Lyndon B Johnson And The Great Society

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Lyndon B. Johnson and The Great Society
Lyndon Baines Johnson introduced the Great Society during his state of the union address in 1965 in a poetic way. He spoke of it as a destination that the American people would work toward. It gave many Americans hope and faith in a better world after feeling so much pain after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. Americans supported the change and moving forward as a nation.
The Great Society was a proposed plan of actions to benefit the American people. Lyndon B. Johnson created the Great Society in a utopian fashion that proposed programs concerning the cities, the environment and education which in return brought modern liberalism into turmoil and broadened the administrative state. Taking office …show more content…
(Andrew, 1998) Although, Civil Rights were a subject of interest throughout Johnson’s political career. Many people have questioned his sincerity on the topic since he grew up in the confederate south where many Caucasian people were so much against it. Although. Lyndon did not believe that forced segregation should be a law because he believed that every state is different and should deal with it on their own terms. The problem kept presenting itself further as more riots came about causing white resistance nationwide. African Americans soon began using civil rights incorrectly also by using racism and becoming harmful to other races. Lyndon B. Johnson still saw a group of people who were hurting for equal rights even though the idea was not popular nationwide. Johnson enforced non-discriminatory practices at the federal level and appointed African Americans to higher offices to show how passionately he felt on the subject. Johnson’s last straw was the bombing of an African American church in Birmingham by a Klansman who killed four young people. Lyndon Johnson commented of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 saying, “This bill is going to be enacted because justice and morality depend on it.” (Barbour, 2001) The time had come for change and Civil Rights was one of the many things that the Great Society entailed.
Another part of the Great Society that Johnson promised …show more content…
Johnson was the 36th president of the United States with ambitious plans for his own version of a Great Society. Through the programs he put into place, he caught the short term admiration of the American people but soon lost it. Through his lack of planning ahead and poor communication, the Great Society began to fail. The intentions behind the Great Society were well intended but not well thought through. The amount of welfare created crippled the nation by losing the pride in your own work mentality and creating government dependence on a whole new level. Also, the failure of the funding after the war broke out was something that should have been taken into account. With the right timing and plan, the Great Society could have had a much better outcome but due to the circumstances, it was not a good idea for the United
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