by Gary Betts

Created on: September 17, 2009   Last Updated: July 18, 2011

For most Americans, the legacy of Lyndon Johnson is overshadowed by the Vietnam War and riots in American cities. But this man's legacy goes far beyond the war, far beyond the riots. His legacy is one that has brought medical care to the poor, higher educational standards for all children, and an attempt to reduce poverty. But his greatest legacy was to finally bring real freedom to African-Americans.

As president of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson was responsible for designing the Great Society. This was a set of social reforms promoted in the United States on the initiative of Johnson to eliminate poverty and racial injustice. Legislation included civil rights, Medicare, Medicaid, educational aid and the War on Poverty. According to the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, Johnson's greatest legacy was the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 which gave all African- Americans the same rights and freedoms as white people. Johnson himself said that the passage of this Act was his greatest accomplishment.

At the same time, however, Johnson had esculated the Vietnam War from 16,000 troops in 1963 to 550,000 troops in 1968. Then there were the riots of the 1960's. Harlem, NY in the summer of 1964. Watts in LA in the summer of 1965. Newark, NJ in 1967 that left 26 dead. Detroit in 1967 that left 43 dead. And the riots in 1968 following the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr in over 100 American cities.

The Vietnam War and the riots overshadowed Johnson's greatest legacy - the Civil Rights Act. As a result, Americans lost sight of this great achievement. The war, however, has been over for decades and the riots are nothing more than the history of a previous generation. But the Civil Rights Act lives on. It has become an integral part of America for past generations and for generations to come. Obama would not have won the 2008 presidential race if not for the Civil Rights Act pushed by Johnson. This Act brought real equality to America.

At the Howard University commencement address on June 4, 1965, President Johnson said that the "American Negro" is about to secure rights, "To move beyond opportunity to achievement. To shatter forever not only the barriers of law and public practice, but the walls which bound the condition of many to the color of his skin. To dissolve, as best as we can, the antique enmities of the heart which diminish the holder, divide the great democracy and do wrong - great wrong - to the children of God."

President Johnson's daughter, Lucy Baines Johnson, recently commented on Obama's presidential win. She is an Obama supporter: "My father's dream was to open the doors of opportunity to all Americans regardless of the color of their skin. I can still remember the words my father spoke to Congress in a speech on the pending Civil Rights Act, 'Their cause must be our cause, too. Because it's not just Negroes, but it is really all of us who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. We shall overcome.' When my father signed the Civil Rights Act into law, he said that he feared he was handing his beloved South over to the Republican Party for a generation, but if that was the price he had to pay for social justice, he gladly did it."

"On November 4, Barack Obama made good on my father's dreams. He walked through the doors of opportunity - flung open by Lyndon Baines Johnson, the Rev Martin Luther King Jr and millions of men and women who supported the Great Society - and succeeded because of the content of his character and not the color of his skin."

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