LBJ Launches the Great Society: America's War on Poverty

Lyndon Johnson stood before Congress on January 4, 1965, and said the words Great Society in his State of the Union address. He'd first used the phrase at Ohio University eight months earlier, but this night it became a governing agenda. What followed was the most concentrated burst of domestic legislation since the New Deal: Medicare, Medicaid, the Voting Rights Act, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Immigration and Nationality Act — all in 1965 alone. Johnson understood he had a window. The 1964 landslide had given Democrats their biggest House majority since 1938, and he worked that majority relentlessly. His Chief of Staff recalled him once making 85 phone calls in a single evening. Vietnam eventually consumed his presidency. But Medicare still covers 65 million Americans. Medicaid covers 90 million more. The window opened on January 4 and Johnson ran through it.