LBJ

Question 1

May 1965 - University of Michigan Speech

Answer 1

“The Great Society demands an end to poverty and racial injustice… But that is just the beginning.”

Question 2

Robert Divine on LBJ’s quagmire (Vietnam)

Answer 2

(sympathetic - on inheriting Vietnam) ‘did not lead to easy solution or no solution at all’

Question 3

LBJ vs JFK

Answer 3

JFK - green in Congress
LBJ - wheeler dealer, ‘The Treatment’, enormous drive + ambition (18hr working days) ‘get those coonskins on the wall’
>200 pieces of legislation

Question 4

LBJ - teacher

Answer 4

Cotulla Primary School - Mex Am, starving schoolchildren identified with poor

Question 5

M.J Heale & Bernstein

Answer 5

close attention to LBJ’s personality
vulnerability to see himself as masculine - self-doubt
Heale + Bernstein - working in 80s (benefit of hindsight) as well as rise of popular Monetarist ideas

Question 6

Elizabeth Hinton - Law & Order began under LBJ

Answer 6

blames LBJ - for carceral state: merge of anti crime and anti-poverty (social rather than solely economic issue)
‘Model Cities Program’ new policing
legacy of Great Society ‘colleges of crime’ punitive overshadows social promise.

Urban civil disorder escalated during War on Crime

Supported by Heather Thompson - mass incarceration

Question 7

Economic Opportunity Act

Answer 7

Aug 1964
initial budget: $960mn
military spending $50bn

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