An ideal resource for students as well as general readers, this book comprehensively examines the Great Society era and identifies the effects of its legacy to the present day. With the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson inherited from the Kennedy administration many of the pieces of what became the War on Poverty. In stark contrast to today, Johnson was aided by a U.S. Congress that was among the most productive in the history of the United States. Despite the accomplishments of the Great Society programs, they failed to accomplish their ultimate goal of eradicating poverty. Consequently, some 50 years after the Great Society and the War on Poverty, many of the issues that Johnson's administration and Congress dealt with then are in front of legislators today, such as an increase in the minimum wage and the growing divide between the wealthy and the poor. This reference book provides a historical perspective on the issues of today by looking to the Great Society period; identifies how the War on Poverty continues to impact the United States, both positively and negatively; and examines how the Nixon and Reagan administrations served to dismantle Johnson's achievements. This single-volume work also presents primary documents that enable readers to examine key historical sources directly. Included among these documents are The Council of Economic Advisers Economic Report of 1964; the Civil Rights Act of 1964; John F. Kennedy's Remarks Upon Signing the Economic Opportunity Act; The Negro Family: The Case for National Action (a.k.a. the Moynihan Report); and the Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (a.k.a. the Kerner Report).

The author of Lincoln's Boys takes us inside Lyndon Johnson's White House to show how the legendary Great Society programs were actually put into practice: Team of Rivals for LBJ. The personalities behind every burst of 1960s liberal reform - from civil rights and immigration reform, to Medicare and Head Start. "Absorbing, and astoundingly well-researched -- all good historians do their homework, but Zeitz goes above and beyond. It's a more than worthwhile addition to the canon of books about Johnson."--NPR "Beautifully written...a riveting portrait of LBJ... Every officeholder in Washington would profit from reading this book." --Robert Dallek, Author of An Unfinished Life: John F. Kennedy, 1917-1963 and Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life LBJ's towering political skills and his ambitious slate of liberal legislation are the stuff of legend: the Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, and environmental reform. But what happened after the bills passed? One man could not and did not go it alone. Joshua Zeitz reanimates the creative and contentious atmosphere inside Johnson's White House as a talented and energetic group of advisers made LBJ's vision a reality. They desegregated public and private institutions throughout one third of the United States; built Medicare and Medicaid from the ground up in one year; launched federal funding for public education; provided food support for millions of poor children and adults; and launched public television and radio, all in the space of five years, even as Vietnam strained the administration's credibility and budget. Bill Moyers, Jack Valenti, Joe Califano, Harry McPherson and the other staff members who comprised LBJ's inner circle were men as pragmatic and ambitious as Johnson, equally skilled in the art of accumulating power or throwing a sharp elbow. Building the Great Society is the story of how one of the most competent White House staffs in American history - serving one of the most complicated presidents ever to occupy the Oval Office - fundamentally changed everyday life for millions of citizens and forged a legacy of compassionate and interventionist government.

Divided into four volumes, Race and Ethnicity in America provides a complete overview of the history of racial and ethnic relations in America, from pre-contact to the present. The five hundred years since Europeans made contact with the indigenous peoples of America have been dominated by racial and ethnic tensions. During the colonial period, from 1500 to 1776, slavery and servitude of whites, blacks, and Indians formed the foundation for race and ethnic relations. After the American Revolution, slavery, labor inequalities, and immigration led to racial and ethnic tensions; after the Civil War, labor inequalities, immigration, and the fight for civil rights dominated America's racial and ethnic experience. From the 1960s to the present, the unfulfilled promise of civil rights for all ethnic and racial groups in America has been the most important sociopolitical issue in America. Race and Ethnicity in America tells this story of the fight for equality in America. The first volume spans pre-contact to the American Revolution; the second, the American Revolution to the Civil War; the third, Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement; and the fourth, the Civil Rights Movement to the present. All volumes explore the culture, society, labor, war and politics, and cultural expressions of racial and ethnic groups.

In A People's War on Poverty, Wesley G. Phelps investigates the on-the-ground implementation of President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty during the 1960s and 1970s. He argues that the fluid interaction between federal policies, urban politics, and grassroots activists created a significant site of conflict over the meaning of American democracy and the rights of citizenship that historians have largely overlooked. In Houston in particular, the War on Poverty spawned fierce political battles that revealed fundamental disagreements over what democracy meant, how far it should extend, and who should benefit from it. Many of the program's implementers took seriously the federal mandate to empower the poor as they pushed for a more participatory form of democracy that would include more citizens in the political, cultural, and economic life of the city. At the center of this book are the vitally important but virtually forgotten grassroots activists who administered federal War on Poverty programs, including church ministers, federal program volunteers, students, local administrators, civil rights activists, and the poor themselves. The moderate Great Society liberalism that motivated the architects of the federal programs certainly galvanized local antipoverty activists in Houston. However, their antipoverty philosophy was driven further by prophetic religious traditions and visions of participatory democracy and community organizing championed by the New Left and iconoclastic figures like Saul Alinsky. By focusing on these local actors, Phelps shows that grassroots activists in Houston were influenced by a much more diverse set of intellectual and political traditions, fueling their efforts to expand the meaning of democracy. Ultimately, this episode in Houston's history reveals both the possibilities and the limits of urban democracy in the twentieth century.

