Yaolee Chen

HIS 359 Final Essay

Robert McCoy

The Great Society

THE GREAT SOCIETY

In the wake of President Kennedy's assassination in 1963, a wave of sympathy and public support enabled President Johnson to pass a number of Kennedy Administration proposals including the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Building on this momentum, Johnson introduced his own vision for America: "the Great Society" -- in which America ended poverty, promoted equality, improved education, rejuvenated cities, and protected the environments. This became the blueprint for the most far-reaching agenda of domestic legislation since the New Deal -- legislation that has had a profound effect on American society. While most of the poor was the blacks, the Civil Rights Act directly end the segregation throughout the legislation procedure.

Perhaps driven by his own humble beginnings, Johnson declared a "War on Poverty" as central to building the Great Society. In 1960, despite the prosperity of the times, almost one-quarter of all American families were living below the poverty line and one third of the poor were the blacks, and entire regions of the country, like central Appalachia, were bypassed by the economic growth of the postwar years. Moreover, technological advances in industry were also changing job requirements for American workers. The good-paying, unskilled jobs of the past were disappearing, and those without education and skills were being left behind. “War on Poverty” was because that the rich was still getting richer and the poor was still getting poor. But the program helped the poor to get the educational opportunities and to improve the income of the poor.

The first piece of Great Society legislation, the Economic Opportunity Act 1964, tried to give people tools to get out of poverty. The bill created a Job Corps similar to the New Deal Civilian Conservation Corps; a domestic peace corps; a system for vocational training; and Head Start, a pre-school program designed to prepare children for success in public school. The bill also funded community action programs and extended loans to small businessmen and farmers.

Johnson's landslide re-election victory over Republican opponent Barry Goldwater in 1964 added to the momentum of Great Society reforms. Goldwater was to leave the poor blacks do the reformation by themselves, and the results would have been like the French Revolution, which should cost the blood of the innocent working-men and working-women. But Lyndon Johnson on the other hand, without the bloody riots by the poor blacks, the Great Society permit the civil rights to the blacks throughout the legal procedure. Over the next four years, Johnson enacted a flurry of legislation. One of the most ambitious efforts was the establishment of Medicare to provide health care for America's senior citizens.

In 1964, 44 percent of seniors had no health care coverage, and with the medical bills that come with older age, this propelled many seniors into poverty. In fact, more than one in three Americans over 65 were living below the poverty line -- more than double the rate of those under 65. All seniors now have health care, and the poverty rate for the elderly has fallen to approximately one in ten -- a rate lower than that of the general population. Along with Medicare, the Johnson Administration established the Medicaid program to provide health care to the poor.

Education reform verified the desegregation while most of the poor and the uneducated were the blacks. The student loans gave chances to students who really wanted to do well in the schools without the economic limitation. Nevertheless the rich had better chances to repeat the courses that they had failed, but the poor had to do work-study if they failed the classes. All that I could say was that the Great Society gave the poor students the better chances to a higher education.

Urban renewal and conservation was the third major component of the Great Society. Ever since the end of World War II, cities faced a shortage of good, affordable housing, At the same time, the sub-urbanization of America along with the changing economy meant that many businesses began to leave city centers, an exodus that was accelerated by urban rioting that began in earnest after the Watts riot in 1965 in Los Angeles, and continued throughout Johnson's term. As part of a response, Johnson signed the Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965 that established the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) and expanded funding for public housing. In addition, he provided aid to cities to rebuild blighted areas.

Like in Eisenhower’s administration that the government money had spent on the Korea War, Johnson's ambitions for a Great Society were checked by his ambitions in Vietnam. The cost of the war in Vietnam along with the costs of his domestic programs strained the economy. Like Eisenhower cut off some welfare programs, many of the Great Society programs were not able to carry out also because of the war. Moreover, as the war became more and more unpopular, Johnson lost the political capital needed to continue these reforms. The Liberalism died in Nixon’s administration because Nixon did not follow the rule of the Civil Rights Movement. Critics of the Great Society also charged that these programs just created bureaucracies and threw money at problems without producing results. The community programs, for example, the local government felt uncomfortable to arrange the needs of the grassroots. Still others rejected the notion that the federal government should be undertaking these tasks at all. Nevertheless, the impact of the Great Society in many areas is undisputed as political leaders today still wrestle with how to deal with these issues of poverty, health care, and education.

Some of the Great Society programs had directly end the problems of poverty, housing, and education that the blacks had been hoped for since Eisenhower. In 1965, the blacks were given the rights to bring them to the courts of justice, they who violated to the laws of desegregation--- regardless nationalities, races, genders, none shall be discriminated in the American great society. The Voting Civil Rights Act of 1965 permits the blacks to vote regardless economic or social classes backgrounds. The Great Society benefited the colored or poor Americans, and the blacks to receive the federal protection without have to shade their bloods in the riots.