children who were not poor. There was a bi lingual act, which permitted funding to go to school to promote better communication with children whose primary language was not English. In 1965, the passage of the Social Security Act Amendments, popularly known as Medicare, resulted in a basic program of hospital insurance for persons aged 65 and older, and a supplementary medical insurance program to aid the elderly in paying doctor bills and other health care bills. It was funded by a tax on the earnings of employees, matched by contributions by employers (Social Security Act Amendments) Johnson signed laws that created the National Endowment for the Arts and the separate National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) (NEA) which encouraged appreciation and understanding of the arts and humanities. Johnson was able to get his agenda passed, but it is said that he was a domineering and strong personality who “twisted arms” in order to get his way. He was a hands-on leader and didn’t use a Chief of Staff to organize his contacts (Wiki). Described as being “ obsessed with his place in history, consumed by a voracious appetite for life, and often cast between emotional extremes” (Bahles). Lyndon B. Johnson’s goals were summed up in his State of the Union Address of January 8, 1964: code Let this session of Congress be known as the session which did more for code code civil rights than the last hundred sessions combined; as the session which code code enacted the most far-reaching tax cut of our time; as the session which code code declared all-out war on human poverty and unemployment in these United code code States; as the session which finally recognized the health needs of all our code code older citizens; as the session which reformed our tangled transportation code code and transit policies; as the session which achieved the most effective, code code efficient foreign aid program ever; and as the session which helped to code code build more homes, more schools, more libraries, and more hospitals than any code code single session of Congress in the history of our Republic. code (Johnson). Johnson’s tax cuts, transportation and transit and foreign aid goals were overshadowed by his foreign war in Vietnam and the issues related to the elimination of domestic discrimination and poverty. Although his was a rough road, the passage of laws to support the war on poverty and equal protection of all citizens was a tremendous feat demonstrating his strong connections with Congress. Johnson’s Civil Rights Act of 1964 made promises “ To enforce the constitutional right to vote, to confer jurisdiction upon the district courts of the United States to provide injunctive relief against discrimination in public accommodations, to authorize the Attorney General to institute suits to protect constitutional rights in public facilities and public education, to extend the Commission on Civil Rights, to prevent discrimination in federally assisted programs, to establish a Commission on Equal Employment Opportunity, and for other purposes.” The conservative reaction to this law was embodied by George Wallace who declared his bid for presidency based on a “we’ve had enough” platform that denounced this legislation as a fraud: -- it is not a Civil Rights Bill. It is a Federal Penal Code. It creates Federal crimes which would take volumes to list and years to tabulate because it affects the lives of 192 million American citizens. Every person in every walk and station of life and every aspect of our daily lives becomes subject to the criminal provisions of this bill. It threatens our freedom of speech, of assembly, or association, and makes the exercise of these Freedoms a federal crime under certain conditions. It affects our political rights, our right to trial by jury, our right to the full use and enjoyment of our private property, the freedom from search and seizure of our private property and possessions, the freedom from harassment by Federal police and, in short, all the rights of individuals inherent in a society of free men. (Wallace). Wallace summed up the laws as “designed to make Federal crimes of our customs, beliefs, and traditions.” Johnson took those customs, beliefs and traditions to task and made them illegal if they breeched the fundamental civil rights protected by the Constitution. This was a bold step that caused a backlash. Wallace embodied this conservative backlash that believed the Johnson initiatives intruded too far into American individual freedoms. It would be hard to say which of his social initiatives had the most lasting impact on our world today. The idea of no Medicare or Medicaid for our huge elderly population is staggering. Many people depend on their Medicare income to live and sadly spend most or all of it on prescription drugs to stay alive. The idea of no safety net such as that is unthinkable. With the cost of a simple heart attack over $100,000, few elderly would afford medical care without the help of this system. At Central we are still intensely focused on diversity and making sure the rights of those who have English as a second language or of color are treated in the same way as English speaking whites are given opportunities. If these laws were never implemented, or if the States were given the ability to ignore the Federal mandates, our world would be so different. Separate but equal might be the creed we live by instead of all men equal. The country was in a better place at the end of his administration than at the beginning. He started during a time when a charismatic and young president who represented change and hope had just been assassinated. Johnson brought much of the change that voters had hoped for when they elected John F. Kennedy, and was embraced by the people until the war and backlash from the strong new policies forced him to decide to leave the public arena. His was the administration where the tension and passions of the goals of the Constitution for equality finally came to a boiling point. The eruption that followed was managed and in the end, less than fifty years later, we have elected an African American president. Without the bold policies and harsh consequences to ensure change, such progress would not have been likely. Bibliography Bahles, Gerald L. Miller Center of Public Affairs. University of Virginia. Impact and Legacy.(15 Dec 2009) . Dylan, Bob. //The Times They Are A-Changin'// ©1963 (5 Dec 2009) < http://www.bobdylan.com/#/songs/times-they-are-changin>. Johnson, Lyndon B. //State of the Union Address of January 8, 1964//. (10 Dec 2009) <[]>. Johnson, Lyndon B. //State of the Union Address, 1965//. (15 Dec 2009) <http://hnn.us/articles/1233.html>. Johnson, Lyndon B. (15 Dec 2009) < []>. Kennedy, John F. //The Inaugural Address of John F. Kennedy//, January 20, 1961.(15 Dec. 2009) < http://avalon.law.yale.edu/20th_century/kennedy.asp>. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman";">The Presidents. Lyndon B. Johnson. PBS: American Experience Series. (15 Dec 2009) < []>. <span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 150%; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-font-size: 13.0pt;">Wallace, George C. // A Segregationist's View of the Civil Rights Movement, 1964 // // The Civil Rights Movement: Fraud, Sham, and Hoax. // July 4, 1964. (5 Dec 2009) < [] >.
 * President’s full name ** : Lyndon Baines Johnson : August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973
 * Political party ** of the president Democratic
 * Terms of office ** : November 22, 1963 – January 20, 1969
 * Vice President ** by term: // None // (1963-1965) ; [|Hubert Humphrey] (1965–1969)