Who Was LBJ?Lyndon Baines Johnson is the 36th President of the United States. He was born on August 27, 1908 near Stonewall, Texas in a small farmhouse. When he was young, he was described as awkward yet very talkative. He went to Southwest Texas State Teachers College in 1924 and participated in debate, campus politics, and edited the school newspaper.
Throughout the 1930s, he began making political connections. In 1937, he ran for the U.S. House of Reps in Texas and won. He became a key ally with then President Franklin D. Roosevelt. Then in 1940, he was appointed Lieutenant Commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve. When the U.S. entered WWII, he was assigned to inspect the conditions of war and report back to President Roosevelt. He would never forget doing this. In 1948, he ran for U.S. Senate in Texas and won, narrowly. Within a few years, he became the Senate Democratic Leader. He briefly ran in the 1960 presidential election, but dropped out soon after. JFK then asked him to be his running mate. JFK was assassinated on November 22, 1963 and LBJ immediately took over as president, continuing many of the plans that had already begun under JFK. |
Civil & Voting Rights Acts
For about a century since the end of the Civil War, black rights had continued to be suppressed. JFK made it a cause to end this suppression. When LBJ took office, he continued this fight and made the most historic civil rights acts in American history.
In 1964, Johnson signed the Civil Rights Acts which banned segregation in public places. Martin Luther King Jr. would call these acts a, "second emancipation". In 1965, Johnson signed the Voting Right Acts which enforced the 15th Amendment, which was supposed to allow anyone to vote, no matter what their skin color was. This banned the Literacy Test. |
Escalation in the Vietnam War
When Johnson took office, he vowed to help Southern Vietnam defeat communist North Vietnam. When that wasn’t working, he began to escalate the US commitments.
Many operations failed, so Johnson called for even more US involvement. US involvement was extremely controversial back at home, forcing hundreds of thousands of young people overseas to fight in a war many believed was wrong. During Johnson's presidency, the number of troops in Vietnam would increase by 535,000. The photo to the right perfectly represents the disaster of the Vietnam War. Pictured is Johnson sitting alone at a desk appearing to be crying. There is a tape machine being played which is Johnson's son in law. He was deployed in Vietnam and was asked by the President to report back to him on the conditions of war. |
Works Cited
- CC BY-SA, "President Lyndon B. Johnson shakes hands with crowd members", Courtesy of Yoichi Okamoto on Wikimedia Commons
- Biography.com Editors. “Lyndon B. Johnson.” Lyndon B. Johnson Biography, A&E Networks Television, 6 Nov. 2017.
- Germany, Kent. “Lyndon B. Johnson: Foreign Affairs.” Miller Center, University of Virginia, 18 July 2017.
- History.com Editors. “Civil Rights Act of 1964.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 4 Jan. 2010.
- History.com Editors. “Great Society.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 17 Nov. 2017.
- “Lyndon B. Johnson - Key Events.” Miller Center, 13 Aug. 2018.
Created by Gavin Zawacki, 2018