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Restless Society- LBJ

Added Mar 25, 2013 •

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by the late 1950s I'm home restlessness look beneath the surface of American society anxiety America's position in the world growing pressure from African-Americans an ottoman or an increasing visibility of poverty are beginning to shake the nation's confidence the new decade begins with a tightly contested presidential race 1960 on the Democrats were trying to choose candidates to face Richard Nixon the vice president many people thought that Johnson would just inherit he was the leading Democrat the Democratic nomination Kennedy was out there on the campaign Trail and assembled so many votes in those early primaries that of course he became the presidential something stunning happen I think more out of politeness than anything else because Johnson had been both his major rival and was the leading Democrat Ask Johnson to be his running mate  Kennedy needs desperately in 1960 because he needs taxes and he needs us Catholic Johnson diecast Johnson of the Southern Johnson the Western Johnson City normally powerful and has a wide-ranging organization the Candy Johnson ticket wins the election 100,000 votes put on one of the hotly contested campaigns in the history of American politics  the New Frontier the domestic reforms Kennedy promise during his campaign makes little Headway  why didn't he make better use of Lyndon Johnson and his legislative skills Stevens Defender standing out, cuz but you could carve out a substantial power on his own  can November of 1963 Kennedy travel next to the upcoming election as his motorcade slowly wine through the streets of Dallas shots ring out two bullets strike the president he's rushed to a nearby hospital where just minutes later he is pronounced dead you were moved by the tragedy of it by the meaninglessness of a person of great promise cut down and I'm fascinated by the way people talk about the possibility that one person couldn't have done it that in other ones that there's a deeper meaning to this event and what television did was the whole amount in a couple of ways it possibly shows the tragic moment it becomes indelible secondly gifts highlights the ritual ways that we come to closure on these events  Vice Lyndon Johnson suddenly finds himself thrust into the nation's highest office much sooner than he ever imagined will be hard to imagine two more different men though in many ways that came out of similar political tradition Kennedy of course I have one of the wealthiest families Boston doing glint Harvard preacher of privilege man of consummate Style star Edition  Johnson famous for his earthiness is vulgarity he was big well over 6ft long arms long legs gangly he would bend over people get in their face he would typically have one hand on your lapel the other on your tie and he would have his pocket stuff memes of reports and data and documents are not only have you mastered every member of the Senate personal likes and dislikes their strengths and weaknesses knowing how to influence them but also mastered every detail of policy John Kennedy's best command Brighton Bay just one week after becoming president in November 1963 President Johnson speech to Congress  he hailed the Legacy and the unfinished agenda of the modern presidency any fat let us continue echoing John F Kennedy's announcement early in his presidency let us again with the work of liver reform in the first few months of his presidency because of his Mastery of the Congress in the legislative branch many of the things that JFK had proposed but had been thoroughly on how to get to the Congress so there is no doubt that the desire for Redemption the desire to make America right in the wake of the Kennedy assassination makes a huge difference in the legislative calculus of 1964 and 1965 and passing the Civil Rights Act is one of the areas in which that is going to be demonstrated  although his focus is on moving legislation Johnson finds himself engaged in the presidential election only months after taking the oath of office it was not the cause of civil rights cell that primarily work to the Democrats Advantage it candidate Barry Goldwater who said some things would scare the American people about using nuclear weapons and struggle against Soviet Union as result of the contest in 1964 Johnson and the Democratic party have a huge advantage in Congress that they did not have before then how Lyndon Johnson is prepared to take full advantage of this majority to push through his legislative program sing months before his death John F Kennedy became interested in the poverty problem in the United States that their plan for a bold and B 25 amp is Mark Salon with the Fallen leader in fact as soon as he heard about it Johnson was very excited and told them don't just try a small I'll Edge experiment program go for the whole ball of Wax declares unconditional war on poverty in America  so Johnson banded the idea of the war on poverty and laid out an agenda for what he would call the Great Society he wanted to create full employment 11 billion dollar tax cut that Kennedy had proposed to create an economic stimulus but didn't think that was enough he wanted to create programs that poor people used to bring themselves out of poverty which in his own mind was going to complete the New Deal and established the reformed tradition the tradition as the most significant political force in American life I don't think you can begin to explain the programs of the Great Society without back to hotel Lyndon Johnson himself very ambitious legislative master and very committed to helping poor people helping people who are oppressed which is how he viewed his own leg in addition to the social legislation that is passed advocates for welfare rights  assisted by a lot of attorneys who help to take welfare rights claims to the legal ultimately producing Supreme Court decision that try to reconcile the rights claims of recipients with the original temp of the age of dependent children program which was to provide for people