The Johnson Years APUSH

1964 Candidates Lyndon B. JohnsonBarry Goldwater commercials/1964

1964 Election

The Great Society The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning. The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents. It is a place where leisure is a welcome chance to build and reflect, not a feared cause of boredom and restlessness. It is a place where the city of man serves not only the needs of the body and the demands of commerce but the desire for beauty and the hunger for community. It is a place where man can renew contact with nature. It is a place which honors creation for its own sake and for what it adds to the understanding of the race. It is a place where men are more concerned with the quality of their goals than the quantity of their goods. But most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor.

An American Profile: Life Expectancy

An American Profile: Infant Mortality

An American Profile: Poverty Spurred by books like Michael Harrington’s The Other America, American awareness of the problems of poverty greatly increased. LBJ called for “an unconditional war on poverty.”

American Poverty

The Great Society Johnson established the Office of Economic Opportunity to lead the war on poverty. The Job Corps failed, but agencies focusing on education were more successful. Community Action Agencies threatened to become a new political force that challenged those in power. The Legal Service Program and Head Start made differences in the lives of the poor. The Great Society was opposed to income redistribution. Most social spending went to the nonpoor through Medicare. A 1970 study concluded the war on poverty had barely scratched the surface.

Great Society Programs Categories –Poverty –Cities –Education –Discrimination –Environment –Consumer Advocacy Programs –Head Start, Medicare, and Medicaid –Housing and Urban Development (HUD) –Elementary/Secondary Education Act –National Foundation for the Arts –Public Broadcasting –Civil Rights Act

Warren Court Decisions Chief Justice – Earl Warren Key Decisions: –Brown v. Bd. Of Ed –Banned prayer in public schools –Expanded free speech Tinker v. Des Moines Schools –Enforced equal representation Reapportionment – “one person = one vote”

Warren Court Decisions Expanded the rights of the accused –Mapp v. Ohio = exclusionary rule (evidence must be obtained legally) –Gideon v. Wainwright = free legal counsel to those who could not afford it –Escobedo v. Illinois = lawyer present during questioning –Miranda v. Arizona = suspects must be “read their rights” before questioning