“I pledge you, I pledge myself, to a new deal for the American people. Let us all here assembled constitute ourselves prophets of a new order of competence and of courage. This is more than a political campaign; it is a call to arms. Give me your help, not to win votes alone, but to win in this crusade to restore America to its own people.”
–President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Democratic National Convention, July 2, 1932
“Your imagination and your initiative and your indignation will determine whether we build a society where progress is the servant of our needs, or a society where old values and new visions are buried under unbridled growth. For in your time, we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.”
–President Lyndon Baines Johnson, Commencement Address, University of Michigan,
May 22, 1964
Multimedia Resources
“FDR.” American Experience: The Presidents. PBS. Television.
Watch Online or download the Broadcast Transcript.
—This 4 ½ hour long program offers a portrait of America’s longest serving president through his childhood to the governor’s mansion to the presidency and beyond.
“LBJ.” American Experience: The Presidents. PBS. Television.
Watch Online or download the Broadcast Transcript.
—This documentary traces LBJ’s remarkable, and somewhat accidental, ascent to the presidency and the profound effect he had on American policy and American life during the 1960s and 1970s.
Books and Articles by Speakers
Beschloss, Michael. Taking Charge: The Johnson White House Tapes, 1963-1964.
New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.
Beschloss, Michael. Reaching for Glory: Lyndon Johnson’s Secret White House Tapes 1964-1965.
New York: Touchstone, 2001.
Caro, Robert A. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power. New York: Alfred a Knopf Inc., 1982.
Caro, Robert A. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Means of Ascent. New York: Alfred a Knopf Inc., 1990.
Caro, Robert A. The Years of Lyndon Johnson: Master of the Senate. New York: Alfred a Knopf Inc., 2002.
Fanton, Jonathan F. The University and Civil Society. New York: New School for Social Research, 1995.
Katznelson, Ira. When Affirmative Action Was White: An Untold History of Racial Inequality in Twentieth-Century America. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2005.
Updegrove, Mark K. Indomitable Will: LBJ in the Presidency. New York: Crown Publishing, 2012.
Updegrove, Mark K. Baptism by Fire: Eight Presidents Who Took Office in Times of Crisis. New York: Thomas Dunne Books, 2008.
Updegrove, Mark K. Second Acts: Presidential Lives and Legacies After the White House.
Guilford, CT: Lyons Press.
Woods, Randall. LBJ: Architect of American Ambition. New York: Free Press, 2006.
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