who are raising children under conditions of economic need yeah but what was going on in Alabama in the mid-1960s the state pass a law saying that if a mother on welfare had any type of sexual relations with a man not her husband that man became the effect of parent of the children therefore the family was completely in eligible for welfare benefits impose these moral condition was significantly diminished by constitutional ruling the welfare caseloads began to increase in welfare started in crisis now the First Response of this in the Kennedy was Social Services in then the war on poverty came and again it was a will help you to help yourself so word party was Community Development Community organization work programs and things like that well it didn't really work they were not sufficient to overcome the devastating impact overtime changes in the economy especially decrease set the map for low-skilled despite its short on property does achieve some success poverty rate drops 22% to approximately 11% and it has remained around 11% give or take a few ever since the late 1970s something happened in the 60s that transformed the matron poverty unsung I am of liberal reform of the 1960s with at a greatly reduced poverty among the elderly that the expansion of social charity and Medicare really meant that most older Americans could imagine retirement and could get the basic Medical Care in closely tied to the anti-poverty programs are federal efforts to revitalize the king cities in to strengthen the nation's School the pulse urban renewal are the time of cynically called ribbon removal now to be a little bit misplaced or too little too late and efforts that fail the destroyed downtown so we know what got mastalgia Klee and think they're wrecked all those beautiful buildings for parking lots are for some ugly stomach the elementary and secondary Education Act of 1965 provided funding to Poverty schools federal government says you can't have it unless you did great the school so the threat with holding all this cash has great effect and so pretty smoothly from 1968 to the early 70s you have an elimination of all black and white school the Johnson Administration also lends support for changing restrictive immigration this is an attempt to bring in the southern European and Eastern European ancestors and to address the long-standing issue of anti-asian by country and they reason well how many Asian newcomers could there be we have just a miniscule amount here and similarly with the Latino population Mad Mushroom 258 2000 census roughly 80% of all new immigrants were from the Latin American countries are from Asian and an only about 10% from Europe as Great Society programs multiplies begin to compete with the escalating cost of America's Miller federal budget swords Beyond it's raining race major argument building that perhaps this Great Society slowed the entrepreneurial spirit in America it's flowed the free market and kept America from growing at a pace that would have lifted people how to pop him where is the sense of failure and it didn't work but actually if you look at the component parts most Americans are quite happy with some of the legacies of Great Society the nation's most significant challenge in the 1960s is to ensure Justice pause  Kennedy when he ran for president promised to end discrimination with a stroke civil rights activist first sent him pain and they sent him several pens and they sent him doesn't depends and they sent him thousands of who's all with note attached say maybe you need a pen and he promised to all the forms of discrimination to Black Bus Travelers for example crane Travelers listen to word in the south in the early 1968 be swept aside of course it didn't quite happen that way the Kennedy administration is the moment when black disillusionment really starts to leak critical mass and in this period of drift and uncertainty comes Birmingham which begins as a movement to desegregate lunch counters department stores in the city of Birmingham and that involves not simply boycotting but turning out masses of protest in the streets and actually in Birmingham will Connor the sheriff and the forces of Law and Order seem to be handling the situation rather well until Martin Luther King in his supporters made the decision to bring out high school students as demonstrators as large numbers of high school students began to Mass white police force in Birmingham panicked and felt that they had to take Extraordinary Measures and this was a moment of extraordinary revulsion when not simply blacks but many white rat America said should not be happening in our country this state of affairs is unacceptable security meets with these white Birmingham leaders trying to argue that opening up accommodation it's nothing I understand your reservations there I can understand not wanting to send your children to school with dominant population of African-Americans who have not been educated at the same level as your children do the complicated relationship between these presidents and the movements in which they are forced to become apart of anything case with Kennedy almost certainly he would have moved even slower than he did if he hadn't been constantly forced into action by civil rights activists while conducted something like the freedom Rock get on buses a ride to the South and then or subjected to Violent attacks by white supremacist which Ben's Port Kennedy to ensure the inter travel with no longer segregated or when someone like James Meredith finally going to attend University of Mississippi and Kennedy to enable mirroring to do something with the courtship rules he can do none of those things actions that Kennedy wanted to take or whisper where to take otherwise play it soon after the consultation in Birmingham President Kennedy introduce his sweeping new civil rights legislation Martin Luther King organize a march on the nation's capital demonstrate their support and strength 250,000 people from all over the country subastas streaming in 4 days it was an extraordinary important event that put before the nation in Peter turns the