politics of America

The Sixties

The Rising Tide of Protest:

· Students Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

· “We can’t count on adults”

· Young people agents for social change

· Other forms of action soon followed sit-ins

· “wade-ins”—access to public beaches

· Freedom Rides—integrated groups traveled by bus to the deep South to test the compliance with court orders for integration

Birmingham:

· High point of protest in spring of 1963

· Discontent over inequality in housing, employment, and education

· 15,000 arrests in 186 cities

· Birmingham, Alabama was a citadel of segregation

· Violent city—over 50 bombings of black homes and institutions since WWII

· Invited MLK to Birmingham

· “Letters from Birmingham Jail”

· MLK decision to send black schoolchildren into the streets of Birmingham

· Unleashed forces against the marchers

· June 1963—sniper killed Medger Evers (NAACP secretary)

· September 1963—bomb exploded at Baptist church, killing 4

Televised images from the Birmingham march—led to triumph for the civil rights movement

The March on Washington

· August 28, 1963—March on Washington—high point of the nonviolent civil rights movement

· Led by A. Philip Randolph—black unionist

· Many whites and blacks united

· Called for:

· the passage of the civil rights bill

· Public works programs to reduce unemployment

· Increase minimum wage

· Law barring discrimination in employment

· “Jobs and Freedom”

· MLK gave his famous “I Have a Dream” speech

Kennedy and the world

· Urged Americans to move beyond self-centered consumerism of the 1950s

· “Ask not what your country can do for you; but what you can do for your country”

· Initially, Kennedy regarded civil rights as a distraction from his main concern—the Cold War

· Established Peace Corps—to aid in the economic and educational progress of developing countries

· Declared the US would land a man on the moon by the end of the decade

The Bay of Pigs

· Fidel Castro led a revolution that ousted Cuban dictator Batista

· Until Castro took power, Cuba was economically dependent on the US

· Suspended trade with Cuba after Cuba agreed to sell sugar to the Soviet Union

· April 1961, Kennedy allowed CIA to launch an invasion at a site known as the Bay of Pigs

· Hoped to spur an uprising to topple Castro’s government

· But, a total disaster (Of 1,400—100 killed, 1,100 captured)

· Cuba more closely tied to Soviet Union

The Missile Crisis

· Deterioration of relationships between the 2 “superpowers”

· Most dangerous crisis of the Cold War in October 1962

· Spy planes discovered the Soviet Union installing missiles in Cuba capable of reaching the US w/ nuclear weapons

· Kennedy imposed a blockade of Cuba and demanded the removal of the missiles

· After 13 days of tense negotiations, Nikita Krushchev withdrew the missiles

· US agreed to remove missiles from Turkey that could reach the Soviet Union

· Kennedy shocked at how close some people were willing to engage in a nuclear war (led him to move to reduce Cold War tensions)

Kennedy and the civil rights

· At first, Kennedy reluctant to take a stand on black demands

· In 1963, with the crisis over, his attention turned to civil rights

· He realized that the Us could not declare itself the champion of freedom throughout the world while maintaining a system of racial inequality at home.

· May 1963—went on national TV and urged the passage of the civil rights bill

· Did not live to see its passage

Kennedy Assassinated

· November 22, 1963—shot and killed in Dallas, TX by Lee Harvey Oswald

· Oswald killed 2 days later raises questions of conspiracy

· Like 9/11, the nation would recall what they were doing when they heard the news of Kennedy’s death.

Lyndon Johnson’s Presidency

· Kennedy born to a wealthy family; Johnson grew up in a poor area in TX and struggled to achieve wealth and power

· More interested in domestic reform than JFK

· New Deal view

· Civil Rights Act of 1964

· Johnson’s first order of business

· Prohibited racial discrimination in employment, in places like hospitals and schools, and privately owned public places

· Also banned discrimination on grounds of sex

· After signing, said “I think we delivered the South to the Republican Party.”

