WEBVTT

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(Intro music)

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(excerpt from speeches)

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Seig Heil! Seig Heil! Ask not what your country can do for you.

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One small step for man. We hold these truths to be self evident. That all men are created equal.

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Mr Gorbachev, tear down this wall.

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(sound effects)

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(music)

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As world fairs have in the past, the fair in 1964

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provided a timely glimpse of the planet's current realities and future expectations.

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The New York Times described it as a glittering mirror of our national opulence.

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It seemed to portend a future where the biggest worry for average Americans

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would be how to spend their leisure time.

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"I just took it for granted that I would always have a roof

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over my head and enough to eat. The thought that I'd have

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to worry about where my next meal was coming from.

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These thoughts just didn't occur to me. But, course

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part of the reason we can think that way is that we took prosperity more or less for granted."

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In his speech at the world's fair President Lyndon Johnson touted a world of prosperity.

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"But that people, people they shall have the best. All of these dreams."

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(People shouting) Only to find himself interrupted in mid speech by demonstraters

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who felt themselves froze out of the world. (chanting)

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Despite a lengthy struggle, millions of black Americans still

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did not share in the nation's prosperity or enjoy the full rights of their citizenship.

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In 1964 many expected that such inequities would soon be addressed.

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"We thought that essentially the material problems of the world had been solved.

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And that the important thing now was to solve the moral problems."

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"It was a society that had to be changed. And it was not

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going to be changed unless some people decided that

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they would dedicate their lives to changing it. It was not going to change spontaneously."

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The World's Fair that year was held in Flushing Meadows, New York.

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It was supposed to promote the culture and customs of people everywhere.

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In keeping with it's theme of peace through understanding.

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But it would not be long before Americans would be driven

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apart by societal disagreements within their own borders.

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And a terrible costly war on the other side of the globe.

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The country was not about to experience much of either peace or understanding.

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(singing We Shall Overcome.)

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In the mid 1960's the determination to challenge traditional

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boundaries seemed to be growing in almost every arena.

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Perhaps most striking was a broadening struggle for civil rights.

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A struggle that many whites now joined in large numbers.

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In the summer of 1964 hundreds of college students, white and black,

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headed south to Mississippi, where many blacks were still

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mired in a Jim Crow world of poverty and political impotence.

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These students from the north hoped to register black voters

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and establish so called Freedom Schools to teach literacy

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skills to those who'd been denied them.

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They were traveling into a world where many people were set in their ways.

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President Lyndon Johnson warned the students that the

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federal government could not guarantee their safety.

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"They received a lot of training in order to prepare them for

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life in Mississippi, which was not going to be very easy, it wasn't easy for us.

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And we tried to make that very clear to people.

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I mean our lives are, you know, in iminent danger every minute of the day."

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"When we crossed the line into Mississippi and it said Mississippi welcomes you.

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It was the first time I felt really afraid."

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In the first group to arrive in Mississippi were students

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Andrew Goodman, Michael Shwerner,and James Chainey.

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Within days all three of them were missing. (music)

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"Bob Moses, who was the head of the Mississippi Summer Project,

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brought the group together. Told us that they were missing and it was clear

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to all of us that it was extremely likely that they were dead."

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(Police announcement)Six weeks after their disappearance

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the three were discovered buried in a earthen dam, shot in the head.

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(unclear talking)In that summer of 1964 the Ku Klux Klan was still trying

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to stop the forces of change. But among the students

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and in the homes and churches of the black community the

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feeling grew stronger that change could not be prevented.

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(music)"We went up to the home of a very poor black woman.

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A sharecropper shack. She had a bunch of kids. She came

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to the door. She looked at her feet. She said, "Yes'm, No'm"

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to everything we said. And we tried to persuade her to sign this.

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And it was very clear if she signed it she might get thrown out of her home.

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After a few minutes of talking she suddenly straightened up,

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looked us in the eyes, and said, "I'll sign it."

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And she signed it. That's how powerful the movement was."

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(crowd chatter)And the movement expanded to other

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causes at the end of the so called Freedom Summer.

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"The first amendment didn't apply to any campuses in the country.

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You, you couldn't give a speech without getting it cleared by the administration."

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When Freedom Summer veterans at the University of California, at Berkley

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tried to recruit others to their cause, they were barred

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by University regents. (Singing)

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"It just set off this explosion among the students. And people

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who had never had a political thought in their head just got

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fired by the idea that someone couldn't tell them when

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and where to say what they wanted to say."