For use as a text in foundations generalist social policy courses, either at the baccalaureate or master’s level, this book examines the process of defining need, analyzing social policy, and developing new policy. A clear philosophical base and a common theoretical framework underlie the discussion of each component of the policy process. Four themes are interwoven throughout the book: the importance of thinking critically about social policy, the benefits of using the strengths perspective in policy analysis and development, the critical role social policy plays in all areas of practice, and the absolute responsibility of every social worker to engage in policy practice. Routledgesw.com now contains 6 cases; the Sanchez Case has been revised to include much more policy content. Instructor materials include extra readings, PowerPoints, test questions, annotated links, syllabi, and EPAS guidelines.? The book is also customizable on Routledge Custom Gateway.

This book analyzes the rhetorical strategies employed by the four Democratic presidents, Truman, Johnson, Clinton and Obama, who tried to expand access to and affordability of healthcare in the United States. It considers how they made such arguments, the ethics they advanced, and the vision of America they espoused. The author combines rhetoric analysis, policy analysis, and policy history to illuminate the dynamic nature of the way American presidents have imagined the moral and social bonds of the American people and their exhortations for governance and policy to reflect and honor these bonds and obligations. Schimmel illustrates how Democratic presidents invoke positive liberty and communitarian values in direct challenge to opposing conservative ideologies of limited government and prioritization of negative liberty and their increasing prominence in the post-Reagan era. He also draws attention to the ethical and policy compromises entailed by the usage of specific rhetorical strategies and their resulting discursive effects.

Head Start, Job Corps, Foster Grandparents, College Work-Study, VISTA, Community Action, and the Legal Services Corporation are familiar programs, but their tumultuous beginning has been largely forgotten. Conceived amid the daring idealism of the 1960s, these programs originated as weapons in Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty, an offensive spearheaded by a controversial new government agency. Within months, the Office of Economic Opportunity created an array of unconventional initiatives that empowered the poor, challenged the established order, and ultimately transformed the nation's attitudes toward poverty. In Launching the War on Poverty, historian Michael L. Gillette weaves together oral history interviews with the architects of the Great Society's boldest experiment. Forty-nine former poverty warriors, including Sargent Shriver, Adam Yarmolinsky, and Lawrence F. O'Brien, recount this inside story of unprecedented governmental innovation. The interviews capture the excitement and heady optimism of Americans in the 1960s along with their conflicts and disillusionment. This new edition of Launching the War on Poverty adds the voice of Lyndon Johnson to the story with excerpts from his recently-released White House telephone conversations. In these colorful and brutally candid conversations, LBJ exercises his full arsenal of presidential powers, political leverage, and legendary persuasiveness to win one of his most difficult legislative battles. The second edition also documents how the OEO's offspring survived their volatile origins to become broadly supported features of domestic policy.

This companion offers an overview of Lyndon B. Johnson's life, presidency, and legacy, as well as a detailed look at the central arguments and scholarly debates from his term in office. Explores the legacy of Johnson and the historical significance of his years as president Covers the full range of topics, from the social and civil rights reforms of the Great Society to the increased American involvement in Vietnam Incorporates the dramatic new evidence that has come to light through the release of around 8,000 phone conversations and meetings that Johnson secretly recorded as President

Applying lessons from history to the reality of poverty today in the United States—the most affluent country in the world—this book analyzes contributing factors to poverty and proposes steps to relieve people affected by it. American history is replete with efforts to alleviate poverty. While some efforts have resulted in at least partial success, others have not, because poverty is a multifaceted, complicated phenomenon with no simple solution. Winning the War on Poverty studies the history of poverty relief efforts in the United States dating to the nineteenth century, debunking misperceptions about the poor and tackling the problem of the ever-widening gap between the rich and poor. It highlights the ideological differences between liberal and conservative beliefs and includes insights drawn from a well-rounded group of disciplines including political science, history, sociology, economics, and public health. Premised on the idea that only the lessons of history can help policymakers to recognize that the United States has a persistent poverty problem that is much worse than it is in many other democracies, the book suggests an 18-point plan to substantively address this dilemma. Its vision for reform does not pander to any particular ideology or political party; rather, the objective of this book is to explain how the United States can win the war on poverty in the short term.