Freedom Summer

· Campaign launched in 1964 to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi

· Hundreds of white college students travelled from the North to Mississippi

· Violence greeted the campaign

· 35 bombings and many beatings

· In June, 3 white activists kidnapped and murdered 2of them

Selma, Alabama

· January 1964—King launched voting rights campaign in Selma

· City where only 355 of 15,000 blacks had been allowed to register to vote

· Attempted to march from Selma to Alabama

· Met violence on the bridge leading out of the city

· Violence met the nonviolent protestors (again, televised)

· Congress quickly passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965

· Allowed federal officials to register voters

· Outlawed the poll tax

· Hart-Cellar Act (1965)—Abandoned the national-origins quota system of immigration that excluded Asians and severely restricted others.

· The Great Society (1965-1967)—initiatives to provide health services to the poor and elderly and poured funds into education and urban development

· Response to prosperity, not depression

· One of most important aspect dealt with eradicating poverty

· Head Start, job training, legal services, scholarships for poor college students, and food stamps

The Changing Black Movement

· Riots between angry blacks and white police erupted in Harlem (1964) and Watts (1965) after the signing of the Voting Rights Act

· Violence so bad by 1967 that many worried about a racial civil war

· Violence blamed on “segregation and poverty”

· 1966—King launched Chicago Freedom Movement

· Called for an end to discrimination

· King’s language became more radical

· “revolution in values that would create a better distribution of wealth for all God’s children.”

Malcolm X

· Insistence that blacks must control the political and economic resources of their communities

· Not depend on whites

· While in jail, converted to the teachings of Black Muslim

· Preached message of white evil and black self-discipline

· Dropped his “slave surname” in favor of “X”

· members of the Nation of Islam assassinated him in 1965

· Many whites see him as an apostle for racial violence

· But, his call for blacks to rely on their own resources struck a chord with many urban poor and young civil rights activists

Rise of Black Power

· Malcolm X intellectual father of “Black Power”

· “Black power means black freedom”

· New sense of racial pride and rejection of white norms

· The Black Panther Party

· Founded in Oakland, CA by Huey Newton and Bobby Seale

· Notorious for advocating armed self-defense in response to police brutality

· Wore military garb, frightened many whites

the New Left

· New Left—rejection of the intellectual and political categories that had shaped radicalism

· Challenged mainstream America

· Spoke o loneliness, isolation, and alienation; powerlessness in face of institutions and lack of authenticity that affluence could not provide

· Inspiration from the black freedom movement—sit-ins a catalyst for white student activism

· Black movement and New Left shared basic assumptions

· Especially that evils to be corrected were deeply imbedded in social institutions

America and Vietnam

· Vietnam War transformed protest into full-scale rebellion

· Revealed the danger of viewing the entire world through the either-or lens of an anticommunist crusade

· Different historical experiences in different parts of the world

· Afraid that Americans would never forgive them for losing Vietnam made it impossible for Kennedy and Johnson to remove themselves from a poor situation

· Kennedy questioned the “wisdom of involvement in Vietnam” but took no measures to remove US presence

Vietnam War

· Gulf of Tonkin resolution—gave president authorization to take “all necessary measures to repel armed attack” in Vietnam after supposed attack on American spy ship off the coast of Vietnam by N. Vietnamese

· 1964 campaign—Johnson said he had no intention of sending American troops to Vietnam

· Almost immediately after he took office, he sent troops to Vietnam

· By 1968, 500,000 American troops in Vietnam

· Brutal war—American planes dropped more bombs on Vietnam than both sides used in all WWII. Use of napalm

· Televised brutality?

Vietnam War

· Nixon’s secret plan to end the war

· “Vietnamization”: gradually leave Vietnam and leave the fighting to the South

· Cut off the Ho Chi Minh trail that supplied the South from the North by going into Cambodia

· Involved more bombing

· Destabilized Cambodia and helped the Khmer Rouge come to power

· Discontent in the early 1970s within the army

· Pentagon Papers revealed in 1971—the government had been misleading the public about the war

· American’s mistrust of their government

· 1973, the US leaves Vietnam but the north and south continue to fight until 1975 when the north overtakes the south to form a communist Vietnam

