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The Impact of the Sixties on the USA: A Recap and Evaluation

This post-it note summarizes the impact of the 1960s on the USA, evaluates the strengths and limitations of the reading method, and assesses Johnson's War on Poverty. It also explores Lyndon B. Johnson's rise to presidency, his style of leadership, and his successes and failures.

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The Impact of the Sixties on the USA: A Recap and Evaluation

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  1. Do Now: Recap Summarise the impact of the Sixties on the USA, according to Foner (his argument) on a post it note. Correct in green pen. Challenge: What are the strengths and limitation of this method of reading for a purpose?

  2. How successful was Johnson’s ‘War on Poverty?’ It’s a question, so it needs a ? underlined LOs: 1. To recall the key changes to the definition of American freedom during the Sixties 2. To explain the reasons for and the key aims of the ‘War on Poverty’ 3. To evaluate the successes and failures of the ‘War on Poverty’

  3. Lyndon-Bates Johnson • He was fiercely competitive and a master manipulator – due to his political knowledge and experience • He liked the idea of power and had a complex personality according to his friends and wife as he appeared one way to the public and very soft in his personal life. • He had good internal organization • He was very soft and was very warm but he was not eager to get up in front of millions of people and act that way • He was disliked mostly due to America’s role in the Vietnam War and the injustices here (increasing troops in Vietnam to over 550,000 by early 1968) • He went through poverty in rural Texas as a child which taught him that to win and succeed you mustn’t make the people love you but you must overpower them so your decisions are supported.

  4. How He Became President • Johnson had a ‘Grass to Grace’ type story, being raised in central Texas, not far from Johnson City. Growing up, he felt the sting of rural poverty, working his way through Southwest Texas State Teachers College (now known as Texas State University), and learning compassion for the poverty and discrimination of others when he taught students of Mexican descent in Cotulla, Texas. • 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 after a whirlwind courtship in 1934. • In the 1960 campaign, Johnson, as John F. Kennedy's running mate, was elected Vice President. On November 22, 1963, when Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Lyndon Baines Johnson became the 36th President

  5. Style of Presidency • Johnson has several similarities with Roosevelt, in particular his good relations with the media and other politicians. However, you could say that Johnson eventually surpassed Roosevelt, in the sense that he did not just stop with the media, he also went on to establish personal relationships with members of congress, keeping In constant contact especially when it came to lobbying for acts. • Johnson's mastery of the Senate, its complex rules and internal organisation let him drive bills through the legislature in record time; it was a reputation he was proud of, and he kept his own running tally of legislative successes. It is also stated that there were even consent agreements that set a time limit on debates. Johnson also used quorum calls to his advantage by using them to replace brief recesses during meetings so he could have time to cut deals in the cloakroom. He also discouraged prolonged debate and promoted back-room agreements with a much more direct approach. • LBJ was a master at forming personal relationships with members of congress, something earlier presidents had been criticised for not doing. To do this, he had to find republicans to support him during a time when the house was controlled by southern democrats. Johnson was also famous for ‘the treatment’, keeping in close and constant contact with key legislators until deals were made, to mostly through the phone. This was helpful as this enabled Johnson to push his ideas and get contact updates from congress members on the progress of the various rights and acts that he lobbied for. Johnsons success at persuading the congress to pass the ground-breaking legislation for civil rights as well as various welfare programs could be attributed to his superior skills of persuasion.

  6. Failures As President Johnson often talked about a plans to launch a ‘war on poverty’. In a speech, Johnson stated that it was time for the USA to move "not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upwards to the Great Society.“ This society "demands an end to poverty and racial injustice.” However, the only problem was that Johnson announced his wildly unrealistic goal of eliminating poverty prior to formulating any concrete ideas about how it might be achieved. He simply assumed that it could be done if we set our minds to it, so he declared the rhetorical war and left it to his advisers to craft policies that would win it. No surprise that the war was lost as a result. The ‘war on poverty only encouraged more cynicism from the public on what the government could actually do’.

  7. Was He Successful? • The Great Society • Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act- 07/02/1964 • Congress passes the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution- 08/07/1964 • Voting Rights Act- 08/06/65 Ultimately LBJ was successful but had his legacy significantly tarnished by the Vietnam war. He is responsible for passing the Civil Right Act, perhaps the most important right in American history, as this meant that black people would now be legally required to be treated equally to white people. However, this pales into insignificance when put next to the 500,000+ lives taken in Vietnam.

  8. Task One: JFK’s legacy Draw a table (or subheadings) of achievements vs limitations of JFK’s anti-poverty policies. One column will be bigger! Page 154

  9. Task Two: The principles of the Great Society Answer the questions as you watch the clip. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pD3Vn44F7as

  10. Task Three: The evidence Using page 246 What did Harrington argue were the invisible causes of poverty? What statistical evidence did he find to prove the imbalance of ownership and access to wealth? Task Four: The options (What did the Great Society comprise ?’ Using page 249 3. What were Johnson’s three main options in terms of delivering his ‘unconditional war on poverty’, which did he prioritise and why? Challenge: What did Foner suggest was the primary cause of the failure of the war on Poverty, based on these three options.

  11. Task Five: Success? Use pages 250-251 to complete the table to explain the impact of his legislation. What were the criticisms of his War on Poverty? Overall how successful was he in achieving his aims? Challenge: Do you agree with Chafe’s view (bottom of page 251)?

  12. How accurate is it to say that living standards in the USA were transformed for the better in the years 1941–80? June 2017 A Level Paper

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