Lyndon B. Johnson

Lyndon Baines Johnson, often known as LBJ, was the 36th president of the United States, serving from 1963 to 1969. A Democrat from Texas, he came to the presidency after the assassination of John F. Kennedy, under whom he had served as vice president from 1961 to 1963. Johnson had already spent many years in national politics, representing Texas in both houses of Congress before moving to the White House.

Johnson was born on August 27, 1908, near Stonewall, Texas, in a small farmhouse on the Pedernales River. He grew up poor, the eldest of five children, in a region where, as biographer Robert Caro described it, the land had no electricity and rocky soil that made it hard to earn a living. As a student, Johnson was talkative and active in public speaking, debate, baseball, and class leadership. He worked his way through Southwest Texas State Teachers College, edited the school newspaper, took part in campus politics, and graduated in 1930 with a Bachelor of Science in history and a certificate to teach high school.

Teaching left a strong mark on him. From 1928 to 1929, Johnson taught Mexican American children at the segregated Welhausen School in Cotulla, Texas. Years later, after signing the Higher Education Act of 1965, he recalled the faces of those students and the pain of knowing that college was closed to many of them because they were too poor. That memory helped shape his belief that the “door to knowledge” should not remain closed to any American.

Johnson entered politics after working as a teacher and congressional aide, then won election to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1937. In 1948, he was controversially declared the winner of the Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate election in Texas and went on to win the general election. He rose quickly in the Senate, becoming majority whip in 1951, Senate Democratic leader in 1953, and majority leader in 1954. In 1960, after John F. Kennedy won the Democratic presidential nomination, he surprised many by choosing Johnson as his running mate. The Kennedy-Johnson ticket won the general election.

As president, Johnson is best known for the Great Society, a domestic agenda aimed at expanding civil rights, public broadcasting, health care, education, the arts, urban and rural development, consumer protection, environmentalism, and public services. He spearheaded the War on Poverty, signed the Social Security Amendments of 1965 that created Medicare and Medicaid, made the Apollo Moon landing program a national priority, enacted the Higher Education Act of 1965, and signed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965. His administration also passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, and the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

Johnson began his presidency with near-universal support, but public approval fell as frustration grew over the Vietnam War, domestic unrest, race riots, crime, and what became known as the credibility gap. He withdrew from the 1968 presidential race after disappointing results in the New Hampshire primary, retired to his Texas ranch, and kept a low public profile until his death on January 22, 1973. His words still carry weight because they come from a life shaped by poverty, ambition, persuasion, power, and conflict. “Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose” fits the urgency of a man who tried to turn government toward the future, even as the pressures of his era closed in around him.