LBJ's Gap

What evidence does LBJ offer as proof of the widening economic gap between black and white Americans? How does he explain this gap?


Lyndon B. Johnson was heavily influenced by Michael Harrington's book "The Other America". Johnson wanted to form a "Great Society" in the United States when he came into office. He stated that "the man who is hungry, who cannot find work or educate his children, who is bowed by want, that man is not fully free." He realized that there was a great war on poverty in the United States, and all races felt the affect. Johnson also was not oblivious to the fact that African Americans in the United States were affected more than any other race. He said that it was caused from "past injustice and present prejudice".

Johnson believed that the way people had treated African Americans in the past made it possible for them to rise and hold African Americans down. There was little African Americans could do to rise above this injustice. He knew that during the time he was in office, the prejudice of whites against blacks continued to make rising up their injustices nearly impossible. The gap between blacks and whites was in many different areas of life. From education, to income, to job opportunities, to skills in the workplace, Africans Americans were always having a disadvantage and were not received the equality they were promised by their country.