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12CH_Barnes_American.pdf

12 The Turbulent Years

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

The March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom still stands as one of the largest political gatherings in U.S. history. At this August 27, 1963, event, Martin

Luther King Jr. delivered the iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. The event gave extra momentum to passage of

the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

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American Lives: Ron Kovic

Pre-Test

1. The government created NASA in 1958 as a response to the Soviet launch of the orbiting Sputnik satellite. T/F

2. President John F. Kennedy successfully managed important foreign affairs crises in Cuba, such as the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. T/F

3. President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society can be described as using a “curative strategy” in the War on Poverty. T/F

4. President Lyndon Johnson’s approach to the Vietnam War after 1964 was called “Americanization.” T/F

5. The 1968 presidential election demonstrated the harmony of political and social consensus in the United States. T/F

Answers can be found at the end of the chapter.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

• Describe the aims of Kennedy’s New Frontier. • Discuss the major international crises of the early 1960s Cold War. • Explain the ways that Johnson’s Great Society differed from Kennedy’s New Frontier. • Discuss the major achievements of the civil rights movement in the 1960s. • Describe the tactics of the civil rights movement and explain how different groups

used them. • Explain how and why the Cold War consensus shifted to oppose the Vietnam War.

American Lives: Ron Kovic

Ronald Lawrence Kovic, peace activist and author of the memoir Born on the Fourth of July, was among the first wave of baby boomers, who came of age in the turbulent 1960s. Born in 1946, Kovic grew up in Massapequa, New York, and joined the U.S. Marine Corps as soon as he gradu- ated high school in 1964. He remembered drawing inspiration from John F. Kennedy’s inaugural address, in which the new president charged Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country”(as cited in Waldman, 2010, p. 165).

On August 7, 1964, 3 weeks before Kovic reported for duty at the Marine Corps Recruiting Depot at Parris Island, South Carolina, Congress passed the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, authorizing the president to use all necessary measures in defense of its allies in Southeast Asia. Although not a formal declaration of war, the resolution marked the escalation of the Vietnam War. Kovic volunteered for his first 13-month tour of duty in December 1965, then returned for a second tour 2 years later.

Ron Kovic became one of the most visible Vietnam veterans to speak out against the war, and especially about the poor treatment veterans received through the Veteran’s Administration medical system.

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Pre-Test

1. The government created NASA in 1958 as a response to the Soviet launch of the orbiting Sputnik satellite. T/F

2. President John F. Kennedy successfully managed important foreign affairs crises in Cuba, such as the Bay of Pigs and the Cuban Missile Crisis. T/F

3. President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society can be described as using a “curative strategy” in the War on Poverty. T/F

4. President Lyndon Johnson’s approach to the Vietnam War after 1964 was called “Americanization.” T/F

5. The 1968 presidential election demonstrated the harmony of political and social consensus in the United States. T/F

Answers can be found at the end of the chapter.

Learning Objectives

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

used them. • Explain how and why the Cold War consensus shifted to oppose the Vietnam War.

American Lives: Ron Kovic

His second Vietnam experience changed his life forever and led Kovic to become a peace activist and an outspoken critic of U.S. foreign policy. During a confusing ambush in October 1967, he acciden- tally shot and killed another American soldier. The incident left him emotion- ally devastated. Three months later, while leading a squad of soldiers across a field, Kovic was seriously wounded by enemy fire. Two Marines who came to his aid were killed. As a result of his wounds, Kovic was paralyzed from the chest down.

Like many of his generation, Kovic began to question the Cold War consen- sus that led the United States to inter- vene in Vietnam and other conflicts. He saw the war as unwinnable and grew frustrated at the disrespect accorded to the veterans of the conflict, especially the poor conditions in veterans’ hospitals.

Kovic joined with other Vietnam veterans and civilian activists at multiple protests against the still-raging war and became a member of a growing organization, Vietnam Veterans Against the War. He delivered his first major speech at a high school in the middle-class suburb of Levittown, New York, and was later arrested several times as he continued his antiwar activities.

