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198 seven Liberal Overreach There is not a more dangerous tendency in history than that of representing the past as if it were a rational whole and dictated by clearly defined interests. —J. Huizinga, The Waning of the Middle Ages By 1964 America was becoming a country of the young, by the young, and for the young. An impatient, rebellious new generation of blacks and whites, men and women, responded to issues—racism, sexism, Third World revolution—that promised to unite the downtrodden across the globe. And everywhere at home and abroad, they believed, stood treacherous power structures ready to stifle it all. The weapon of choice against the establishment was insurgency — mobilization, protests, demonstrations, rallies, marches, parades—ever and always with the aim of confrontation and,above all,liberation . One playwright who grew up then recalled he and his friends wondering if they were so “forever trapped inside the multiple languages of past experience that we can never escape.”The only way out of imprisonment lay in “impulsive behavior,”dancing “maniacally trying to forget themselves,”while crying “Resist the present! Resist the present!”1 Within the black civil rights movement, middle-aged “suits” such as Dr. King,Whitney Young of the Urban League, and Roy Wilkins of the NAACP would have to give way to “unlettered” young activists in the field who would organize and march,their eyes firmly fixed on local needs and local realities.2 In the end, whites and blacks would go their separate ways. But before and after they parted, they could agree that no one over thirty could be trusted. Lyndon Johnson had his own plan for dramatic national change. His Great Society program would be progressive, not revolutionary, the natural culmination of that liberal makeover of American life that had begun with the New Deal.Should it succeed,there would be no need to demonstrate for open housing ,no need to rally for integrated schools and universities or an end to poverty. Liberal Overreach 199 The young, however, perceived a country beset by deeper structural problems than a renewed dose of liberalism could cure. They were on a romantic quest of their own that for some ultimately precluded little or nothing in the way of action.The year 1964 would pit the immovable aspirations of Lyndon Johnson against the irresistible forces of youthful white idealism and growing black rage. When it was over,the nation found itself beset by problems and forces that lay beyond anyone’s control. Great Society In his first State of the Union address, delivered just six weeks after Kennedy’s assassination and shortly before a half-million black students boycotted New York City schools demanding an immediate end to de facto segregation,Johnson asked that “this session of Congress be known as the session which did more for civil rights than the last hundred sessions combined.” After outlining a program of federally sponsored social progress,he added that “one principle of this administration” must be abundantly clear. All of the increased opportunities—in employment, in education, in housing, and in every field—must be open to Americans of every color. As far as the writ of Federal law will run, we must abolish not some, but all racial discrimination. For this is not merely an economic issue, or a social, political, or international issue. It is a moral issue, and it must be met by the passage this session of the bill now pending in the House. . . .Today, Americans of all races stand side by side in Berlin and in Viet Nam.They died side by side in Korea. Surely they can work and eat and travel side by side in their own country.3 Progress in civil rights for African Americans,however,was to be folded into an even grander vision—a comprehensive war on poverty that would raise the socioeconomic status of the poor of all races. Kennedy had hoped to introduce a major antipoverty program in his 1964 State of the Union address. Johnson more than willingly picked up the standard, despite virulent opposition from his Texas cattle and oil neighbors who reminded the new president that “this country was a middle-class”nation. Opposition appeared even within the new administration. John McCone, the Republican businessman who now headed the Central Intelligence Agency,“commented wryly that he had relations who were poor, but that the best antidote for them probably was hard work, not a new government program.” But Johnson would not be deterred. A...

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