S2 Ep 2 - Mr. Poverty

02/11/20 • 25 min

"I didn't know a damn thing about poverty and didn't want the job," Sargent Shriver would later recall, of his conversation with the president, “and I told him so.” But it was no use: Lyndon Johnson had fixed on Shriver to lead his newly declared war on poverty, and that was that. But could poverty really be eradicated? And if so, how? It fell to the reluctant recruit to figure that out, and fast. Johnson had given him just six weeks to turn a dauntingly ambitious idea into a legislative program, and somehow get it through a deeply change-resistant Congress.

Contributing historian: Joshua Zeitz. Learn more at LBJsGreatSociety.org.

Contributing historian: Joshua Zeitz. Learn more at LBJsGreatSociety.org.

Previous Episode

S2 Ep 1 - The Great Unveiling

On the night of JFK’s assassination, with the nation reeling, Lyndon Johnson stayed up much of the night with two young aides, and laid out a list of legislative initiatives he proposed to pursue. In its scope, vision, and sheer audacity, the list was astonishing, affecting nearly every aspect of American public life, from health care to voting rights to education. It would be nearly six months before the agenda that LBJ mapped out that night would fully coalesce, and be officially unveiled, under the banner of the Great Society. But from day one, LBJ was off and running, determined to be not merely the keeper of the JFK flame, but a president of Rushmore level greatness — the president who picked up where FDR left off.

This first episode will look at the forces that shaped LBJ's vision and ambition, and the trajectory of his rise from the near total obscurity of the vice-presidency to the pinnacle of power. Key voices include senior aide Jack Valenti, who mapped the strategy for rolling out the Great Society vision, and Richard Goodwin, who wrote the speech that would articulate that vision to the American electorate.

With commentary and analysis from historians Joshua Zeitz and Julian Zelizer, along with archival audio from the Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library. Learn more at LBJsGreatSociety.org.

Next Episode

S2 Ep 3 - The Bully Pulpit

“We will not win our war against poverty until the conscience of the entire Nation is aroused,” LBJ told an aide. But how to do that when most Americans were doing reasonably well and barely knew poverty was an issue?

Somehow LBJ would have to convince a risk-averse and price-sensitive congress to back a costly, new government program aimed at solving a problem many voters barely knew existed. Johnson's solution: the 1965 Poverty Tour, a blitz campaign that would take the president into the country's poorest and most neglected communities in a bid to make the American electorate aware of the largely hidden poverty in their midst, and to rally their support behind his ambitious plan to do something about it.

Commentary and analysis: Joshua Zeitz, author of “Building the Great Society: Inside Lyndon Johnson’s White House.” Learn more at LBJsGreatSociety.org.