LBJ Speech to Howard University

Humanities

Like your first paper assignment, this is a document analysis–you are analyzing President Lyndon Johnson’s Speech to Howard University in June 1965. Unlike your first paper, you are not directly comparing it to another document. A document analysis requires you to go beyond summarizing what the author (in this case speak) write or says but rather to analyze WHY and SO WHAT. Your thesis/argument should answer why and so what question about the document, essentially: what was LBJ’s argument, WHY was he making it at that time, and why is this important. This is why I am NOT a fan of one sentence thesis-statements. It takes a few sentences to lay out your argument. Then in the BODY of your paper, you support the argument you already laid out in detail in your introduction.

Please make sure you are up to date with your lectures, especially on the New Deal and the Civil Right’s Movement (there’s a hint about the context). To help you get started I have formulated some guiding questions that should help you arrive at a thesis/argument.

1.What is the context for this speech and what did Johnson mean when he asserted “freedom isn’t enough.”

2.Besides the students and faculty of Howard University, who do you think was Johnson’s intended audience?

3.What did he mean when he said that the Voting Rights Act was “not the end of the road.” Be specific.

4.What is his argument about the “widening gap?”(Define it) Where did it come from and how can it be addressed?

5.How did he define justice?

Your paper should be around 1000 words (3-4 pages double spaced, 1 inch margins, 12 point font). Please make sure you are not just summarizing the document and really engage with the document–what did he MEAN and WHY. Papers are due Sunday December 2nd at midnight. Late papers will be subject to my late paper policy as stated in the syllabus.