Assignment:
Overview: 1964-1968
Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society
Exam Questions:
Evaluate Lyndon Johnson's Great Society reform program. Why was Johnson able to achieve so much more than his predecessors? Why did his reforms come to a sudden halt?
I. Review and Background:
1. Postwar America to 1963
- The Cold War and reform
- The Red Scare and reform
*Greatest reforms, 1945-1963
* Greatest civil rights accomplishments, 1945-1963
2. What is the Great Society?
- Lyndon Johnson's Reform Program
- Last great reform program in US history
- Most expansive reform program in US history-civil rights, anti-poverty, education, environment, infrastructure, health care, arts and humanities
II. The Great Society and Civil Rights:
1. The Great Society and the 1964 Civil Rights Act
- Forbids discrimination in federally funded programs and public facilities
- Establishes a permanent Equal Employment Opportunities Commission
- Severe penalties for violating the law
- School segregation falls from 90 to 25%(1965-1972)
2. The Great Society and the 1965 Voting Rights Act
- SCLS, SNCC and March 1965 Selma to Montgomery March
- Federal officials to register voters and supervise elections
- Prohibits literacy test, good character clause, need to be vouched for, etc.
- Voter registration, voting, and elected officials
3. The Great Society and the 1968 Fair Housing Act
- NAACP and Dr. King's death
- Forbids discrimination in sale, rental, advertising, etc. based on race, national origins, religion.
4. Why is Johnson so successful?
- Southerner and a true believer
- Experienced and the greatest politician of the century?
- Johnson's America is ready for change
III. The Great Society and the War on Poverty, 1964:
1. Program
* 1964 Economic Opportunity Act creates...
- Job Corps-vocational training
- VISTA(Volunteers to Service in America/ Domestic Peace Corps)
- Head Start-basic skills training for preschoolers
- Upward Bound-help for low income and first-generation students so that they can enter and succeed in college
* Resurrects Food Stamp Program
2. Why so successful?
- US affluence- America is ready
- US Poverty, Michael Harrington, and The Other America(1962)
- LBJ, poverty, and 3rd life lesson
- Reform on the cheap
IV. The Heyday of the Great Society, 1965-1968:
1. Why so successful?
- 1964 Reform Vision
- 1964 election- Barry Goldwater versus Lyndon Johnson and landslide
***What do the American people want?
2. Great Society and Urban America
- Housing and Urban Development Act(1965) provides low interest loans for community projects and public housing
- Model Cities Act (1966) provides 1.2 billion for urban renewal
- Urban Mass Transit Act provided money for subways, buses
*** Who is most helped by these reforms?
3. Great Society and Rural America
- 1965 Appalachian Regional Development Act-1.1 billion. Money spent on health care, transportation, and education. Permanent
*** Who is most helped by these reforms?
4. The Great Society and the Environment
- Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1963)
- Wilderness Act Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (preservation)
- Water Quality Act and the Clean Air Quality Act(standards)
*** Who is most helped by these reforms?
5. Great Society and Education
- Education Elementary and Secondary Schools Act (1965) 1billion for poor districts and costly programs.
- Higher Education Act creates the program of federal student loans, work study and grants.
*** Who is most helped by these reforms?
6. Great Society and Health Care
- Medicare -Provides health insurance to those 65 and over
- Medicaid -Federal government provides grants to provide medical care for the poor
- To ensure enough doctors and nurses the government also provides money to build more nursing and medical schools
*** Who is most helped by these reforms?
7. Great Society and Culture
- Establishes the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the Public Broadcasting System
*** Who is most helped by these reforms?
8. The Great Society and Immigration
- Immigration Act of 1965-Ends the quota system that had been in place since 1924
IV. Why Does Reform Stop?
1. 1960s "Radicalism"
- From the Students for a Democratic Society and to the Counterculture
- From SNCC to the Black Panthers
2. 1967 "The Long Hot Summer" and the 1968 Kerner Report
-1964-1966 prelude
- Primarily Northern
- Kerner Commission, white racism, and African American poverty
3. Vietnam and the 1968 Tet Offensive
- USA and Vietnam, 1945-1963
* Johnson Americanizes the War, 1964
- 1965-1968 US increases bombing and ground troops
* 1968
- Pre-Tet reports
- Tet January 1968
- March 1968 Johnson announces he will not run for reelection
Review the following videos:
- YouTube Video: Lecture 15 by Sidney Pash
- YouTube Video: lecture 16 by Sidney Pash
- YouTube Video: LBJ Documentary "The Great Society"
Write a one page lecture with reference page. I have attached what the lecture supposed to look like. Need Assignment Help?