At first some war supporters derided him as a Communist or as un-American, but public opinion gradually changed, and many other voices joined his in speaking out against the Vietnam War. In an interview on CBS television, Kovic proclaimed:

I’m a Vietnam veteran, I gave America my all and the leaders of the government threw me and the others away to rot in their V.A. hospitals. What’s happening in Vietnam is a crime against humanity, and I want the American people to know that. (Kovic, 2005, p. 15)

In 1974 Kovic penned his memoir, and in 1989 Oliver Stone directed a motion picture based on the book, for which he won that year’s Academy Award for Best Director. Kovic’s story reflected many Americans’ growing dissent and discontent with the status quo and growing skepticism of the U.S. government and national leaders. Kovic published a second edition of Born on the Fourth of July in 2005, and he continues to actively protest U.S. involvement in foreign conflicts, most recently the Iraq War (Kovic, 2005).

For further thought: 1. How does Kovic’s experience reflect a change in attitudes toward U.S. Cold War policy? 2. Besides his personal injury, what may have influenced Kovic’s peace activism?

American Lives: Ron Kovic

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Section 12.1 The Kennedy Years

12.1 The Kennedy Years

Beginning with Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, the federal government expanded its influ- ence over Americans’ daily lives. The expansion continued during World War II, when the government controlled numerous industries in support of the war effort. While these returned to private hands after the war, increased spending on social welfare programs and national defense continued. The Democrats wanted to continue the growth of the welfare state and sought to achieve initiatives such as federal health insurance and more sweeping social benefits.

Though Republicans limited several of these attempts, the political landscape was changing. Even the presidential campaigns themselves reflected a significant difference from the recent past, especially with the prevalence of television requiring candidates to become much more media savvy. The 1960 election exemplified all of these political trends. It was a campaign that set the stage for three future presidents, and it was one of the closest elections in Ameri- can history.

Kennedy and Nixon By 1960 Eisenhower had reached the end of his term limit; he was the first president to be affected by the 22nd Amendment, which stated that presidents could only run for two terms. With Eisenhower unable to run for reelection, the Republicans nominated Vice President Richard Nixon to run, and John F. Kennedy and his vice presidential nominee, Lyndon John- son, headed the Democratic ticket. Kennedy was a young Massachusetts senator and just the second Catholic ever nominated to run for president. He came from a wealthy family with several generations of political connections. His grandfather had served as the mayor of Bos- ton and a three-term congressman. His father, Joseph P. Kennedy, made a huge fortune in the stock market and later became the U.S. ambassador to the United Kingdom. Johnson, a senator from Texas with a long-standing political record, balanced the ticket by attracting southern Democrats.

The Republican strategy was to contrast Nixon’s experience with Kennedy’s youth. The elec- tion introduced many of the features that currently dominate political campaigns, such as massive advertising on radio and television, wealthy donors making contributions, and the voters making decisions based more on the candidate than the party.

It also demonstrated how a single misstep with the press could negatively affect an entire campaign. When a reporter asked Eisenhower if Nixon contributed anything important to his presidency, Eisenhower quipped, “If you give me a week, I might think of one. I don’t remem- ber” (as cited in Jamieson, 1996, p. 146). Although he later indicated the remark was in jest, the Kennedy campaign highlighted the remark in a political ad that succeeded in calling Nix- on’s credibility into question.

Another key moment in the election was the first Kennedy–Nixon debate, the first presiden- tial debate to be televised. Kennedy’s smooth and charismatic style appealed to television audiences better than Nixon’s stiff formality. Nixon was also recovering from a knee injury

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Section 12.1 The Kennedy Years

that required a 2-week hospital stay, had a five-o’clock shadow, and sweated profusely under the lights. It was the first time that most Americans had seen the candidates together; 70 mil- lion people watched the debate and focused more on what they saw than what they heard.

Kennedy won the Electoral College by 303 to 219, but his margin of victory in the popular election was just one tenth of 1%. His campaign raised con- cerns over the Soviet Union’s success in launching Sputnik, the first satel- lite, into orbit in 1957. The satellite’s launch surprised the American public and raised fears that the Soviets were eclipsing the United States in the race for space technology. Kennedy also emphasized the so-called missile gap

created when the Soviets tested the first intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Although American technology far surpassed that of the Soviets, Kennedy argued that under the Repub- licans’ watch, the United States had lost its focus and direction in fighting the Cold War.

