Lyndon B. Johnson and the Great Society
Name______period_____ date______
Lyndon B. Johnson and the Great Society
Part I (multiple choice – Choose the answer and write the letter in the space.)
_____ 1. Which of the following is NOT true about Lyndon B. Johnson?
a. He wanted an end to racial discrimination.
b. He was insensitive to the plight of the poor.
c. He wanted to be the greatest president in American history.
d. He grew up in the Hill Country near Austin, Texas.
_____ 2. All of the following are true about Johnson’s background prior to the presidency, EXCEPT
a. He was elected to the House of Representatives at age 29.
b. He taught Mexican-American children in Cotulla, Texas as a way to help pay for his college.
c. He was the Senate Democratic Party leader prior to serving as Kennedy’s vice president.
D. He had been an opponent of the New Deal while in Congress.
_____ 3. Which of the following statements was NOT made by Lyndon Johnson?
a. “The man who is hungry, who cannot find work or educate his children, who is bowed by want, that man is not truly free.”
b. “Our aim is not only to relieve the symptoms of poverty, but to cure it, and above all, prevent it.”
c. ‘The Great Society is a place where every child can find knowledge to enrich his mind and to enlarge his talents…”
d. “…Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice…moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
_____ 4. Which of the following was NOT a part of Johnson’s accomplishments by 1965?
a. a law that ended racist immigration quotas dating from 1924
b. a civil rights and voting rights act
c. ending poverty in America
d. Medicare and Medicaid
_____ 5. Which of the following Great Society programs was designed to reduce poverty in America?
a. Operation Head Start
b. Job Corps
c. Upward Bound
d. all of the above
Part II (written responses)
6. Do you think Johnson’s background influenced his legislative agenda (goals) as president? Explain why or why not?
7. Do you think anyone who grew up in similar circumstances like Johnson would have had the same commitment to help the poor and mistreated? Explain.
8. In your own words, what did Johnson mean when he said he wanted to build the Great Society?
9. What eventually got most in the way of Johnson’s dream of the Great Society?
Name______period_____ date______
Different Kind of Fight (Selma and Voting Rights)
Part I (multiple choice – Choose the answer and write the letter in the space.)
_____ 1. What important right was not addressed by the Civil Rights Act of 1964?
a. the right to check into any hotel, regardless of race
b. the right to eat in any restaurant, regardless of race
c. the right to vote, regardless of race
d. the right to sit on a bus wherever one wanted to sit, regardless of race
_____ 2. Which of the following obstacles stood in the way of African Americans in the South who wished to vote?
a. violence
b. literacy tests
c. threats of job loss
d. all of the above
_____ 3.Why did Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. come to Selma in early 1965?
a. He was asked by Selma’s black leaders to come to town with the SCLC to help get African Americans registered to vote.
b. President Johnson asked him to go there to help push for his voting rights bill.
c. Local black teachers asked King to come there to draw attention to unfair hiring practices and pay.
d. all of the above
_____ 4. All of the following happened in Selma, or as a result of Selma in early 1965, EXCEPT
a. President Johnson sent a voting rights bill to Congress
b. Alabama state troopers tear gassed and beat marchers as they crossed the Edmund Pettus Bridge
c. TV stations across the nation interrupted their regular programs to show scenes of police brutality directed at civil rights protestors
d. no march from Selma to Montgomery was ever held after the events of March 7, 1965
Part II (written responses)
5. Do you think the Voting Rights Act would not have been passed had it not been for the presence of TV cameras? Explain.
6. What role did the following play in the events that unfolded at Selma:
a. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
b. President Lyndon B. Johnson
c. Governor George Wallace
d. Jimmy Lee Jackson
e. Reverend James Reeb
f. schoolchildren
6. What, if anything was gained from the tragic events at Selma?
7. Are African Americans who do not vote turning their backs on history? Explain.