· First war that the US lost

· Why? Didn’t understand Vietnamese and why they were fighting

· Fighting for freedom from colonial oppression rather than for communism

The Anti-War Movement

· Young activists lost all confidence in the system

· Opposition to the war

· College students exempted from draft, the burden fell on the working class and the poor

· King spoke out against the war as draining resources needed at home

· Decisions on the war made by powerful elite, with no real political debate

· Many believed the war was rooted in obsessive anti-communism

· Many young men burned their draft cards or fled to Canada to avoid fighting an unjust war

· “Flower power”—placing flowers in the barrels of guns as a sign of protest

The Feminine Mystique & Women’s Liberation

· Where did women stand at the beginning of the 1960s?

· Little held political office, newspapers divided job ads into “male” and “female” with the latter limited to clerical positions, and major universities limited the number of women they admitted.

· Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique

· Discontents with consumer culture and discontents of the middle class

· “The Problem That Has No Name”—devastating picture of talented, educated women trapped in a world that viewed marriage and motherhood as the primary goal

· Suburban dream had become a nightmare

· Equal Pay Act (1963)—barred sexual discrimination among holders of the same job

· Civil Rights Act (1964)—prohibited inequality based on sex as well as race

· National Organization for Women (NOW)—Demanded equal opportunity in jobs, education and political participation and attacked the “false image of women”

· Friedan became president of NOW

· More women entered college in the 1960s, which created a new feminism

· “Consciousness-raising” groups to discuss their discontents

· New feminism burst onto the national scene at the Miss America pageant of 1968

· Media invented a new label for radical women— “bra burners”

· Question of control over her own body

· 1960s emphasis on sexual freedom

· Abortion became a topic of contention

· 1962, 2/3 of women did not feel they were victims of discrimination. By 1974, 2/3 did.

GAY LIBERATION

· Movement for gay liberation came as a surprise to many

· “The one group of disadvantaged people who didn’t even think of themselves as a group.”

· Had long been stigmatized as being sinful or having a mental disorder

· McCarthyism saw homosexuality as a source of national weakness

· Most kept their sexual orientation a secret

Stonewall Bar

· The raid of the Stonewall Bar in NY’s Greenwich Village, marked the advent of gay liberation

· A gathering place for homosexuals

· Rather than bowing down to the police (as done in the past), gays fought back

· Five days of rioting followed

· Many gay men and lesbians stepped out of the “closet” to insist sexual orientation was a matter of rights, power, and identity

· Within a few years, “gay pride” marches held in numerous cities

Latino Activism

· New militancy in the 1960s for legal rights for Mexican-Americans

· Emphasis on pride in both Mexican past and the Chicano culture that had arisen in the US

· Closely linked to labor struggles

· Cesar Chavez—son of migrant farm workers and disciple of King led non-violent protests to agree to labor contracts with the United Farm Workers Union

· Low wages and poor working conditions

· 1970, the major growers agreed to contracts with the UFW

Red Power

· 1960s upsurge in Indian militancy

· The Truman administration sought to dismantle the reservation system and integrate Indians into the American mainstream— “termination”

· Many Indian leaders protested against termination and it was eventually abandoned by Kennedy

· Johnson’s war on poverty funneled federal funds into reservations

· Indians not only demanded economic aid but also the right to self-determination

· The American Indian Movt.(1968) called for greater tribal self governance and restoration of economic resources

· Alcatraz Island protest lasted 19 months

THE NEW ENVIROMENTALISM

· Concern for preserving the natural environment in a country that pushed for endless progress in consumption, science, technology, and economic growth

· Conservation efforts during the Progressive Era

· New environmentalism of the 1960s was more activist and youth oriented

· Empowered individuals to participate in decisions that would affect their lives

· Bulldozing of forests for suburban development and contamination from household goods

· Silent Spring (1962) by marine biologist, Rachel Carson

· Effects of DDT (insecticide)

Many condemned her as “hysterical” and “emotional”

· Carson’s work launched the modern environmental movement

· Alert the country of water contamination, air pollution, lead in paint, the extermination of animal species, dangers of oil transportation, and ocean drilling