Embarking on the New Frontier In keeping with presidents assigning names to their domestic programs, Kennedy called his the New Frontier. The name invoked the daring, adventure, and hope symbolized by the physical frontiers in American history, and the program called for the largest set of domestic legislation since the New Deal. Kennedy told the American people:

Today, some would say that . . . all the horizons have been explored, that all the battles have been won, that there is no longer an American frontier. We stand today on the edge of a New Frontier—the frontier of the 1960s—a fron- tier of unknown opportunities and perils—a frontier of unfulfilled hopes and threats. (as cited in Limerick, White, & Grossman, 1994, p. 81)

Kennedy was president for fewer than 3 years, but his image stands larger than life in Ameri- can culture. A young man when he entered the White House—he was elected at 43—Kenne- dy’s style and manner was a marked contrast to that of the fatherly Eisenhower. He appeared frequently on television and was the first president to conduct televised press conferences.

His wife, Jacqueline Kennedy, became a fashion icon and, after overseeing a massive redecora- tion project, led the nation on a televised tour of the White House. The first family included two young children, Caroline and John Jr. (a third child died a few days after being born in

Associated Press

During the 1960 presidential election, televised debates brought Democrat John F. Kennedy and Republican Richard Nixon into American homes.

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Section 12.1 The Kennedy Years

August 1963). The nation looked on as famous writers, artists, and entertainers visited the White House, revealing the family’s commitment to high culture (Patterson, 1996).

The conditions Kennedy encountered on the cam- paign trail in rural West Virginia turned poverty relief into one of his top policy goals. While seek- ing the votes of rural Americans, he witnessed firsthand the abysmal circumstances that pushed many Appalachians to leave their homes for indus- trial jobs outside the region (see Chapter 11). In 1962 Kennedy secured more than $2 billion from Congress for his urban renewal plan. The measure established job-training programs for the unem- ployed and economic incentives for businesses to relocate to economically depressed areas. The fol- lowing year he formed a joint federal and state com- mittee to develop a regional approach to solving poverty issues in Appalachia (Duncan, 2013).

Kennedy’s agenda extended to other measures that pushed the nation toward economic and social justice. Promising economic growth, he convinced Congress to increase the social welfare safety net by raising the minimum wage, expanding unem- ployment benefits, and enhancing Social Security. He also initiated a large series of tax cuts that were opposed by conservative Republicans, who argued for the necessity of maintaining a balanced budget.

In contrast, Kennedy embraced Keynesian economics, the notion that government spending, strategic tax cuts, and other policies could stimulate the economy, especially in times of eco- nomic slowdown, as the best way to ensure the nation’s economic health. At the time he pro- posed tax cuts, the top income tax rate, for those with incomes over $3 million, stood at 91%, and the lowest marginal rate, for incomes up to $30,000, was 20%.

Finally passed in February 1964, 3 months after Kennedy’s death, the tax cuts helped spur an economic boom and contributed to the creation of thousands of jobs. Tax rates for the nation’s top earners dropped to 77%, and those in the lower income brackets also benefited substan- tially. The average worker, who earned about $6,500 in 1965 (about $48,000 in today’s dol- lars), paid only 16% in federal taxes under the new measure.

Kennedy and the World Although he made some important efforts on the domestic front, it was foreign affairs, and especially the tension between the United States and the Soviet Union, that occupied most of

Courtesy Everett Collection

President John F. Kennedy, First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy, and children Caroline and John represented the model American family.

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Section 12.1 The Kennedy Years

Kennedy’s attention. In one of his first acts as president, he issued an executive order creat- ing the Peace Corps, which sent American men and women abroad to aid developing nations in establishing educational and economic institutions that would promote prosperity and reduce poverty. Kennedy also hoped the young Americans would improve the image of the United States abroad and adhere developing countries to America. The men and women of the Peace Corps also supported the national Cold War agenda by sharing America’s demo- cratic values abroad.

In a speech before potential Peace Corps recruits at the University of Michigan in October 1960, Kennedy warned that the Soviet Union “had hundreds of men and women, scientists, physicists, teachers, engineers, doctors, and nurses . . . prepared to spend their lives abroad in the service of world communism” (as cited in Crotty, 2010). The Peace Corps was Kennedy’s parallel plan for actively supporting the development of democracy and freedom in the world community.

Kennedy’s plans for volunteers to serve abroad struck home with thou- sands who, like Ron Kovic, responded to the president’s call to do something for their country. Enthusiastic and confident, it is not surprising that Ken- nedy moved thousands of young men and women to serve their country, whether in the U.S. military, the Peace Corps, or in domestic programs. One early volunteer recalled, “I’d never done anything political, patriotic or unselfish because nobody ever asked me to. Kennedy asked” (Wilson & Wilson, 2011, p. 7).

