Lyndon B. Johnson Biography Quotes 70 Report mistakes

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Born as	Lyndon Baines Johnson
Occup.	President
From	USA
Born	August 27, 1908
Died	January 22, 1973
Aged	64 years

Early Life and Education
Lyndon Baines Johnson was born on August 27, 1908, near Stonewall, in the Texas Hill Country. He was the eldest of five children of Samuel Ealy Johnson Jr., a rancher and state legislator, and Rebekah Baines Johnson, a teacher from a politically engaged family. Johnson grew up amid the cycles of drought and debt that shaped rural Texas, experiences that left him with a lasting empathy for poor and working-class Americans. After attending local schools, he enrolled at Southwest Texas State Teachers College (now Texas State University), where he honed his skills in debate and student politics and graduated in 1930. Before and after college he taught in largely Mexican American schools in Cotulla and later in Houston, an experience that shaped his views on educational opportunity and civil rights.

Entry into Public Service
Johnson entered national politics as a congressional aide to Representative Richard Kleberg of Texas. In 1935 he was appointed the first director of the Texas chapter of the National Youth Administration, a New Deal program that provided work and education for young people. His energy and administrative skill won him notice in Washington and across Texas.

Congressman and Wartime Service
Elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in a 1937 special election, Johnson became a loyal New Dealer and a specialist in military and infrastructure issues. During World War II he briefly served on active duty as a naval reserve lieutenant commander in the Pacific in 1942, flying as an observer on a single combat mission over New Guinea; General Douglas MacArthur awarded him the Silver Star. He returned to Capitol Hill and built a reputation as a tireless legislator with a keen eye for federal programs that could benefit Texas and the South.

Controversial 1948 Senate Victory and Rise to Majority Leader
In 1948 Johnson won a fiercely contested Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate against former governor Coke Stevenson by a mere 87 votes, a razor-thin margin that spawned decades of debate and the nickname "Landslide Lyndon". Once in the Senate, he rose quickly: Democratic whip in 1951, minority leader in 1953, and majority leader in 1955, the youngest to hold that post. Johnson mastered Senate procedure and personal persuasion, a technique famously dubbed "the Treatment", to move legislation through a chamber often paralyzed by filibusters. He helped craft the Civil Rights Act of 1957, modest but historically significant as the first civil rights law since Reconstruction, and worked pragmatically with Republicans, especially minority leader Everett Dirksen, on infrastructure, space, and defense policy.

Vice President of the United States
In 1960 Senator John F. Kennedy chose Johnson as his running mate to balance the Democratic ticket ideologically and geographically. After their victory, Johnson served as vice president from 1961 to 1963. Kennedy asked him to chair the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity and the National Aeronautics and Space Council, where Johnson pressed for robust funding of the space program and helped steer the effort to land Americans on the moon.

Accession to the Presidency
On November 22, 1963, after President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Johnson was sworn in aboard Air Force One by Judge Sarah T. Hughes. He moved quickly to stabilize the government, continue Kennedy's initiatives, and urge national unity. He established the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination. In 1964 he won the presidency in his own right with a landslide victory over Republican Senator Barry Goldwater, carrying 44 states and securing large Democratic majorities in Congress.

The Great Society and Domestic Reform
Johnson's domestic agenda, branded the Great Society, was among the most ambitious in American history. He used his legislative mastery and the 1964 mandate to pass a torrent of laws:
- Created Medicare and Medicaid (1965), expanding healthcare to seniors and low-income Americans.
- Launched the War on Poverty through the Office of Economic Opportunity, with programs such as Head Start, Job Corps, VISTA, and Community Action initiatives.
- Transformed education through the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965) and Higher Education Act (1965), delivering federal aid to public schools and expanding college access via scholarships and loans.
- Recast immigration policy with the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (Hart, Celler), ending national-origin quotas and reshaping America's demographics.
- Expanded environmental and consumer protections with the Wilderness Act (1964), Water Quality Act (1965), Solid Waste Disposal Act (1965), National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act and Highway Safety Act (1966), Fair Packaging and Labeling Act (1966), Wholesome Meat Act (1967), and the Air Quality Act (1967).
- Advanced urban policy through creation of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (1965), the Model Cities program (1966), and later the Department of Transportation (1966).
- Strengthened arts, culture, and public media by establishing the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities (1965) and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (1967).
Johnson also signed Executive Order 11246 (1965), requiring federal contractors to take affirmative action to ensure equal employment opportunity.

Civil Rights Leadership
Johnson became a pivotal figure in the civil rights movement. With congressional allies in both parties, he pushed through:
- The Civil Rights Act of 1964, banning segregation in public accommodations and discrimination in employment (Title II and Title VII), and creating the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
- The Voting Rights Act of 1965, prompted by violence in Selma, which suspended discriminatory tests and authorized federal oversight of elections in jurisdictions with histories of suppression.
- The Civil Rights Act of 1968, including the Fair Housing Act, prohibiting discrimination in the sale or rental of housing.
In a landmark address on March 15, 1965, Johnson told Congress "We shall overcome", aligning the presidency with the moral urgency of the movement. He worked with civil rights leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr., Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, and John Lewis, and with Republican Senate leader Everett Dirksen to secure crucial votes. He also commissioned the Kerner Commission (1967) to study the roots of urban unrest; its 1968 report warned of "two societies, one black, one white, separate and unequal".

