Turmoil, Hubris, and Hope: Recent Retrospectives on the Great Society

Abstract

Turmoil, Hubris, and Hope: Recent Retrospectives on Great SocietyREFORMERS TO RADICALS: The Appalachian Volunteers and War on Poverty. By Thomas Kiffmeyer. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky. 2008.BLOODY LOWNDES: Civil Rights and Black Power in Alabama's Black Belt. By Hasan Kwame Jeffries. New York: New York University Press. 2009.THE EVE OF DESTRUCTION: How 1965 Transformed America. By James T. Patterson. New York: Basic Books. 2012.BENDING TOWARD JUSTICE: The Voting Rights Act and Transformation of American Democracy. By Gary May. New York: Basic Books. 2013.THE FIERCE URGENCY OF NOW: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and Battle for Great Society. By Julian E. Zelizer. New York: Penguin Press. 2015.The current round of fiftieth-anniversary celebrations of events of 1960s are reminder that American civic conversation is still framed in Great Society terms. Lyndon Johnson's Great Society effort-comprised of nearly two hundred major domestic measures during his five years in office-restructured policy in areas of health, education, immigration, urban governance, mass transit, public housing, and stewardship of natural and cultural resources, in addition to epochal civil rights reforms. Whether viewed as point at which American experience veered off course or as moment nation renewed its commitment to equality and civic excellence, Johnson years identified goals and launched programs that remain at center of domestic policy arguments. We delve into Great Society record in hopes of understanding what produced Sixties' great burst of political creativity and what led it to fade and also to seek basis for judging value of effort. The five works reviewed here inquire after social and political conditions that made enactment of Great Society program possible and, ultimately, led policymaking enthusiasm to subside. They explore intertwined roles of activism at grassroots and in Washington, first in facilitating passage of landmark legislation of those years (paying particular attention to Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 and Voting Rights Act of 1965), and then in working out its implementation in American communities.James T. Patterson's The Eve of Destruction reminds readers of tumult of 1965, year in which Eighty-Ninth Congress convened and Lyndon Johnson launched his Great Society in earnest. The year opened with fulsome promises of LBJ's first State of Union address as president in his own right. It was darkened by February launch of Operation Rolling Thunder (the U.S. bombing campaign against North Vietnam), first landing of U.S. Marine combat forces at Da Nang in March, and fateful decision to escalate American involvement in Asian ground war in July. The year saw assassination of Malcolm X in February, mauling of civil rights activists in Selma next month, and explosion of Watts in August. Yet same year also witnessed federal legislative achievement of magnitude not seen since heyday of New Deal, including creation of Medicare and Medicaid, passage of landmark Elementary and Secondary Education (ESEA) and Voting Rights (VRA) acts, and enactment of fundamental immigration reform.Patterson describes 1964 as a buoyant time . . . prosperous year that promoted extraordinarily high expectations about future (1). They were the most hopeful times in all years since Christ was born in Johnson's own illadvised Christmas 1964 phrasing (ix). Against this rosy background, Patterson sees 1965 as hinge year, year when America's social cohesion began to unravel and turbulent phenomenon that would be called 'the Sixties' broke into view (xi). What evaporated over those twelve months was, essentially, that broad public consensus on American goals at home and abroad which is condition precedent for national policymaking. …