Lyndon B. Johnson

Lyndon Baines Johnson was born on August 27, 1908, in a small farmhouse on the Pedernales River near Stonewall, in Gillespie County in the Texas Hill Country. He was the first of five children of Sam Ealy Johnson Jr. and Rebekah Baines Johnson, former teachers who had turned to farming.⁠[1][2][3][4]

His father, Sam Johnson, was elected to the Texas House of Representatives at 27, three years before Lyndon’s birth, served several terms and later struggled as a farmer; when Lyndon was in his early teens the family lost its farm after his father ran up large debts. The Miller Center suggests that his father’s financial collapse likely contributed to Johnson’s commitment to helping the poor.⁠[5][3]

In 1912, at age four, Johnson started at Junction School, a one-room school near Stonewall; in 1913 the family moved to nearby Johnson City.⁠[1]

On May 24, 1924, at 15, Johnson graduated from Johnson City High School as class president, then went to CaliforniaCaliforniaCalifornia is a U.S. state on the Pacific coast; its capital is Sacramento and its largest city is Los Angeles. California was admitted to the Union on September 9, 1850, as the 31st state. Its population at the 2020 Census (April 1, 2020) was 39,538,223, the largest of any state.Open the full entry with friends and took odd jobs. In 1927 he borrowed $75 to enroll at Southwest Texas State Teachers College (now Texas State University), where he edited the campus newspaper, The College Star.⁠[1]

To pay for his final year of college, he taught fifth through seventh grades at the Welhausen School, a segregated Mexican-American school in Cotulla, Texas, in 1928–1929. He graduated on August 19, 1930, and then taught in Pearsall and at Sam Houston High School in Houston, where he coached the debate team. The LBJ Presidential Library credits the Cotulla experience with helping to inspire his Great Society legislation.⁠[1][2]

In late 1931 Johnson became the top aide to Congressman Richard Kleberg of Corpus Christi, working in Washington; in 1933 he was elected speaker of the “Little Congress,” an organization of congressional staff, and in 1934 he enrolled in night classes at Georgetown University Law School.⁠[3][2]

On November 17, 1934, after a courtship of about ten weeks, he married Claudia Alta “Lady Bird” Taylor in San Antonio. In 1935 he was hired as Texas director of the National Youth Administration, and within six months 18,000 young Texans were at work.⁠[2]

In 1937, after the death of the incumbent, Johnson won the seat for Texas’s 10th congressional district; Lady Bird Johnson lent $10,000 of her inheritance to the campaign. He served in the House from 1937 to 1949 and pushed rural electrification, leading to the creation of the Pedernales Electric Cooperative in 1939.⁠[3][2][4]

In 1941 Johnson ran in a special election for the U.S. Senate and lost to W. Lee O’Daniel by 1,311 votes, amid allegations of fraud on both sides; the LBJ Presidential Library notes it was his only electoral defeat, and he kept his House seat.⁠[2][3]

Johnson was commissioned a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve on June 21, 1940. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, he was ordered to report for duty on December 9 and was sent to the Pacific in May 1942 as a congressional inspector of the war’s progress, flying on one bombing mission. On June 9, 1942, Douglas MacArthur awarded him the Silver Star for action over New Guinea.⁠[2][3]

In 1948 Johnson defeated Coke Stevenson in the Democratic Senate primary runoff by 87 votes out of about 250,000 cast; the result was disputed, and opponents, alleging fraud, called him “Landslide Lyndon.” He won the general election on November 2, 1948, and served in the Senate from 1949 to 1961.⁠[3][5][2]

About two years into his Senate term Johnson was chosen as Democratic whip; after Republicans won the Senate in the 1952 election he became minority leader in 1953, and when the Democrats regained control he became majority leader in 1955, leading the Senate Democrats from 1953 to 1961. In mid-1955 he suffered a massive heart attack in the VirginiaVirginiaVirginia, officially the Commonwealth of Virginia, is a U.S. state whose capital is Richmond. It entered the Union on June 25, 1788, as the 10th state, and had a population of 8,631,393 in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020).Open the full entry countryside.⁠[3][2]

He steered the Civil Rights Act of 1957, the first such measure in almost a century, through the Senate; the Miller Center describes the law as watered down. The work of the Senate subcommittee he led contributed to the creation of NASANASAThe National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is the U.S. federal agency responsible for the civilian space program, aeronautics research and space science. Established by law in 1958 and headquartered in Washington, D.C., it has run programs including Mercury, the Apollo Moon landings, the Space Shuttle, the International Space Station and Artemis.Open the full entry in 1958.⁠[5][2]

In 1960 Johnson lost the Democratic presidential nomination to John F. Kennedy by 409 votes to 806 and then accepted Kennedy’s offer to be his running mate. The ticket won with what the Miller Center calls the smallest popular margin of the century.⁠[2][3][5]

