🤠Lyndon B. Johnson

36th President · 1963–1969 · Democratic

Lyndon B. Johnson became president on Air Force One at Dallas's Love Field two hours after John F. Kennedy was assassinated. He spent the next five years pushing through the most sweeping domestic legislation since the New Deal — the Civil Rights Act, the Voting Rights Act, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, and much more — and simultaneously escalated the Vietnam War that ultimately destroyed his presidency.

Master of the Senate

Johnson was a Texas congressman (1937), senator (1948), Senate Democratic leader, and then Majority Leader starting in 1955. He was arguably the most effective Senate leader in the 20th century, known for the "Johnson treatment" — up-close, physical, relentless persuasion. JFK picked him as his 1960 running mate partly to win Texas; Johnson was Vice President from 1961 until Kennedy's assassination on November 22, 1963.

Civil Rights Legislation

Using Kennedy's martyrdom as political momentum, Johnson rammed through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 — a landmark law banning discrimination in employment, education, and public accommodations. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 followed, ending the Jim Crow voting practices of the South. Johnson won re-election in 1964 in a historic landslide over Barry Goldwater.

The Great Society

Johnson's domestic program — the Great Society — was the most ambitious since FDR's New Deal. It included Medicare (health insurance for the elderly), Medicaid (for the poor), the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Higher Education Act, Head Start, the War on Poverty, the Immigration and Nationality Act (ending national-origin quotas), the Public Broadcasting Act (NPR and PBS), and the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities.

Vietnam

Johnson inherited a modest U.S. advisory commitment in South Vietnam from Kennedy and escalated it massively. The August 1964 Gulf of Tonkin incident led Congress to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution authorizing expanded force. By 1968, more than 500,000 U.S. troops were in Vietnam, and casualties were mounting. The Tet Offensive in January 1968 shattered public support for the war. On March 31, 1968, Johnson stunned the country by announcing he would not seek re-election.

LBJ Trivia

• Johnson took the oath of office aboard Air Force One just 99 minutes after Kennedy was pronounced dead.
• He appointed Thurgood Marshall, the lawyer who argued Brown v. Board of Education, as the first Black justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.
• LBJ's wife Lady Bird led the national "Beautification" campaign and was the first First Lady to hire a press secretary.
• Johnson is the only president to have been sworn in by a woman — U.S. District Judge Sarah T. Hughes administered his oath aboard Air Force One.

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