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Lyndon B Johnson's Great Society Analysis

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The period of the 1960’s brought about a multitude of social and economic changes for Americans. This decade saw an increase in Cold War tensions as well as US involvement in the Vietnam War, while in the US, issues of civil rights and social tensions were prevalent and pressing. The President throughout much of this time was Lyndon B. Johnson. Johnson crafted his Great Society, a series of programs related to stopping racial injustice and providing aid to lower-class Americans in order to reduce poverty. These systems including an expanded health care system, public education, welfare, and laws banning segregation and assuring minority voting. Johnson’s Great Society was a response to the increasingly turbulent social, economic, and political …show more content…

As stated by Johnson himself, the Great Society plan “will give every American community the opportunity to develop a comprehensive plan to fight its own poverty—and help them carry out their plans,” similar to Roosevelt’s New Deal plan to combat the Great Depression (Document B). This meant that his plan would create the chance “for every child of every color to grow up in a nice house, to eat a solid breakfast, to attend a decent school, and to get a good and lasting job” (Document F). Bills such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 disallowed segregation and expanded voting rights for minorities, which displayed the Johnson administration’s response to the civil rights movement. Yet the biggest part of Great Society was Johnson’s War on Poverty, whose centerpiece was the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964. This act gave funding to poor or impoverished slums to increase community programs and schools, which would allow for an increase in education among poorer families, as well as the tools needed to attain a job. In addition, acts such as the Food Stamp Act of 1964 and multiple amendments to Social Security increased benefits of welfare to assist those in poverty or old-age. Johnson also massively increased funding for public education, which paid for school resources such as books and allowed schools to put more time into special education

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