Historical figure · Pearson Edexcel International GCSE revision on Incandio

Lyndon B. Johnson

What The Hell's The Presidency For · President of the United States · 1908–1973

The most effective Senate operator in American history, who became president in Dallas and signed the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts knowing what they would cost his party.

Defend these ideas against Johnson

Incandio is a free revision platform for the Pearson Edexcel International GCSE, and on it a topic counts as mastered only once you have learned it, proved it in questions, taught it back and defended it against the person with the strongest claim on it. Lyndon B. Johnson is that person for one topic on the course:

• Little Rock, the Civil Rights Act 1957 and the revival of the Klan — History · A divided union: civil rights in the USA, 1945–74

Who was Johnson?

Born in the Texas hill country in 1908, Johnson taught Mexican-American children at Cotulla before entering Congress at twenty-nine. As Senate majority leader he brokered the Civil Rights Act of 1957 by weakening it until it could pass, which is why it did. He became President on 22 November 1963 and used the memory of Kennedy to carry the bill that became the Civil Rights Act of 2 July 1964. After Selma he addressed Congress on 15 March 1965 and signed the Voting Rights Act on 6 August. He declared the War on Poverty and created Medicare and Medicaid, and he escalated the war in Vietnam until it consumed his presidency and he declined to seek re-election.

Major achievements

• Signed the Civil Rights Act on 2 July 1964 and the Voting Rights Act on 6 August 1965
• Created Medicare and Medicaid and launched the War on Poverty
• Broke the Senate filibuster on civil rights for the first time, with Dirksen's Republicans
• Appointed Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court

Life in brief

• 1908 — Born in Stonewall, Texas: Teaches at Cotulla before entering politics.
• 1957 — The Civil Rights Act of 1957: Brokered and weakened until the Senate would pass it.
• 1963 — President on 22 November: Sworn in aboard Air Force One at Dallas.
• 1964 — The Civil Rights Act: Signed on 2 July after the filibuster is broken.
• 1965 — Selma and the Voting Rights Act: 'We Shall Overcome' on 15 March; the Act on 6 August.
• 1968 — Declines to seek re-election: Vietnam has consumed the presidency.

Explore the life of Johnson — five chapters

1. Cotulla — A year teaching children with no shoes
2. Master of the Senate — Eighty-seven votes, and then the whole chamber
3. Eighteen Months — The most productive legislative period since Roosevelt
4. Vietnam — A war he did not want and would not leave
5. Two Records, One Man — The problem Johnson leaves for anybody judging him

Read the five-chapter life of Lyndon B. Johnson →

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