Backstory: Give Us the Ballot from "LBJ and the Great Society"

Comprehension Questions

• What is the legacy of President Lyndon B. Johnson? 

• Why is the right to vote important? 

Additional Resources

Quick facts and a list of links provide an overview of President Johnson’s life and administration on the UVA Miller Center page.

Comprehension Questions

• What obstacles hindered the way to passing serious voting reform acts during the 1950s? 

• How did LBJ balance his ambition to become a national political figure and the need to retain support from southerners who put him in a position of leadership in the Democratic Party?  

Comprehension Questions

• How would you characterize the relationship between MLK and LBJ? 

• How was the right to vote subverted throughout the South? 

• What did the Civil Rights Act of 1964 not do?  

EDSITEment Resources

• Media Resource: Backstory: Legislation Impossible – The Civil Rights Act of 1964 

• Lesson Plan: Lesson 1: Martin Luther King, Jr. And Nonviolent Resistance (grades 6-12)

Comprehension Questions

• Why was it difficult for the Justice Department to fix voting rights abuses?

• How did African-Americans respond to LBJ’s attempt to hold off on the voting rights issue, to support the rest of the Great Society program first?

• What tactics did MLK use to gain more widespread support for the civil rights movement?

• Why did the march from Selma to Montgomery become a turning point in the civil rights movement?

• What is the legacy of the Voting Rights Act of 1965? Why was the practical impact of the Act limited? 

• What do you takeaway from the quote, “the past is never past?”  

EDSITEment Resources

• Lesson Plan: Picturing Freedom: Selma-to-Montgomery in March, 1965 (grades 6-12) 

• Lesson Plan: JFK, LBJ, and the Fight for Equal Opportunity in the 1960s (grades 9-12) 

• Student Activity: Equal Opportunity (grades K-5)

• Student Activity: The Great Society and the Case for the Humanities (grades 6-12)