Economic Opportunity Act is adopted in Washington, D.C.

Signed by President Lyndon Johnson, the bill is designed “to mobilize the human and financial resources of the nation to combat poverty in the United States.” It creates the Office of Economic Opportunity (later the Community Services Administration), Head Start, Job Corps, Upward Bound, and VISTA. The law also creates the Community Action Program to develop programs with “maximum participation” of the poor to promote the “promise of progress toward elimination of poverty.” After passage of the law, the proportion of U.S. citizens living in poverty is reduced from 21% in 1959 to 12% a decade later.