It was a very ambitious aim, but as the New York Times wrote in 1964 after Johnson entered the White House with a 70% popular approval, the new president was "riding on the greatest economic boom in peacetime history."
The American Gross National Product rose from 1960 to 1964 a spectacular 25%; unemployment plummeted to 4.1% by the end of 1965; inflation hovered around 1% a year; and income inequality was the lowest since the 1930s because of a 70% tax on the highest incomes.
Johnson, who never forgot the poor children he had taught as a young man — and never missed a political trick — knew what to do. He took advantage of the atmosphere of affluence and optimism to introduce the "Great Society," his own far-reaching program for improving the lives of African Americans and others in need.
The slew of laws he pushed through Congress included two measures of historic importance: the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Both statutes put an end to legal racial segregation and discrimination in the United States.

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