When Kennedy picked Johnson to be his running-mate in 1960, many of JFK’s advisers were aghast. Organized labor universally opposed LBJ and JFK’s advisers said he was too conservative for the ticket. They were wrong, as it turned out, at least on the domestic front. (1/18)

When he became POTUS, LBJ was able to push through some of the strongest, most liberal legislation of any presidential administration in history, with the possible exception of FDR. (2/18)

As a veteran of Congress and one of the most skillful legislative leaders in history, LBJ was able to leverage his Congressional experience to push through long-stymied legislation supporting civil rights and economic security. (3/18)

He used all of his legislative acumen to push through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 banning discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, which he described as doing more for civil rights than the last 100 sessions of Congress combined. (4/18)

He pushed through the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which among other things banned literacy tests and all-white primaries, and outlawed racial discrimination in voting. Millions of Southern blacks were able to vote for the first time because of the legislation. (5/18)

LBJ pushed through the Civil Rights Act of 1968, which included the Fair Housing Act banning housing and real estate discrimination on the basis of race. (6/18)

LBJ appointed Thurgood Marshall to become the first African American justice on the Supreme Court. On the Segal-Cover Score and Martin-Quinn Scale, Marshall is considered to be the second-most liberal justice in the modern (post-WW2) history. (7/18)

In 1965, half of American seniors 65+ did not have health insurance. LBJ pushed through the Social Security Amendments of 1965 that created Medicare and Medicaid. A decade later, 20% of the U.S. was receiving health care insurance through those programs. (8/18)

With the war on poverty, LBJ pushed through the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964, creating the Office of Economic Opportunity and programs like Head Start and Neighborhood Legal Services. He created the Job Corps and AmeriCorps VISTA, a domestic version of the Peace Corps. (9/18)

LBJ successfully pressured Congress to pass the Food Stamp Act of 1964, which made permanent the food stamp pilot program created by JFK. (10/18)

LBJ pushed through the Housing & Urban Development Act of 1965, which created HUD, expanded federal housing programs, provided rent subsidies for the elderly and disabled, made it easier for vets to qualify for mortgages. (11/18)

LBJ’s War on Poverty programs resulted in dropping the national poverty rate from 20% when he took office to 12% a decade later – and the “Full-income Poverty Rate” dropped from 19.5% to 2.3%. (12/18)

LBJ doubled federal K-12 spending through the Elementary & Secondary Education Act, which also focused spending on poorer school districts and increased the desegregation of public schools. He also created the Head Start program in 1965 to provide grants to preschools. (13/18)

LBJ also pushed through the Higher Education Act of 1965, which provided grants, work-study, and gov’t loans to make it easier for low-income students to go to college. This resulted in tripling the college graduation rates from 1964 to 2013. (14/18)

LBJ signed JFK’s Clean Air Act of 1963. He pushed through the Motor Vehicle Air Pollution Control Act (1965), the Air Quality Act of 1967, the Land & Water Conservation Fund (1964) and the Wilderness Act (1964), creating the National Wilderness Preservation System. (15/18)

LBJ signed the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, which included repealing the racist National Origins Formula and also included family reunification provisions. (16/18)

LBJ had plenty of flaws, but JFK’s advisers were wrong in fearing that he’d be too conservative. His legislative experience allowed him to not only push through much of JFK’s liberal domestic agenda but also go far, far beyond what JFK envisioned. (17/18)

Primaries promote hyperbole and magnify minute differences among allies. But don’t forget the Southern Democrat considered to be too conservative for the ticket who leveraged his legislative experience to create some of the most liberal reforms of any president ever. (18/18)