Ernest Frederick "Fritz" Hollings was an American politician who served as a United States Senator from South Carolina from 1966 to 2005. A conservative Democrat, he was also the Governor of South Carolina and the 77th Lieutenant Governor of South Carolina. He served alongside Democrat turned Republican Senator Strom Thurmond for 36 years, making them the longest-serving Senate duo in history. At the time of his death, he was the oldest living former U.S. Senator.
Lyndon Baines Johnson, often referred to by his initials LBJ, was an American politician who served as the 36th president of the United States from 1963 to 1969, and previously as 37th vice president from 1961 to 1963. He assumed the presidency following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. A Democrat from Texas, Johnson also served as a United States Representative and as the Majority Leader in the United States Senate. Johnson is one of only four people who have served in all four federal elected positions.
The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States launched by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964–65. It was coined during a 1964 speech by President Lyndon B. Johnson at the University of Michigan and came to represent his domestic agenda. The main goal was the total elimination of poverty and racial injustice.
Russell Billiu Long was an American Democratic politician and United States Senator from Louisiana from 1948 until 1987. Because of his seniority, he advanced to chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, serving for fifteen years, from 1966 to 1981, during the implementation of President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society and War on Poverty programs. Long also served as Assistant Majority Leader from 1965 to 1969.
Appalachia is a cultural region in the Eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York State to northern Alabama and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in Alabama, the cultural region of Appalachia typically refers only to the central and southern portions of the range, from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, southwesterly to the Great Smoky Mountains. As of the 2010 United States Census, the region was home to approximately 25 million people.
John Davison "Jay" Rockefeller IV is a retired American politician who served as a United States Senator from West Virginia (1985–2015). He was first elected to the Senate in 1984, while in office as Governor of West Virginia (1977–85). Rockefeller moved to Emmons, West Virginia, to serve as a VISTA worker in 1964 and was first elected to public office as a member of the West Virginia House of Delegates (1966). Rockefeller was later elected West Virginia Secretary of State (1968) and was president of West Virginia Wesleyan College (1973–75). He became the state's senior U.S. Senator when the long-serving Senator Robert Byrd died in June 2010.
John Sherman Cooper was an American politician, jurist, and diplomat from the Commonwealth of Kentucky. He served three non-consecutive, partial terms in the United States Senate before being elected to two full terms in 1960 and 1966. He also served as U.S. Ambassador to India from 1955 to 1956 and U.S. Ambassador to East Germany from 1974 to 1976. He was the first Republican to be popularly elected to more than one term as a senator from Kentucky and, in both 1960 and 1966, he set records for the largest victory margin for a Kentucky senatorial candidate from either party.
The Solid South or Southern bloc was the electoral voting bloc of the states of the Southern United States for issues that were regarded as particularly important to the interests of Democrats in those states. The Southern bloc existed especially between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the passage of the Civil Rights Act in 1964. During this period, the Democratic Party controlled state legislatures; most local and state officeholders in the South were Democrats, as were federal politicians elected from these states. Southern Democrats disenfranchised blacks in every state of the former Confederacy at the turn of the 20th century. This resulted essentially in a one-party system, in which a candidate's victory in Democratic primary elections was tantamount to election to the office itself. White primaries were another means that the Democrats used to consolidate their political power, excluding blacks from voting in primaries.
Jennings Randolph was an American politician from West Virginia. He was a member of the Democratic Party and was the last surviving member of the United States Congress to have served during the first 100 days of Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration.
The Appalachian Regional Commission (ARC) is a United States federal-state partnership that works with the people of Appalachia to create opportunities for self-sustaining economic development and improved quality of life. Congress established ARC to bring the region into socioeconomic parity with the rest of the nation.
The Appalachian Development Highway System (ADHS) is part of the Appalachian Regional Commission in the United States. It consists of a series of highway corridors in the Appalachia region of the eastern United States. The routes are designed as local and regional routes for improving economic development in the historically isolated region. It was established as part of the Appalachian Regional Development Act of 1965, and has been repeatedly supplemented by various federal and state legislative and regulatory actions. The system consists of a mixture of state, U.S., and Interstate routes. The routes are formally designated as "corridors" and assigned a letter. Signage of these corridors varies from place to place, but where signed are often done so with a distinctive blue-colored sign.
