The Great Society Graphic Organizer – Part 1
HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOUR “GREAT SOCIETY”? / What is LBJ’s Great Society?1. / 1.
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LBJ “Great Society” Speech (MODIFIED)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ANXB7SIsKY&t=23s
The purpose of protecting the life of our Nation and preserving the liberty of our citizens is to pursue the happiness of our people. Our success in that pursuit is the test of our success as a Nation.
For a century we labored to settle and to subdue a continent. For half a century we called upon unbounded invention and untiring industry to create an order of plenty for all of our people. The challenge of the next half century is whether we have the wisdom to use that wealth to enrich and elevate our national life, and to advance the quality of our American civilization.
Your imagination and your initiative and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where progress is the servant of our needs, or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled growth. For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.
The Great Society rests on abundance and liberty for all. It demands an end to poverty and racial injustice, to which we are totally committed in our time. But that is just the beginning.
It is harder and harder to live the good life in American cities today. There is not enough housing for our people or transportation for our traffic. . . . Our society will never be great until our cities are great. .
A second place where we begin to build the Great Society is in our countryside. We have always prided ourselves on being not only America the strong and America the free, but America the beautiful. Today that beauty is in danger. The water we drink, the food we eat, the very air that we breathe, are threatened with pollution. Our parks are overcrowded, our seashores overburdened. Green fields and dense forests are disappearing. .
A third place to build the Great Society is in the classrooms of America. Our society will not be great until every young mind is set free to scan the farthest reaches of thought and imagination. We are still far from that goal. . . Poverty must not be a bar to learning, and learning mut offer an escape from poverty. . .
So, will you join in the battle to give every citizen the full equality which God enjoins and the law requires, whatever his belief, or race, or the color of his skin?
Will you join in the battle to give every citizen an escape from the crushing weight of poverty?
Will you join in the battle to build the Great Society, to prove that our material progress is only the foundation on which we will build a richer life of mind and spirit?
Source: The speech above was delivered by President Johnson as a commencement (graduation) speech at the University of Michigan on May 22, 1964.
The Great Society Programs – Part 2
1. Look at the programs list on the Great Society Handout. Do you recognize any? If so, list them below and explain what they do? If you don’t recognize any, make the best educated guess.
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The Great Society Graphic Organizer – Part 3
The Great Society Programs have benefited society? (Use evidence from document) / The Great Society Programs have hurt society? (Use evidence from document)1. / 1.
2. / 2.
3. / 3.
The Great Society Programs have benefited society?
1. From 1963 when Lyndon Johnson took office until 1970…the portion of Americans living below the poverty line dropped from 22.2 percent to 12.6 percent…If the Great Society had not achieved that dramatic reduction in poverty, and the nation had not maintained it, 24 million more Americans would today be living below the poverty level. .
2. Head Start has served more than 16 million preschoolers in just about every city and county in the nation and today serves 800,000 children a year. . . . Lyndon Johnson knew that the rich had kindergartens and nursery schools; and he asked, why not the same benefits for the poor?
3. Since 1965, 79 million Americans have signed up for Medicare. (Medicare provides free or cheap health-insurance for low-income individuals and families)
4. Today, the Great Society's food stamp program helps feed more than 20 million men, women, and children in more than 8 million households. Since it was launched in 1967, the school breakfast program has provided a daily breakfast to nearly 100 million schoolchildren.
5. The Voting Rights Act of 1965. . .opened the way for black Americans to strengthen their voice at every level of government. (This law made literacy tests illegal, and made it easier for blacks to run for government office)
Source: Joseph Califano, Jr., became a special assistant to President Johnson in July 1965, and served as President Johnson's senior domestic policy aide for the remainder of Johnson's term.
The Great Society Programs have hurt society?
1. Rates of teenage pregnancy and venereal disease had been going down for years before the new 1960s …(now it is going up) helped by War on Poverty money.
2. The murder rate had also been going down, for decades…Then the new 1960s policies toward curing the "root causes" of crime and creating new "rights" for criminals began. Rates of violent crime, including murder, skyrocketed.
3. The black family, which had survived centuries of slavery and discrimination, began rapidly disintegrating in the liberal welfare state that subsidized (paid for) unwed pregnancy and changed welfare from an emergency rescue to a way of life. . .
4. The poverty rate among black families fell from 87 percent in 1940 to 47 percent in 1960, during an era of virtually no major civil rights legislation or anti-poverty programs. . . . The rise of blacks in professional and other high-level occupations was greater in the five years preceding the Civil Rights Act of 1964 than in the five years afterwards.
Source: Thomas Sowell is a conservative economist, author, and social commentator. He is currently a Senior at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University.
Discussion
How would you respond to these actual Youtube comments?
Steve Nichols2 years ago
Great society destroyed black America and has created a history of people who rely on depend on the system.
Joseph Mare2 years ago
The welfare system was introduced to be a means of support temporarily aiding ppl. But should be stopped…Plus the bible says that if you're unwilling to work then you also should not be allowed to eat. Responsibility accountability society family and Christianity is forgotten in that country now. .sad
1. How would you respond to this Fox News Business Segment?
Star Parker: Welfare dependency destroys black families
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqtE-f0yZoA
Varney: So when you were on welfare, you got cash welfare, you certainly got food stamps, your rent was paid for, medical treatment was paid for...was everything paid for by the government?
Star: Yes, everything was paid for by the government, but keep in mind that Uncle Sam is cruel to the poor. These programs don't work for them. We have over 4,000 housing projects in this country. It's not working for the people -- you just get addicted to it like any other drug and you start depending on that life and it spirals you into a little dark hole.
After the war on poverty in the 60s, we began to see the unraveling of the entire black community because the family collapsed. During the 60s, the black family was pretty healthy. Seventy-eight percent of husbands were in their homes with their wives raising their children. But after this lure to government that said "you don't have to work, you don't have to save, you don't have to get married," over time marriage stopped occurring to where now 7 out of 10 black children are born outside of marriage and what happens when you don't have that intact family is your values change. So your culture changes. So your community changes.
How would you respond to these actual Youtube Commenters?
Ramel342 years ago
…There are veterans, elderly people, handicapped people, etc... who need those benefits to survive. I also love how they narrow it down to just black people as if no other race is on welfare. What about all the people WHO ARE WORKING but aren't making livable wages? Do 2 seconds of research on Walmart employees and you will see that the corporation is making record profits, but a majority of it's employees are on welfare and making minimum wage.
Professor Firefly8 months ago
white families are also on welfare,so how come she didn't talk about it or doesn't seem concerned about it as well???
Exit-Ticket
1. Do you think these programs create a “culture of dependence?” Meaning the programs keep individuals poor by having them rely on these government assistance programs.
a. The idea is that government programs like Welfare and Food Stamps keep people poor by telling them they don’t have to work so hard because the government will always give them a money and assistance.
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2. Do you think we need these programs in society? Explain why or why not?
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Great Society