As vice president he chaired the Space Council and concluded in a 1961 report that an “all-out crash program” could put Americans on the Moon by 1967 or 1968. The Miller Center writes that he seemed frustrated by his lack of influence as vice president and was never comfortable in the role.⁠[2][5]

After John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22, 1963, Johnson took the oath of office at 2:38 p.m. aboard Air Force One at Love Field, Dallas, with Judge Sarah T. Hughes present. The United States then went 14 months without a vice president.⁠[6][7][2][8]

On November 27 he addressed a joint session of Congress, urging passage of Kennedy’s stalled legislative program with the civil rights bill as the first priority, saying that “No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy’s memory” than its earliest possible passage. He appointed a commission headed by Chief Justice Earl Warren to investigate the assassination; in September 1964 it concluded that there had been no conspiracy.⁠[6]

In May 1964, in a commencement address at the University of MichiganUniversity of MichiganThe University of Michigan is a university founded in Detroit in 1817 that moved to Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1837; it is governed by a statewide-elected Board of Regents and also has campuses in Dearborn and Flint.Open the full entry, Johnson outlined the “Great Society” agenda, which addressed education, housing and urban development, transportation, environmental conservation and immigration. On August 20, 1964, he signed the Economic Opportunity Act, creating the Office of Economic Opportunity and beginning the “War on Poverty,” whose programs included the Job Corps and Head Start.⁠[6][7][9]

In February 1964 the House passed a civil rights bill stronger than the one Kennedy had proposed, and the Senate passed it in June after an 83-day filibuster by Southern opponents. Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act on July 2, 1964. It prohibited segregation and discrimination in public accommodations and discrimination by race or sex in employment and union membership, added guarantees of equal voting rights and authorized the Justice Department to sue local school boards to speed school desegregation. The Supreme Court upheld the law in 1964.⁠[6][7]

In August 1964 a confrontation between North Vietnam and the U.S. Navy in the Gulf of Tonkin led Congress, on August 7, to pass the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving the president power to pursue military action in Vietnam.⁠[10][7][9]

Johnson received the 1964 Democratic presidential nomination, with Senator Hubert H. Humphrey of Minnesota as his running mate. On November 3, 1964, he defeated the Republican candidate, Barry Goldwater, with 61.1% of the popular vote and a popular margin of more than 15 million votes, which the Miller Center and the LBJ Presidential Library describe as the largest in American history. He delivered his inaugural address on January 20, 1965.⁠[7][9][2][5]

After an attack on U.S. barracks at Pleiku killed nine American soldiers, Johnson began bombing North Vietnam, and on March 2, 1965, the U.S. military began Operation Rolling Thunder. U.S. combat troops in Vietnam rose above 100,000 in 1965 and exceeded 500,000 within three years.⁠[9][7][5]

On April 28, 1965, Johnson ordered troops into the Dominican Republic, where U.S. Marines were sent to protect American citizens after a military coup and amid the Dominican Civil War.⁠[7][9]

On March 7, 1965, in Selma, AlabamaAlabamaAlabama is a U.S. state in the Southeast on the Gulf of Mexico, with its capital at Montgomery. It was admitted to the Union on December 14, 1819, as the 22nd state, and the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) counted 5,024,279 residents.Open the full entry, more than 500 voting rights marchers were attacked at the Edmund Pettus Bridge in what became known as “Bloody Sunday”; Martin Luther King Jr. later led thousands of protesters on the march from Selma to Montgomery. On March 15 Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress to introduce voting rights legislation.⁠[9]

On August 6, 1965, Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, which outlawed literacy tests and other barriers to voter registration; the Supreme Court later upheld it unanimously.⁠[9][7]

On April 11, 1965, Johnson signed the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. That year he signed, in Independence, MissouriMissouriMissouri is a state of the United States bounded on the east by the Mississippi River; its capital is Jefferson City, its largest city is Kansas City, and its second-largest is St. Louis. It was admitted to the Union on August 10, 1821, as the 24th state, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 6,154,913.Open the full entry, the legislation creating Medicare and Medicaid, providing health benefits for the elderly and the poor. On October 3, 1965, he signed the Immigration and Nationality Act.⁠[7][9][6]

Johnson appointed Robert Weaver as the first African American cabinet member; Weaver was sworn in as secretary of housing and urban development on January 18, 1966. On October 15, 1966, Johnson signed the Department of Transportation Act, which created the Department of Transportation.⁠[2][7]

On June 13, 1967, Johnson nominated Thurgood Marshall to the Supreme Court of the United States; Marshall was confirmed on October 2, 1967, becoming the 96th justice and the first African American on the Court.⁠[9][7]