choices that had to be made and the way in which the Marchers and Washington behaved the peacefulness of the pro the eloquence of the speakers gave both of the people involved in the civil rights movement and Americans watching this on their screen distance that the issue of racial equality was the most important issue facing the American people and that action had to come quickly just three months later John F Kennedy is assassinated as President Johnson applies both public and private pressure on the Senate cast the stalled Civil Rights bill early in 1964 he succeeds in getting the two-thirds majority necessary to stop something is it not time for you to die here they come in and they said we're not used to sitting them side up cuz I was raised with him I never have and I'm not going to start now what is the sings That's clear me from studying history is it racism in the United States has been wide but not can you take a section and 64 civil rights and restaurants had to be integrated it was it's a standing how patterns that we think of as deeply held beliefs can evaporate almost in a minute if it becomes clear that there's an authority that's going to say yes you have to treat people equally during the summer of 1964 thousands of civil rights were like white northern and southern spread throughout Mississippi and the South to work on behalf of black voter registration the act that really brought large numbers of blacks into the political process of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 and we're talking almost 100 Years After stratification of the 15th Amendment guaranteed blacks the right to vote the 65 Act was passed basically on a bridge the Pettus bridge where Martin Luther King Jr lead a group of local folk in Selma on a March from Selma to Montgomery to test the fact that blacks in Alabama were disenfranchised and they created a lot of national attention because the television please cut away from the Sunday Night movie Judgment at Nuremberg to play this war happening right here in the United States set up Mod Sims 2 bridge is really shocking to most Americans outside and provide some very popular sports in the notion that we can't fool around any longer we want a really tough voting rights guarantee which involves sending registrars in every County in States that had Aloe Blacc get registration Ray when the lowest passed and finally signed by what's in an August 1965 there were only a handful of black people who are registered to vote in Dallas County which is the county where Selma located name of the next 3 or 4 months 15000 blacks were registered to vote because Federal examiners were actually sent down to the South and were empowered to register people  by the 1960s the problem of racial Injustice is no longer limited to the South or the rural area  60 what percent of American blacks are now living in cities often in the embattled Intercity maidens ketchup City areas  hair is growing poverty fine just very poor quality of life and then explosions of anger among people that are left behind when the news of the Watts Riot broke in the summer of 1965 Johnson the LBJ Ranch Texas was just at the time he was putting it to affect the whole Howard University affirmative action program of trying to create real genuine opportunity for racial minorities African-Americans and particulars of the sense that the expectations but he had needed at somehow led to this mail from the deeply troubling and of course more than anything else that kind of tore apart the country and the pole TV antenna Improvement in FBI at work so consistent with something disillusion impatiens creasing number of African Americans adopt a more militant approach Black Power many people thank the origins of the idea of black power to a series of terrence's and rallies going cross the Mississippi of Martin Luther King and Stokely Carmichael Young new need a roughneck the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee in 1966 in which king was trying to leave the crowds in chance of freedom Freedom now and Carmichael would follow with counsel Black Power never caught in Tennessee  black faction decides to kick lights out on gather saying very nice you helped us but now we going to run our own show and you should go work and white communities which after all is well Howland racism and so they begin to develop and ideology not of integration but of Separation not of patriotism. black nationalism considerate the Black Panther Party formed in Oakland California to 1965 under the leadership of Bobby seale and kiwi can you eat get Begins by kind of putting black cultural nationalism and marxist-leninist revolutionary thought together with the idea kind of creating a revolution of freeing Black America through struggle the great race riot they didn't really have neither but their work on his self-appointed spokesman and stood up saying this is black power in action in Detroit an obscure black nationalist group the Nation of Islam games prominence the most celebrated black Muslim has why it's often referred is Malcolm X break through those barriers was such a Triumph they didn't need anything else for a while or you had been in Detroit or Chicago segregation crumble for those people the socio-economic Discrimination is much more important somebody brings so there was a lot on Teal of more to what we see as a militant versus Lottery split and this certainly terrified a lot of white two-sided this is black power in action give me let's return the white power tell those two things together really mark an end to the Civil Rights Movement which had accomplished its main programmatic Civil Rights Movement end legalized segregation what is also awakens expectations of Social and economic equality ad laws alone cannot be and that in many respects even today remain unfulfilled The Unfinished Nation 52 part American history series for more information about this program in a company materials call +1-800-576-2988 or visit us online at Double ww.org

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Restless Society- LBJ

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