RECOGNIZING THE 100TH BIRTHDAY OF LYNDON BAINES JOHNSON

Mr. SCOTT of Virginia: Mr. Speaker, August 27 will mark the 100th anniversary of the birthday of Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States. President Johnson served his home State of Texas and this Nation during some of the most tumultuous and extraordinary years of our history. From the Great Depression, to the New Deal, to World War II, to the Civil Rights Era, President Lyndon Johnson shaped the events and left this Nation more prosperous, more just, and more free.

Joining the House in 1937, his life embodied the values of the New Deal, progressive values that sought to secure for all Americans President Franklin Roosevelt's Four Freedoms: Freedom of speech and expression, freedom of worship, freedom of want, and freedom from fear. In his own Presidency, the programs of the Great Society were the most ambitious of any administration before or since the New Deal.

In his 1964 State of the Union Address, President Johnson launched an unconditional war on poverty. As a former teacher, he understood the central importance of education. And so he said, ``It is our primary weapon in the war on poverty, and the principal tool for building a Great Society.''

Among his key accomplishments in the field of education were Project Head Start, still one of the most successful education programs; the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965; and the Higher Education Act of 1965. As a son of Texas' Hill Country, he also understood the importance of economic security. He told the Nation, ``The second prong on the attack on poverty is to protect individuals and their families from poverty when their own earnings are insufficient because of age, disability, unemployment, or other family circumstances.''

The programs he launched included the Social Security Amendments of 1965 and 1967; the Revenue Act of 1964, which lowered the withholding tax on middle-income workers from 18 percent to 14 percent; the Minimum Wage Bill of 1966, which broadened the Federal minimum wage and overtime pay protection and lifted the minimum wage from $1.25 to $1.60 per hour; the School Breakfast Program; the Special Milk Program; and the Food Stamp Program of 1964, which this House recently voted to expand by a bipartisan veto-proof margin.

The third weapon in the War on Poverty was job creation. President Johnson once said, ``Our American answer to poverty is not to make the poor more secure in their poverty but to reach down and to help them lift themselves out of the ruts of poverty and move with the large majority along the high road of hope and prosperity.'' The programs included the Job Corps; the College Work Study Program; the Neighborhood Youth Corps; the Work Experience Program; and the Manpower Act.

Some of the greatest accomplishments were, of course, the Civil Rights Era. More than any other President, he was a guiding force behind the enactment of civil rights legislation that changed our Nation forever. Following bloody Sunday in Selma, Alabama, President Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress to urge the passage of the Voting Rights Act. He told the Nation then that, ``What happens in Selma is part of a far larger movement which reaches into every section and State of America. It is the effort of American Negroes to secure for themselves the full blessings of American life. Their cause must be our cause, too. Because it's not just Negroes, but really it's all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice.'' He closed with the rallying refrain of the civil rights movement by saying, ``And we shall overcome.''

Among his historic accomplishments were the Civil Rights Act of 1957, where, as leader of the Senate, he ushered through the first civil rights bill since Reconstruction; the Civil Rights Act of 1964; the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which this Congress recently extended for another 25 years; and the Civil Rights Act of 1968. These landmark measures guaranteed the right to vote for millions of Americans who had been disenfranchised for generations, and outlawed discrimination in public accommodations and in housing, and outlawed discrimination in employment.

President Johnson also made history when, in 1967, he appointed his Solicitor General, Thurgood Marshall, who, as the NAACP legal director from 1939 to 1961 had already argued many cases before the Supreme Court, including Brown v. Topeka Board of Education, to be the first African American Supreme Court Justice.

Mr. Speaker, the life and accomplishments of President Johnson should inspire all of us to rededicate ourselves to the mission to which he devoted so much of his energies, to free all Americans from want, from fear, and from discrimination. This resolution is a fitting recognition of his accomplishments and his lasting inspiration.

I want to thank the gentlelady from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee) for bringing this to the floor today, and I urge my colleagues to support it.