Lecture Summary Sample:
I chose to summarize this week's lecture on the Cold War. I learned that the U.S. and their Western allies won the Cold War because they patiently abided by the doctrine of containment and were able to avoid military conflict with the Soviet Union.
The Cold War's origins begin around/after WW2. President Roosevelt, whom Stalin had good working relations with, died shortly before WW2 officially ended, and many of Roosevelt's advisors le". This put inexperienced leaders in charge of America and made a Cold War more likely. However, the Soviet Union and the USA had come together mainly over a common enemy during WW2: Germany. When Germany was defeated, they fell back into old fears and suspicions toward each other. By the middle of 1946, a full-blown Cold War was happening.
In terms of strengths and weaknesses, the West had better government than the East. The West also had better wealth and industry, as the only industrial power in the East was Russia. The Soviets had a slight edge in science and won the first few rounds of the space race, but the West also did well with science. The East won in population. However, the Soviets lost the population advantage in the 1960's because of the Sino-Soviet split when China and the Soviet Union, previously allies, turned against each other. The military power was a draw. The Soviets had a strong army because of their size and proximity to contested areas, but the U.S. Navy dominated the seas. The Soviet Union had an advantage in so" power because the U.S. still struggled with things like segregation and colonization. However, the West dominated in history.
Given the West's edge over the East, American diplomat George Kennan came up with the doctrine of containment, a blueprint for the West to win the Cold War. His doctrine said that to win, the U.S. must patiently contain the Soviet Union and stop it from spreading. To do this, the U.S. would play to its strengths: money, alliances, and military power. His other requirement was that the U.S. must not push the Soviet Union out of any territory they already controlled, as this could likely start a real war. Kennan believed if the U.S. could do this and stay out of any military conflict, then the Soviet Union would be less of a threat and eventually collapse.
From 1947 to 1956, the foundation for containment was laid. President Truman gave a speech known as the Truman Doctrine, saying the U.S. must help protect nations from falling to the Soviet Union. To do this, congress approved military and economic aid for countries threatened by communist forces, giving 400 million to protect Greece and Turkey. When the Soviets tried to cut off all roads and railroads leading to Berlin to push the West out, the U.S. and Great Britain stopped them with the Berlin Airlift, flying supplies to the citizens of Berlin instead. Congress also approved The Marshall Plan, which spent 13 billion dollars on nations to help them recover and strengthen after WW2. This led the U.S. to take control in forming NATO, a military alliance with almost all the countries receiving aid from the Marshall Plan. The U.S. also took the lead in creating a democratic West Germany and incorporating it into NATO. In 1955, the Soviet Union created something similar to NATO, the Warsaw Pact with their countries. However, the difference between NATO and the Warsaw Pact was that countries could leave NATO if they wanted, but countries in the Warsaw Pact could not. When Hungary tried to leave, the Soviets invaded them, and though Hungary asked for the U.S. to help, the U.S. refused because of containment. They feared if they interfered with territory the Soviet Union already controlled, they would start a war.
From 1957 to 1979, diplomatic relations really helped keep military conflict from happening between the East and West. The Soviet-American Summits had U.S. presidents and Soviet leaders meeting to resolve tensions and create diplomatic agreements. However, there were some close calls. In 1962, the U.S. found out the Soviet Union was placing nuclear missiles in Cuba. Kennedy adhered to containment and ordered a naval blockade of Cuba, playing to the U.S.'s strengths and avoiding an invasion. The Soviet ships turned back because they didn't want to fight either. It was the diplomatic relations developed at The Summits that helped diffuse the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Vietnam War also caused a scare. Under President Kennedy, many advisors were sent to South Vietnam to help them resist a communist rebellion supported by North Vietnam, Russia's ally. The advisors weren't successful, so President Johnson sent troops to Vietnam. It was a long, bloody war, with U.S. troops not being fully removed until 1973.
In the final years of the Cold War, the Soviet Union finally got worn down, as Kennan predicted. In 1979, the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to fight an insurgency for close to a decade, while America supplied these rebels. This was draining for the East. The final straw for Russia was when Mikhail Gorbachev took power. He instituted the perestroika reform. Under this, the government began to withdraw its subsidies from industries, and it introduced things like private ownership and incentives, but these things produced short-term pain. The second reform was glasnost, which gave Soviet citizens more freedom to voice their feelings about their government. This unleashed a huge amount of criticism of Gorbachev and communism. Gorbachev's final reform was the repeal of the Brezhnev Doctrine. This was issued in 1968 and said that countries could not leave the Soviet alliance or the Warsaw Pact. Once Gorbachev repealed it, the Warsaw Pact alliance fell apart. The German people began tearing down the Berlin Wall, and one by one, every country in the Soviet Union le". By 1991, the Soviet Union had dissolved.