Lyndon B. Johnson assumed the presidency with a wealth of political experience. A self-made man from the Texas Hill Country, he had won election in 1937 to the House of Representatives and in 1948 to the Senate, where he served skillfully as Senate majority leader. His modest upbringing, his admiration for Franklin Roosevelt, and his ambition to outdo the New Deal president all spurred his commitment to reform. Equally compelling were external pressures generated by the black freedom struggle and the host of movements it helped inspire.

Lacking Kennedy’s sophistication, Johnson excelled behind the scenes, where he could entice, maneuver, or threaten legislators to support his objectives. His persuasive power, the famous “Johnson treatment,” became legendary. In his ability to achieve his legislative goals, Johnson had few peers in American history.

Johnson entreated Congress to act so that “John Fitzgerald Kennedy did not live or die in vain.” He pushed through Kennedy’s tax cut bill by February 1964. More remarkable was passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which made discrimination in employment, education, and public accommodations illegal. The strongest such measure since Reconstruction required every ounce of Johnson’s political skill to pry sufficient votes from Republicans to overcome opposition by southern Democrats. Republican senator Everett Dirksen’s aide reported that Johnson “never left him alone for thirty minutes.” In proportion to their numbers in Congress, more Republicans voted for the measure than Democrats.

Antipoverty legislation followed fast on the heels of the Civil Rights Act. Johnson announced “an unconditional war on poverty” in his January 1964 State of the Union message, and in August Congress passed the Economic Opportunity Act. The law authorized ten new programs, allocating $800 million—about 1 percent of the federal budget—for the first year. Many provisions targeted children and youths, including Head Start for preschoolers, work-study grants for college students, and the Job Corps for unemployed young people. The Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA) program paid modest wages to those working with the disadvantaged, and a legal services program provided lawyers for the poor.

The most novel and controversial part of the law, the Community Action Program (CAP), required “maximum feasible participation” of the poor themselves in antipoverty projects. Poor people began to organize to make welfare agencies, school boards, police departments, and housing authorities more accountable to the people they served. When local Democratic officials complained, Johnson backed off from pushing genuine representation for the poor. Still, CAP gave people usually excluded from government an opportunity to act on their own behalf and develop leadership skills. A Mississippi sharecropper was elated to attend a CAP literacy program that enabled him “to help my younger children when they start school.”