Johnson succeeded to the presidency following the assassination of President John F. The 36th President of the United States (1963–1969) and 35th Vice President of the United States (1961–1963). Dorothy Willard→Onad Duncan your mother→Edith Davis her mother→Albert Dewitt Worley her father→Alanson Dewitt Worley his father→Judith S Worley his mother→ Daniel Law her father→Sarah Law his mother→Abner Cockerham her father→ Sarah Sally Cockerham his mother→Elizabeth Hamblen her mother→John Watkins her father→John Watkins his father→Henry Watkins his father→Elizabeth Bottom his sister →Thomas Bottom her son→Francis Estes his daughter→Dice Kirby her daughter→ George Kirby her son→Dicea Perrin his daughter→Mary Elizabeth Huffman her daughter →Ruth Ament Baines her daughter→Rebekah Johnson her daughter→Lyndon Baines Johnson her son. Lyndon Baines Johnson is Dorothy Willard's 9th cousin four times removed. He became a surrogate son to Sam Rayburn.
Roosevelt, as well as fellow Texans such as Vice President John Nance Garner. Johnson's friends soon included aides to President Franklin D. LBJ was elected speaker of the "Little Congress," a group of Congressional aides, where he cultivated Congressmen, newspapermen and lobbyists. Kleberg, who appointed Johnson as Kleberg's legislative secretary. Hopkins recommended him to Congressman Richard M. In 1930, Johnson campaigned for Texas State Senator Welly Hopkins in his run for Congress. Johnson's father had served five terms in the Texas legislature and was a close friend to one of Texas's rising political figures, Congressman Sam Rayburn. Later, as a politician LBJ was influenced in his attitude towards the Jews by the religious beliefs that his family, especially his grandfather, had shared with him Johnson briefly taught public speaking and debate in a Houston high school, then entered politics. According to Lady Bird Johnson, Johnson's father also joined the Christadelphian Church toward the end of his life. In his later years he became a Christadelphian. Subsequently, in his early adulthood, he became a member of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). Johnson's grandfather Samuel Ealy Johnson, Sr. George Baines was the grandfather of Johnson's mother, Rebekah Baines Johnson.
Baines was also the president of Baylor University during the American Civil War. Johnson was maternally descended from a pioneer Baptist clergyman, George Washington Baines, who pastored some eight churches in Texas as well as others in Arkansas and Louisiana.
Johnson was renowned for his domineering personality and the "Johnson treatment," his arm-twisting of powerful politicians. He withdrew from the race to concentrate on peacemaking. Johnson's popularity as President steadily declined after the 1966 Congressional elections, and his reelection bid in the 1968 United States presidential election collapsed as a result of turmoil within the Democratic party related to opposition to the Vietnam War. Kennedy to be his running-mate for the 1960 presidential election. After campaigning unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination in 1960, Johnson was selected by John F. Johnson served as a United States Representative from Texas from 1937–1949 and as United States Senator (as his grandfather foretold when LBJ was just an infant) from 1949–1961, including six years as United States Senate Majority Leader, two as Senate Minority Leader and two as Senate Majority Whip. Johnson was a major leader of the Democratic Party and as President was responsible for designing the "Great Society" legislation that included civil rights laws, Medicare (government-funded health care for the elderly), Medicaid (government-funded health care for the poor), aid to education, and the "War on Poverty." Simultaneously, he escalated the American involvement in the Vietnam War from 16,000 American soldiers in 1963 to 550,000 in early 1968. Kennedy, and after completing Kennedy's term was elected President in his own right in a landslide victory in the 1964 Presidential election. A Democrat, Johnson succeeded to the presidency following the assassination of President John F. The thirty-sixth President of the United States (1963–1969) and thirty-seventh Vice President of the United States (1961–1963).