Civil Rights Movement in the U.S.

• The Election of 1964

• Lyndon B. Johnson

  • Domestic Policies

  • The Great Society

• Civil Rights Act of 1964

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The Johnson Administration

Johnson’s Republican challenger in 1964 was Barry Goldwater, a conservative senator from Arizona.  LBJ won the contest by a landslide, receiving 61% of the vote.

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Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ) took the oath of office on Air Force One on the way back to Washington after John F. Kennedy’s death.  Johnson called his legislative program the Great Society.  It was supposed to help America bring “an end to poverty and racial injustice” during his lifetime.

Johnson created the Job Corps, which was similar to the Peace Corps but focused on needs at home.  The Great Society programs had some negative effects.

• First, they were expensive.

• Second, Americans became more dependent on government programs and “entitlements.”

• Third, the programs gave the government more power over people’s lives.

Job Corps & The Fault of the Great Society

• The Civil Rights Act of 1964

• 24th Amendment

• Voting Rights Act of 1965

• Malcolm X

Civil Rights Movement

Civil Rights Act of 1964
That law forbade ethnic segregation and discrimination in schools and public places.  The federal government would no longer contract with private companies that discriminated or give money to institutions that discriminated in their hiring practices.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

The Twenty-Fourth Amendment was ratified in 1964, and it forbade the states to levy poll taxes.

24th Amendment

The Voting Rights Act of 1965 also ended long-standing injustices in federal elections.  Many state had literacy tests; often these tests required voters to understand difficult parts of state constitutions.  Black citizens who sought to register to vote were harassed.  The new act gave the national government the power to check these injustices.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

A convert to a religious group called the Nation of Islam (also known as the Black Muslims).  That group preached black supremacy and the need to create a separate black nation to keep the black people pure. He was killed by a gunmen at a rally in NYC.

Malcom X