War on Poverty

Aaron Cooley

President Lyndon B. Johnson's legacy is one of the most conflicted in American presidential history. His escalation of the war in Vietnam is juxtaposed with his unrelenting desire to make the United States fulfill a vision of The Great Society in which equality was promoted in all spheres of public life. The War on Poverty, as it came to be called, was a dramatic challenge that Johnson presented to the country. The War on Poverty and its associated reforms became a lightning rod for conservative criticism as well as an idealistic touchstone for liberals for generations. After the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in November 1963 and the appointment of Vice President Lyndon Johnson as president, Johnson's State of the Union Speech of 1964 announced an “unconditional war on poverty in America.” Johnson did not stop there; he continued to treat poverty with a message that did not state ...

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