John Neely Kennedy is an American lawyer and politician who is serving as the junior United States Senator from Louisiana since 2017. A Democrat turned Republican, he previously served as the Louisiana State Treasurer from 2000 to 2017.
The Eastern Kentucky Coalfield is part of the Central Appalachian bituminous coalfield, including all or parts of 30 Kentucky counties and adjoining areas in Ohio, West Virginia, Virginia and Tennessee. It covers an area from the Allegheny Mountains in the east across the Cumberland Plateau to the Pottsville Escarpment in the west. The region is known for its coal mining; most family farms in the region have disappeared since the introduction of surface mining in the 1940s and 1950s.
Southwest Virginia, often abbreviated as SWVA, is a mountainous region of Virginia in the westernmost part of the commonwealth. Located within the broader region of western Virginia, Southwest Virginia has been defined alternatively as all Virginia counties on the Appalachian Plateau, all Virginia counties west of the Eastern Continental Divide, or at its greatest expanse, as far east as Blacksburg and Roanoke. Another geographic categorization of the region places it as those counties within the Tennessee River watershed. Regardless of how borders are drawn, Southwest Virginia differs from the rest of the commonwealth in that its culture is more closely associated with Appalachia than the other regions of Virginia. Historically, the region has been and remains a rural area, but in the 20th century, coal mining became an important part of its economy. With the decline in the number of coal jobs and the decline of tobacco as a cash crop, Southwest Virginia is increasingly turning to tourism as a source of economic development. Collectively, Southwest Virginia's craft, music, agritourism and outdoor recreation, such as a kayak adventure on the Clinch River, are referred to as the region's "creative economy."
Appalachian Ohio is a bioregion and political unit in the southeastern part of the U.S. state of Ohio, characterized by the western foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and the Appalachian Plateau. The Appalachian Regional Commission defines the region as consisting of thirty-two counties. This region roughly overlaps with the Appalachian mixed-mesophytic forests, which begin in southeast Ohio and southwest Pennsylvania and continue to north Georgia and Alabama. The mixed-mesophytic forest is found only in Central and Southern Appalachia and eastern/central China. It is one of the most biodiverse temperate forests in the world.
In the United States, the Hillbilly Highway is the emigration of residents of the Appalachian Mountains to industrial cities in northern, midwestern, and western states, primarily in the years following World War II in search of better-paying industrial jobs and higher standards of living. Many of these migrants were formerly employed in the coal mining industry, which started to decline in 1940s. The word hillbilly refers to a negative stereotype of people from the Appalachians. The Hillbilly Highway was a parallel to the better-known Great Migration of African-Americans from the south.
The presidency of Lyndon Baines Johnson began on November 22, 1963, when Johnson became the 36th President of the United States upon the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, and ended on January 20, 1969. He had been Vice President of the United States for 1,036 days when he succeeded to the presidency. A Democrat from Texas, he ran for and won a full four-year term in the 1964 election, winning by a landslide over Republican opponent Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater. Johnson did not run for a second full term in the 1968 presidential election, he was succeeded by Republican Richard Nixon. His presidency marked the high tide of modern liberalism in the United States.
The Appalachian region of the Eastern United States is home to over 25 million people and largely covers the mountainous areas of 13 states: Mississippi, Alabama, Pennsylvania, New York, Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, Maryland, and includes the entire state of West Virginia. The region's rugged terrain and isolation from urban centers has created a distinct culture and resulted in high levels of poverty. A lack of public infrastructure such as highways, developed cities, businesses, and medical services have perpetuated the region's poor economic performance.
The Roving Picket Movement was the culmination of years of unrest from mine workers about their working conditions in the Appalachian region. The movement lasted from 1959 to 1965, with goals of reinstating health benefits and improving working conditions. Miners protested at several mines in Eastern Kentucky, and laid and the foundation for future movements within the Appalachian coal community.
