In January 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson
called for a war on poverty in his State of the Union Address. Eight
months later the Economic Opportunity Act and other legislation were
enacted. Almost 100 million dollars was authorized for 10 programs to be
conducted by the Office of Economic Opportunity, including Job Corps,
Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA), work training and work study
programs, and aids for small businesses.
Not only was President Johnson dedicated to fighting poverty, but he
vowed to end racial discrimination as well, bringing about the passage of
the Civil Rights Law of 1964. The Urban Mass Transportation Act of 1964
and the Wilderness Preservation Act were also passed that year.
With those achievements and a landslide victory in the 1964
presidential election to bolster his resolve, President Johnson in
his 1965 State of the Union Address called for a vast program to achieve
the "Great Society'" including a massive program to end crippling
diseases, a doubling of the war on poverty, enforcement of Civil Rights
Law, elimination of barriers to the right to vote, reform of immigration
laws, an education program of scholarships and loans, and a massive effort
to establish more recreational and open space.
At the president's urging, the first session of the 89th
Congress passed the most significant amount of legislation since the New
Deal. The new legislation included large-scale programs to aid schools,
the establishment of the Medicare program to provide medical care for the
elderly, another voting rights act, two housing acts to help low-income
families obtain housing, reform of immigration laws, and the establishment
of the National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities.