Lyndon B. Johnson (August 27, 1908 – January 22, 1973),
often referred to as LBJ, was the thirty-sixth President of the
United States (1963-1969). He was also the thirty-seventh Vice
President of the United States (1961-1963).
Johnson was born on August 27, 1908, in central Texas, not
farfrom Johnson City, which his family had helped settle. He felt
the pinch of rural poverty as he grew up, working his way through
Southwest Texas State Teachers College (now known as Texas State
University-San Marcos); he learned compassion for the poverty of
others when he taught students of Mexican descent.
In 1937 he campaigned successfully for the House of
Representatives on a New Deal platform, effectively aided by his
wife, the former Claudia "Lady Bird" Taylor, whom he had married in
1934.
During World War II he served briefly in the Navy as a
lieutenant commander, winning a Silver Star in the South Pacific.
After six terms in the House, Johnson was elected to the Senate in
1948. In 1953, he became the youngest Minority Leader in Senate
history, and the following year, when the Democrats won control,
Majority Leader. With rare skill he obtained passage of a number of
key Eisenhower measures.
In the 1960 campaign, Johnson, as John F. Kennedy's running
mate, was elected Vice President. On November 22, 1963, when
Kennedy was assassinated, Johnson was sworn in as President.
First he obtained enactment of the measures President Kennedy
had been urging at the time of his death--a new civil rights bill
and a tax cut. Next he urged the Nation "to build a great society,
a place where the meaning of man's life matches the marvels of
man's labor." In 1964, Johnson won the Presidency with 61 percent
of the vote and had the widest popular margin in American
history--more than 15,000,000 votes.
The Great Society program became Johnson's agenda for Congress
in January 1965: aid to education, attack on disease, Medicare,
urban renewal, beautification, conservation, development of
depressed regions, a wide-scale fight against poverty, control and
prevention of crime and delinquency, removal of obstacles to the
right to vote. Congress, at times augmenting or amending, rapidly
enacted Johnson's recommendations. Millions of elderly people found
succor through the 1965 Medicare amendment to the Social Security
Act.
Under Johnson, the country made spectacular explorations of
space in a program he had championed since its start. When three
astronauts successfully orbited the moon in December 1968, Johnson
congratulated them: "You've taken ... all of us, all over the
world, into a new era...."
Nevertheless, two overriding crises had been gaining momentum
since 1965. Despite the beginning of new antipoverty and
anti-discrimination programs, unrest and rioting in black ghettos
troubled the Nation. President Johnson steadily exerted his
influence against segregation and on behalf of law and order, but
there was no early solution.
The other crisis arose from Viet Nam. Despite Johnson's efforts
to end Communist aggression and achieve a settlement, fighting
continued. Controversy over the war had become acute by the end of
March 1968, when he limited the bombing of North Viet Nam in order
to initiate negotiations. At the same time, he startled the world
by withdrawing as a candidate for re-election so that he might
devote his full efforts, unimpeded by politics, to the quest for
peace.
When he left office, peace talks were under way; he did not live
to see them successful, but died suddenly of a heart attack at his
Texas ranch on January 22, 1973.
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President Johnson was one of two presidents who hailed from the
great state of Texas. To celebrate our native son, this cache is
placed at Lyndon's BBQ.
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