In 1967 five days of riots in Newark, New JerseyNew JerseyNew Jersey is a state in the eastern United States on the Atlantic Ocean, bordered by New York State, Delaware, and Pennsylvania, with the Hudson River forming its northeastern boundary and the Delaware River its western boundary; its capital is Trenton and its largest city is Newark. One of the original 13 colonies, it became the third state to ratify the U.S. Constitution on December 18, 1787, and its population in the 2020 census (April 1, 2020) was 9,288,994.Open the full entry, left 26 dead, and five days of riots on 12th Street in Detroit left 43 dead, 1,189 injured and 7,200 arrested, with National Guard units and two airborne divisions deployed.⁠[9]

On January 30, 1968, more than 80,000 North Vietnamese and allied troops launched the Tet Offensive against 44 provincial capitals, 64 district capitals and five major cities in South Vietnam. On March 12 Johnson won the New Hampshire Democratic primary, but Eugene McCarthy took a strong second place with about 41 to 42 percent of the vote; on March 16 Robert F. Kennedy entered the race for the Democratic nomination.⁠[9]

In a nationally televised address on March 31, 1968, Johnson announced a partial halt to the bombing of North Vietnam and his willingness to enter peace talks, and said he would neither seek nor accept renomination. The United States and North Vietnam then began peace talks in Paris.⁠[9][7][5]

On April 11, 1968, Johnson signed the Fair Housing Act, also known as the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which banned discrimination in housing on the basis of race, religion or national origin. On July 1, 1968, he signed the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons.⁠[7]

On November 5, 1968, the Republican candidate, Richard NixonRichard NixonRichard Nixon (1913–1994) was an American politician who represented California in the U.S. House and Senate, served as vice president from 1953 to 1961 and was the 37th president of the United States from 1969 to 1974. His administration opened relations with China, signed strategic arms limitation agreements with the Soviet Union and ended U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War; he resigned over the Watergate scandal on August 9, 1974, the only U.S. president to do so.Open the full entry, defeated the Democratic candidate, Hubert H. Humphrey, with 43.4% of the popular vote and 55.9% of the electoral vote. By the end of Johnson’s presidency more than 500,000 American soldiers were fighting in Vietnam, and more than 30,000 Americans had died there.⁠[7][10]

Johnson’s presidency ended on January 20, 1969, with the Paris peace talks still under way. He retired to his ranch in Stonewall, Texas.⁠[7][2][10]

The Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum was dedicated on May 22, 1971, on a 30-acre site on the University of Texas campus in Austin, next to the LBJ School of Public Affairs; it was designed by Gordon Bunshaft of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill and R. Max Brooks of Brooks, Barr, Graeber, and White. One of 15 presidential libraries administered by the National Archives and Records Administration, it holds about 45 million pages of historical documents, 650,000 photographs and 5,000 hours of recordings, including about 643 hours of Johnson’s telephone conversations.⁠[11]

Johnson died of a heart attack at his Texas ranch on January 22, 1973, at age 64; the day before, he had learned that peace in Vietnam was near. He is buried in the Johnson Family Cemetery at the LBJ Ranch.⁠[2][10][5][12]

Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson had two daughters, Lynda Bird (born 1944) and Luci Baines (born 1947). Lady Bird Johnson died on July 11, 2007, and was laid to rest next to her husband in the Johnson Family Cemetery.⁠[13][10]

Johnson’s grandparents settled in Johnson City in the 1860s; their home, the Johnson Settlement, is now part of the national historical park.⁠[14][12]

Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park has two units, Johnson City and the LBJ Ranch, including his Boyhood Home, Junction School, the Reconstructed Birthplace, the Johnson Family Cemetery and the ranch house known as the “Texas White House.” The National Park Service states that Johnson spent about a quarter of his presidency working from the house, and that the birthplace is the only presidential birthplace reconstructed by a sitting president.⁠[12][14]

The Miller Center’s essay judges that Johnson was widely considered one of the most expert and brilliant politicians of his time yet was one of the least popular presidents in American history, with approval ratings that fell below 30 percent, and it calls Vietnam perhaps the most divisive event in American life since the Civil War. BritannicaEncyclopædia BritannicaEncyclopædia Britannica is a general English-language encyclopedia first published in Edinburgh, Scotland, in 1768; the name also refers to its publisher, Chicago-based Encyclopædia Britannica, Inc. (which presents itself as The Britannica Group). The print edition ended in 2012, and the company’s main businesses since then have been the online encyclopedia Britannica.com, digital education products for schools and libraries, and Merriam-Webster dictionaries.Open the full entry calls the Great Society the most impressive body of social legislation since the New Deal but says its effect was soon undercut by the Vietnam War; the White House Historical Association calls his domestic achievements “remarkable” and says his foreign policy “proved controversial.”⁠[5][6][10]

LBJ Presidential Library: Official website: https://www.lbjlibrary.org/ (opens in a new window).⁠[15]

Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park: Official website: https://www.nps.gov/lyjo/index.htm (opens in a new window).⁠[14]