Lyndon B. Johnson on "The Great Society" (1964): List 2

On May 22, 1964, the graduating students of the University of Michigan were personally asked by President Lyndon B. Johnson to join him in a battle to make America great. Here are some of the words used by the president to inspire a commitment to end poverty and injustice. Read the full text of his remarks here.

This list covers vocabulary in paragraphs 14-32 of the speech.
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Full list of words from this list:

words only definitions & notes
  1. objective
    the goal intended to be attained
    But most of all, the Great Society is not a safe harbor, a resting place, a final objective, a finished work. It is a challenge constantly renewed, beckoning us toward a destiny where the meaning of our lives matches the marvelous products of our labor.
  2. despoil
    destroy and strip of its possession
    The catalog of ills is long: there is the decay of the centers and the despoiling of the suburbs.
  3. erode
    become ground down or deteriorate
    Worst of all expansion is eroding these precious and time honored values of community with neighbors and communion with nature.
  4. innovation
    the creation of something in the mind
    And our society will never be great until our cities are great. Today the frontier of imagination and innovation is inside those cities and not beyond their borders.
  5. splendor
    the quality of being magnificent or grand
    For once the battle is lost, once our natural splendor is destroyed, it can never be recaptured.
  6. sustenance
    a source of food or nourishment
    And once man can no longer walk with beauty or wonder at nature his spirit will wither and his sustenance be wasted.
  7. poverty
    the state of having little or no money and possessions
    Poverty must not be a bar to learning, and learning must offer an escape from poverty.
  8. capacity
    capability to perform or produce
    It means exploring new techniques of teaching, to find new ways to stimulate the love of learning and the capacity for creation.
  9. assemble
    collect in one place
    We are going to assemble the best thought and the broadest knowledge from all over the world to find those answers for America.
  10. inspiration
    arousal of the mind to unusual activity or creativity
    And from these meetings and from this inspiration and from these studies we will begin to set our course toward the Great Society.
Created on Tue Jun 03 17:50:19 EDT 2025 (updated Tue Jun 03 17:53:04 EDT 2025)

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