Lyndon B. Johnson's Legacy

“Yesterday is not ours to recover, but tomorrow is ours to win or lose.” Many hated Lyndon B. Johnson during his presidency because of his actions during the Vietnam. This incident clouded his legacy and influenced how people saw his presidency. Millions saw his presidency as a disgrace, that it had started and ended in tragedy, but there was more to him that met their eyes. Johnson was an aggressive man, he wanted to be able to control everyone so they were within his reach when he needed them. With his fiery and desire to fix the nation, he spent every second of his presidency help everyone in America. With the help of Congress, Johnson was able to pass many programs and bills that improved millions of lives, but he also had bigger dreams.
The Great Society was meant to help end discrimination and segregation between the blacks and whites, while the War on Poverty was made to successfully end poverty while providing everyone with many opportunities. Although many decades have passed since these programs of his have passed, many people continue to argue on whether or not his programs performed on how Johnson had intended for them to. Johnson’s presidency was greatly overshadowed by his failures in Vietnam, but his ideas, such as the Great Society, had a large impact on society during the 1960’s and continue to influence us to this very day. While the idea of war on poverty began with the Kennedy Administration in 1963, Johnson learned about the poverty program the day after Kennedy was killed and wanted to work on it as fast as possible. In Johnson’s state of Union address, as part of a even bigger idea of his, the Great Society, he needed to end poverty, so he declared an unconditional war against poverty in order to completely remove it from the U.S within 50 years. Johnson wanted to break the cycle of poverty in the U.S by attacking the source of it in urban ghettos and
In order for Johnson to his first major legislation, he focused his major attack on poverty which consisted of one fifth of the U.S’s population at the time with education, income maintenance, and job creation. His primary weapon in the war against poverty and the main tool for building a Great Society was Education, he was able to pass the elementary and secondary and the higher education act of 1965. With these acts Johnson wanted to aid schools and students, "For the primary and secondary school years, we will aid public schools serving