· The Sierra Club saw its membership triple

· Clean Air and Water Act and the Endangered Species Act (1970)

· April 22, 1970—the first Earth Day

· Ralph Nader—Unsafe at Any Speed (1965): exposed how manufacturers produce highly dangerous vehicles

1968—the year of turmoil

· Foundations of society seemed to be dissolving

· Tet Offensive (1968)—Viet Cong and N. Vietnamese troops launched well-organized uprisings throughout S. Vietnam

· Television showed the intensity of the fighting and shattered public confidence in the Johnson Administration

· “victory just around the corner”

· MLK organized Poor People’s March—hope to increase anti-poverty efforts

· April 4: Travelled to Memphis to support a strike and then assassinated—led to greatest outbreak in urban violence

· End of April—students protesting Columbia University’s involvement in defense research

· New York police removed protestors in a violent assault

· June—Palestinian nationalist assassinated Robert F. Kennedy

· August—tens of thousands of antiwar activists protested at the Democratic national convention in Chicago

1968–the global 1968

· 1968: a year of worldwide turmoil

· Massive antiwar protests in Rome, London, Paris, Munich, and Tokyo

· Paris: student uprising for educational reform and personal liberation

· French workers protested for higher wages and democracy in the workplace

· Olympic Games in Mexico City saw protests for greater democracy

· Ireland: Catholics demanded end to religious discrimination

· European countries: second wave feminism

Nixon’s Comeback

· Instead of radical change, the 1960s opened the door for a conservative reaction

· Turmoil in the streets demanded public order

· Many movements produced a backlash in the 1970s

· Nixon won the Republican nomination

· Campaigned for the “silent majority”—ordinary Americans who believed change had gone too far and called for “law and order”

· Nixon won the election in 1968 and ushered in a period of growing conservatism in American politics

Legacy of the 1960s

· Produced new rights and new understandings of freedom

· The entrance of numerous members of racial minorities into mainstream American life

· But, unsolved problems of poverty

· Set in motion the transformation of the status of women

· Americans’ were condemned to refight the battles of the 1960s long after the decade was over (race, feminism, social policy, nation’s role in world affairs)

· As the country became more conservative, the 1960s would be blamed for the country’s social ills

The Sixties

The Rising Tide of Protest

:

•

S

tudents Non

-

Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

•

“We can’t count on adults”

•

Young people agents for social change

•

Other forms of action soo

n followed sit

-

ins

•

“wade

-

ins”

—

access to public beaches

•

Freedom Rides

—

integrated groups traveled by bus to the deep South to test the

compliance with court orders for integration

Birmingham

:

•

High point of protest in spring of 1963

•

Discontent over inequality in housing, employment, and education

•

15,000 arrests in 186 cities

•

Bi

rmingham, Alabama was a citadel of segregation

•

Violent city

—

over 50 bombings of black homes and institutions since WWII

•

Invited MLK to Birmingham

•

“Letters from Birmingham Jail”

•

MLK decision to send black schoolchildren into the streets of Birmingham

•

Unleashed forces against the marchers

•

June 1963

—

sniper killed Medger Evers (NAACP secretary)

•

September 1963

—

bomb exploded at Baptist church, killing 4

The Sixties

The Rising Tide of Protest:

• Students Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

• “We can’t count on adults”

• Young people agents for social change

• Other forms of action soon followed sit-ins

• “wade-ins”—access to public beaches

• Freedom Rides—integrated groups traveled by bus to the deep South to test the

compliance with court orders for integration

Birmingham:

• High point of protest in spring of 1963

• Discontent over inequality in housing, employment, and education

• 15,000 arrests in 186 cities

• Birmingham, Alabama was a citadel of segregation

• Violent city—over 50 bombings of black homes and institutions since WWII

• Invited MLK to Birmingham

• “Letters from Birmingham Jail”

• MLK decision to send black schoolchildren into the streets of Birmingham

• Unleashed forces against the marchers

• June 1963—sniper killed Medger Evers (NAACP secretary)

• September 1963—bomb exploded at Baptist church, killing 4