Vietnam and Foreign Affairs
Foreign policy, and especially the Vietnam War, came to dominate Johnson's presidency. After the Gulf of Tonkin incidents in August 1964, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving the president broad authority to assist South Vietnam. Johnson escalated U.S. involvement: Operation Rolling Thunder (1965) and the deployment of hundreds of thousands of troops under General William Westmoreland. The conflict's human and financial costs mounted, domestic support eroded, and the Tet Offensive (January 1968) shattered public confidence in official claims of progress. Johnson opened Paris peace talks and announced a bombing halt late in 1968, but a settlement would not come until after he left office.
Beyond Vietnam, Johnson sent troops to the Dominican Republic in 1965 to prevent what he feared would become a communist takeover. He backed the 1967 Outer Space Treaty and signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1968, supported Israel diplomatically during the 1967 Six-Day War, coped with crises such as the 1967 USS Liberty incident and the 1968 Pueblo seizure by North Korea, and maintained the Alliance for Progress in Latin America.

1968: Turmoil and Withdrawal from the Race
Amid escalating antiwar protests, urban unrest, and a fracturing Democratic coalition, Senator Eugene McCarthy's strong showing in New Hampshire and the entry of Senator Robert F. Kennedy into the race convinced Johnson that party unity and the country's stability required a different nominee. On March 31, 1968, he announced he would neither seek nor accept his party's nomination for another term. Vice President Hubert Humphrey became the Democratic nominee but lost to Richard Nixon in November.

Later Years, Writings, and Death
After leaving office in January 1969, Johnson retired to his ranch near Stonewall, Texas, the "Texas White House", where he oversaw his papers and the creation of the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library and Museum in Austin, dedicated in 1971. He published his memoir, The Vantage Point (1971). A longtime heart patient who had suffered a major heart attack in 1955 and underwent gallbladder surgery in 1965, Johnson's health declined as he resumed heavy smoking. He died of a heart attack at the ranch on January 22, 1973, at age 64.

People Around Lyndon B. Johnson
- Family: Claudia Alta "Lady Bird" Johnson, his influential wife and environmental advocate; daughters Lynda Bird Johnson Robb and Luci Baines Johnson.
- Mentors and allies in Congress: Speaker Sam Rayburn; Senators Richard Russell Jr., Hubert Humphrey, and Everett Dirksen.
- Civil rights leaders: Martin Luther King Jr., Roy Wilkins, Whitney Young, John Lewis, Fannie Lou Hamer.
- Advisers and aides: Walter Jenkins; Bill Moyers; Jack Valenti; Joseph A. Califano Jr.; Harry McPherson; Horace Busby; press secretaries George Reedy and George Christian.
- Cabinet and senior officials: Dean Rusk (State); Robert McNamara and Clark Clifford (Defense); Nicholas Katzenbach and Ramsey Clark (Justice); Henry Fowler (Treasury); John Gardner and Wilbur Cohen (HEW); Robert Weaver (HUD, the first African American Cabinet secretary); Stewart Udall (Interior); W. Willard Wirtz (Labor); Alan Boyd (Transportation); James Webb (NASA).
- Military and intelligence: General William Westmoreland and later General Creighton Abrams in Vietnam; National Security Advisers McGeorge Bundy and Walt Rostow; CIA Director Richard Helms; FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
- Political figures and opponents: Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon, George Wallace, William Fulbright, Eugene McCarthy, and Robert F. Kennedy.

Character, Political Style, and Legacy
Johnson was a master of legislative politics: a towering presence with an earthy wit, relentless work ethic, and a gift for personal persuasion. His capacity to translate moral urgencies into statutory language, especially in civil rights, produced enduring change. The Great Society dramatically expanded the federal role in health care, education, and civil rights, contributing to a sharp decline in poverty and laying frameworks that endure in Medicare, Medicaid, public education aid, and anti-discrimination law. At the same time, the Vietnam War exacted a devastating toll, overshadowing his achievements, eroding trust in government, and fracturing the New Deal coalition he had helped sustain. Johnson's legacy remains a study in contrasts: transformative domestic reform on one hand, and a costly, polarizing war on the other.

Our collection contains 70 quotes who is written by Lyndon, under the main topics: Witty One-Liners - Motivational - Ethics & Morality - Wisdom - Leadership.

Other people realated to Lyndon: John F. Kennedy (President), Dan Rather (Journalist), Billy Graham (Clergyman), Alice Roosevelt Longworth (Author), Richard J. Daley (Politician), Edward R. Murrow (Journalist), John W. Gardner (Educator), Earl Warren (Judge), J. Robert Oppenheimer (Physicist), Harold Wilson (Statesman)

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