1950s and ‘60s

We shall overcome!

-How did the challenges of the fifties and sixties era change America?…..Civil Rights and towards a Great Society?

Cold War at Home: Red Hunt becomes a witch Hunt – fears of

communists at home• 1938 – House established HUAC, Committee

on Un-American Activities to investigate subversion.

• Alger Hiss, convicted of perjury in 1950• Nixon, Roy Jenkins, Robert F. Kennedy and

Senator Joseph McCArthy• 1951 – Julius and Ethel Rosenberg convicted

and electrocuted in 1953 for espionage– leaked atomic doctrines to Moscow

• 1950 - McCarran Internal Security Act vetoed by Truman but overriden by Congress

Vietnam• Eisenhower (1954):

• Dien Bien Phu, (French defeat/surrender)• Geneva Accords (17th parallel)

-US supports South Vietnam

• Kennedy: Military Advisers (early 1960s)• Johnson: Golf of Tonkin Resolution, 1964 • Ho Chi Minh Trail / Viet Cong• Americanization, 1965 (American ground forces)• Tet offensive, 1968• 1968 Nixon- “Peace with Honor”• My Lai massacre, 1968 (1970)• Vietnamisation, 1969• 1970 – invasion of Cambodia• 1973 – War Powers Resolution Act (Congress Limits Pres.)• 1975 – Saigon Falls (Vietnam is reunified under communism)

The Eisenhower Era, 1952-1960

• Joseph McCarthy –bubble bursts• Early Civil Rights movement: Rosa Parks;• Desegregation of schools• Prosperity – a new consumer culture, centered

around television• Broad public consensus as a reaction to

turbulent 30s & 40s; New Deal, Fair Deal + anticommunism

• Cold War tensions: Sputnik, Berlin Crisis, U-2 incident & Castro’s Cuban revolution

• Nonintervention in Hungarian revolt

ASSESSING THE EISENHOWER PRESIDENCY

•He wielded the veto 169 times, only twice overrode•Economic prosperity•1959, Alaska and Hawaii become states•Greatest failing: no real crusade on civil rights (more on this in later slides)•As a Republican, he supported the New Deal +Fair Deal•Restraint in the use of military power: failed in goal of ending the arms race with the Soviets•He had ended the Korean War and avoided others

1960 Election:• Kennedy “New Frontier” vs Nixon• First televised debate: Who won the debate?

• JFK – youngest man to be president and the first Roman Catholic

JFK as President: 1961-1963

• youngest man to be president and the first Roman Catholic

New Frontier

Robert McNamara briefing on Vietnam

Escalation of the Vietnam War after 1965Affected resources available for domestic programs

FOREIGN POLICY in the ‘60s• “Flexible response vs. Dulles’/

Eisenhower‘s “massive retaliation”– Peace Corps– Special Forces– Conventional Forces

• 1961, Berlin Wall • Cuba: 1962 Bay of Pigs; • missile crisis; 1963 “hot line” installed• Defense Sect.McNamara:• 1962,US aid increase to Vietnam• 1964, Tonkin Gulf Resolution; • 1965, Johnson bombs No. Vietnam• 1968, Tet Offensive• 1973, Nixon and N. Vietnam sign cease fire agreement; US troops leave S. Vietnam

TRAGEDY IN DALLAS: JFK Assassinated

22 November 1963: while visiting Dallas, Kennedy was shot and killed by Lee Harvey Oswald Before being brought to trial,

Oswald was killed by Jack Ruby, owner of a Dallas nightclub

Many people believed a conspiracy was behind the Kennedy assassination and a special commission under Chief Justice Earl Warren was established to investigate

Concluded Oswald had acted alone

Lyndon B. Johnson (LBJ)

• Initiated and passed more social welfare• Legislation more quickly, than any other

president.

