Federal Efforts toward Social Reform, 1964–1968

President Johnson’s liberal accomplishments reached beyond civil rights, and he drew on Kennedy’s legacy and his own considerable political skills to win passage of the most important items on the liberal agenda. While Johnson pressed ahead in the legislative arena, Chief Justice Earl Warren’s Supreme Court issued rulings that extended social justice to minorities and the economically oppressed and favored those who believed in a firm separation of church and state, free speech, and a right to privacy.