Lyndon Johnson: Complicated

01VOA Learning English presents America's Presidents.

02Today we are talking about Lyndon Johnson.

03He was the vice president under John F.

04Kennedy.

05Many Americans recognized Johnson from a photograph of his swearing-in on November 22, 1963.

06Kennedy had just been shot during a visit to Dallas, Texas.

07Johnson and his wife also were visiting the city.

08After doctors announced that Kennedy had died, the Johnsons were taken to the presidential airplane.

09There, Johnson took the oath of office as president.

10Men wearing suits look on, while three women stand around him.

11His wife, Lady Bird Johnson, is at one side.

12Former First Lady Jackie Kennedy is at the other.

13She is still wearing clothing covered with her husband's blood.

14The judge who is administering the oath, Sarah Hughes, stands in front of Lyndon Johnson.

15She holds a prayer book on which Johnson places one hand and swears to follow the Constitution.

16The photograph showed the American people that the federal government could and would continue in an orderly way.

17But Johnson's position was difficult.

18Many people were shocked and in mourning for the assassinated president.

19Johnson promised to continue many of Kennedy's reforms.

20He went on to use the public sympathy for Kennedy to pass additional legislation, especially in the area of civil rights.

21In the next election, Johnson was elected president in his own right.

22But as the conflict in Vietnam increased and some Americans rejected Johnson's reforms, he found his position difficult again.

23Lyndon Baines Johnson was born in Texas, where his family had lived for generations.

24A town called Johnson was even named after his relatives.

25Lyndon was the oldest of five children.

26His mother was a teacher and writer, and his father was a farmer and political leader.

27In time, the Johnson family experienced financial difficulties.

28They had little money to give their children much of an education, but Lyndon was able to attend a teaching college.

29Johnson excelled as a teacher.

30He also learned from his students.

31Many were even poorer than he was.

32They also faced discrimination because they came from Mexican families.

33Johnson promised to help them.

34But he found he could do more to improve people's lives as a politician than as a teacher.

35He volunteered for some political campaigns, became an aide to a member of the United States Congress, and in time became a member of Congress himself.

36Along the way, he married a woman named Claudia Taylor, but everyone called her Lady Bird.

37They went on to have two daughters.

38Johnson served for 12 years in the U.S.

39House of Representatives.

40In 1948, he was narrowly elected to the Senate, becoming one of the two senators from the state of Texas.

41From there, Johnson rose quickly.

42He took on increasingly important jobs in the Senate.

43By 1954, he was the Senate Majority Leader, the Democratic Party's top spokesman in the Senate.

44The Senate website notes that the person with that job needs to be able to work well with others, especially members of other parties.

45Historians also note that Johnson worked very hard and was always prepared.

46A well-known biography of Johnson is called Master of the Senate.

47The book describes Johnson as extremely ambitious, sometimes cruel, and often willing to praise others to get what he wanted.

48At the same time, he could be very concerned about other people's well-being.

49In other words, the picture of Johnson is a complicated one.

50In 1960, he competed against John F.

51Kennedy for the Democratic presidential nomination.

52Johnson lost that race, but the party asked him to be their vice presidential candidate instead.

53Johnson agreed, not knowing that in a little more than three years, he would enter the White House as president.

54The Senate Majority Leader After being sworn in, Johnson used his political experience in the Senate to pass a number of reforms.

55Johnson also continued the work Kennedy began by signing the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

56The Act made segregation because of race, religion, or national origin illegal.

57The Civil Rights Act also made it illegal for employers to discriminate against someone because of race, religion, national origin, or gender.

58The reforms had their critics, then and today.

59But in the presidential election of 1964, Johnson won by the widest margin of popular votes in American history.

60Historian Kent Germany says, Johnson had a name for such a program.

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258I'm Kelly Jean Kelly.

259I'm Kelly Jean Kelly.