• Civil Rights Act of 1964• Voting Rights Act of 1965

Lyndon B. Johnson November 22, 1963 –1969

Johnson sought election as president in his own right in 1964 Championship of civil rights garnered him almost

unanimous support of blacks His tax policy attracted the well-to-do and business

interests War on poverty held the allegiance of labor and other

traditionally Democratic groups Down-home southern antecedents counterbalanced

his liberalism on race in the eyes of many white Southerners

Johnson declared war on poverty and set out to create a Great Society In 1960, between 20 and 25 percent of American

families—about 40 million people—lived below the poverty line

Prosperity and advancing technology had changed the definition of poverty; yet, as living standards rose so did the educational requirements of many jobs

Pearson Education, Inc, publishing as Longman © 2008

THE GREAT SOCIETY Medicare and Medicaid January 1965: Johnson proposed a compulsory hospital insurance system,

Medicare, for all persons over 65 Part A: hospital insurance for retired (funded by increase in Social Security) Part B: a voluntary plan covering doctors’ bills (paid for in part by the

government) Also provided for grants to the states to help pay medical expenses of poor

people regardless of age—Medicaid In the end, it provided medical treatment for millions of people but gave

doctors, hospitals and drug companies the ability to raise fees without fear of losing customers

Economic Opportunity Act of 1964: created a mixture of programs that combined the progressive concept of government with the conservative concept of individual responsibility Job Corps

which was supposed to provide vocational training to help people get better jobs, was almost a complete failure

Community action program to finance local antipoverty efforts System for training the unskilled unemployed and for lending money to small

businesses in poor areas

Civil Rights: “We shall Overcome!”• Brown v. Board of Education (1954)• Martin Luther King, Jr. (SCLC)

– Non violence– Integration– Montgomery Bus boycott (1955)– Marches (Selma, Birmingham, and on

Washington

Early Civil Rights Movement 1954-57• Brown vs Board of Ed of Topeka• SC Judge Earl Warren reversed the Plessy v Ferguson of

“separate but equal”• = integration• By 1956 only 700 of the South’s 10,000 school districts

desegregated• Incidents of violence:

– Clinton, Tennessee: “Kill the niggers!”

-Nat’l Guard sent in but school blown up!- Virginia governor: “Massive Resistance” by denying state

aid to integrated schools- U of Alabama: expulsion of black female student after riots

- Little Rock, Arkansas 1957: Governor Orval Faubus sends in National Guard troops to PREVENT integration!

Central High School, Little Rock Arkansas integrated, 1957

Little Rock ArkansasEisenhower sends in 1000 paratroopers and took over the National Guardsmen sent in by the Faubus to enforce segregation. Troops remain for the rest of the school year!

Desegregation

• Forced integration ended by Supreme Court decision in 2007.

Rosa Parks, 1955

Seeds of the Civil Rights Movement

Freedom Riders Montgomery Alabama, 1961Rosa Parks’ bus, 1955

“I just decided I was not going to be moved out of that seat.”

SNCC• Students Non-violent Coordinating Committee

– Sit-ins (“Greensboro Four” Civil Rights Act (1964) - outlawed discrimination by employers against blacks and also against women Broke down legal barriers to black voting in southern states Outlawed racial segregation of all sorts in places of public

accommodation Johnson made sure the act was enforced

– Freedom Riders Voting Rights Act of 1965:

provided for federal intervention to protect black registration and voting in six southern states and applied to state and local as well as federal elections

Civil Rights Movement:“Shoot Don’t Loot!”

• Black Power!

- “Nation of Islam” and Malcolm X

- Carmichael Stockley

- “Separation not Integration”

-Self-determination

Malcom XBorn: May 19, 1925, Full name: Malcolm LittleAssassinated: February 21, 1965, New York City

MLK, Jr.Born: January 15, 1929, Atlanta, GeorgiaAssassinated: April 4, 1968, Memphis, Tennessee

Compare and contrast them!

Thurgood Marshall NAACP memberFirst African American SC Judge 1967-1991

CIVIL RIGHTS 1960s• 1966 0n – Black movement more militant• 1960, SNCC – Student Non-Violent Coordinating

Comm.- college students• 1963, Malcolm X broke with Nation of Islam; assassinate

in 1965• Black Panther Party – Eldridge Cleaver, Bobby Seale,

Huey Newton – black power, Angela Davis• 1960s, Freedom Riders; 1962, James Meredith at U.

Mississippi; 1963, March on Washington, King’s “I have a Dream” speech; 1964-Civil Rights Act – created EEOC;1965 – Voting Rights Act

• 1965, race riots in U.S. cities – Watts, Detroit and Newark: “Burn baby burn”

Civil Rights Movement

• Other long term effects of Brown v. Board of Ed:– Bussing– Affirmative Action

• Example to other groups fighting for their rights:

-Women-Minorities

-Environmentalists.....NEXT 1970s and ’80s

Election of 1968