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"If we don't stand up for your freedom now your dead.(?)"

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United by what they saw as an injustice, thousands of

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students began a series of protests that lasted eight weeks.

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When college officials threatened to expel several of the student leaders

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the conflict reached a boiling point.

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"In the time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious,

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makes you so sick at heart that you can't take part.

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You can't even passively take part."

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"You have to put your body on the wheels and, um, we're

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going to go in there and we're gonna take over this building.

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And so then the crowd began to move, I just went with it."

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"First floor is filled. Second floor is filled."

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"Some people looked a little scared because they had never

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done anything like that before. I was scared."

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(chanting) "I think we're (something). We got pissed off and we're sick and tired."

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When the student takeover of the campus building resulted in more than 800 arrests

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the University faculty finally weighed in on the side of the demonstrators.

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Cornered as they were the regents granted free speech to the students.

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And thus began an era of confrontation at American universities.

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In late 1964 another fight was looming for Americans.

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This one thousands of miles from home and with far more devastating consequences.

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For several years American advisers had been sent to

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South Vietnam to help prevent what the administration said

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was a takeover by the communist North. Things were not going well in the South.

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President Lyndon Johnson decided to dramatically increase

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the US military commitment to Vietnam. And just as they had

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throughout history young Americans answered the call to arms.

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"I didn't want to see my son go again. They promised nothing was going to happen

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to him, you know. And, uh, that it was going to be over very shortly.

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And he would be home before I, before I knew it."

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"You grew up watching those John Wayne movies where

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the good guys always win. I was being John Wayne.

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I was gonna go and I was gonna beat them. And nothing could hurt me."

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(engine noise) Like many other young men in 1965 Jack Bronson

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knew very little about war, except that America didn't lose them.

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This one looked, at first, to be no exception.

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The United States, which had defeated Nazi Germany and

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Imperial Japan and held back the communist Chinese in Korea,

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now faced a third world army of North Vietnamese soldiers

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and South Vietnamese Viet Cong guerillas.

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(helicopter noise) American commanders confidently predicted

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a swift and positive conclusion.

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"I was excited about going to war. The whole battalion

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was excited about going to war. We were, uh, we were gung ho."

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(Helicopter noise)

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With a 125,000 fresh troops and armada of helicopters

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ranging all over South Vietnam American generals were spoiling for a good fight.

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They were about to get one.

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On November the 15th 1965 Lt. Larry Gwin's unit was

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helicoptered to a valley in central Vietnam near the Cambodian border.

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They had gone to intersect the North Vietnamese supply routes

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to the south. North Vietnamese soldiers watched them arrive.

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"It was my first real hot landing zone. (Shots fired)

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And it was so hot that I had exited my ship, knelt in the grass

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for about 10 seconds, and a guy pops up next to me whom I knew

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who had just been shot through the shoulder and

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said, "I'm hit Lt." (boom)

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A major battle with the enemy was just what the military

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brass had been hoping for. Only it was not going according to plan.

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At ten in the morning Lt. Gwin was fighting for his life.

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"Our first platoon was overrun. Our second platoon was

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pinned down by mortar fire. I saw about 40 North Vietnamese

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soldiers coming across the landing zone at us. And all I did

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was say, "Here they come. And start shooting at 'em."

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1:00pm the American commander sent out an emergency

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signal, Broken Arrow. US troops in danger of being overrun.

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(radio communication) Every available aircraft was called

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in against the North Vietnamese positions.

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(airplane noise) (explosions)

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Including the giant B-52 bombers.

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"The B-52 is, uh, terrible. Terrible in many way.

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Because firstly, there was no way you can fight back.

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You can't run. There's no time for you to run.

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We just lay there. Waited for the death to come and grip you.

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(explosions)(radio communication)

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And thousands of men died in those desperate hours.

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By the time the battle was over 35 hundred North Vietnamese

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and 305 Americans had been killed. It was obvious to the

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men in the field what lay ahead.

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(music)

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Preoccupied as he was with the growing war in Vietnam

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President Johnson knew that he had to address problems at home.

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Despite America's prosperity, 40 million citizens still lived below the poverty line.

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"This administration today, here and now, declares

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unconditional war on poverty in America."

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In May 1964 the President unveiled the grand plan for

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what he called the Great Society. Mr. Johnson hoped to

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match the power and vitality of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.

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With a list of welfare, job, and educational opportunities to