Most Peace Corps volunteers were young, but not all. Bill Bridges was

nearly 50 when he left his job processing disability applications for the state of Kentucky to serve 2 years in Bangladesh. Nancy Dare and her husband, Phil, volunteered together for service in Malaysia educating local children, especially teaching English. Nancy remembered, “We were answering the call, thinking that maybe we could do something to help” (as cited in Wilson & Wilson, 2011, p. 8).

Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis While American volunteers spread the message of U.S. goodwill in the developing world, Kennedy faced concerns closer to home. Nations in the Western Hemisphere historically fell under the influence of the United States, but Cuba had slipped from American influ- ence following the Cuban Revolution in 1959, the last year of Eisenhower’s presidency.

President Kennedy speaks to Peace Corps volunteers on August 28, 1961, and assigns them their first overseas mission.

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Section 12.1 The Kennedy Years

Latin American nations, including Guatemala and Cuba, grew increasingly unhappy with American political intervention and the economic dominance of U.S. corporations such as the United Fruit Company. In 1954 Eisenhower had approved a covert CIA operation that overthrew Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz, and following his ouster that nation was ruled by U.S.-backed military regimes.

Eisenhower planned a similar intervention in Cuba after Fidel Castro, a Marxist rebel leader, ousted dictator Fulgencio Batista and began nationalizing the Cuban property of American businessmen. Shunning American influence, Castro allied with the Communist Soviet Union. Eisenhower suspended trade with the island nation and authorized CIA training of anti-Castro exiles for an invasion to retake the country. Kennedy inherited this crisis when he took office.

When the CIA-trained insurgents landed at Cuba’s Bay of Pigs in April 1961, they expected American air and ground support. However, fearing an escalation in the conflict with the Soviet Union, Kennedy canceled American reinforcement. The invasion collapsed, with 300 of the insurgents killed by Castro’s tanks and guns and 1,100 captured by his army. Kennedy accepted blame for the humiliating and tragic fiasco. In a conversation with White House spe- cial counsel Ted Sorensen, he said, “How could I have been so stupid, to let them go ahead?” (as cited in Jones, 2009, p. 110). A New York Times reporter editorialized that the United States “looked like fools to our friends, rascals to our enemies, and incompetents to the rest” (Woods, 2005, p. 213).

America’s weakness at the Bay of Pigs gave Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev incentive to fur- ther test Kennedy’s resolve and courage. Another factor was a series of provocative military exercises Kennedy initiated on islands in close proximity to Cuba. Khrushchev thus saw Cuba (just 90 miles south of Florida) as the perfect place to establish an offensive show of power, and he authorized the construction of missile sites there.

Flying over the region in October 1962, American spy planes uncovered the installation of missiles capable of reaching the United States (see Figure 12.1). In the ensuing 13 days, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the nations to the brink of nuclear war. Kennedy’s military advisors urged an attack on Cuba that would surely provoke a Soviet response, but instead Kennedy ordered a blockade of the island that prevented Soviet access by air and sea and demanded the removal of the installations.

Figure 12.1: The Cuban conflict, 1961–1962

The Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world close to the brink of nuclear war but ended in the removal of Soviet missiles in Cuba and U.S. missiles in Turkey.

Golfo de Batabanó

Golfo de Guacanayabo

G u l f o f

M e x i c o

A T L A N T I C

O C E A N

C a r i b b e a n

S e a

Bahía de Cochinos

(Bay of Pigs)

Guantánamo Bay

Havana

Andros Island

Guantánamo Bay U.S. Naval

Station

Guanajay IRBM Site

Sagua La Grande MRBM Site

Remedios IRBM Site

San Cristobal MRBM Site

B A H A M A S

C U B A

FLORIDA (USA)

Miami

F lo r ida Key

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Golfo de Batabanó

Golfo de Guacanayabo

G u l f o f

M e x i c o

A T L A N T I C

O C E A N

C a r i b b e a n

S e a

Bahía de Cochinos

(Bay of Pigs)

Guantánamo Bay

Havana

Andros Island

Guantánamo Bay U.S. Naval

Station

Guanajay IRBM Site

Sagua La Grande MRBM Site

Remedios IRBM Site

San Cristobal MRBM Site

B A H A M A S

C U B A

FLORIDA (USA)

Miami

F lo r ida Key

Section 12.1 The Kennedy Years

In a series of tense negotiations that occurred largely behind the scenes, Khrushchev agreed to dismantle the missile installments in exchange for an American agreement not to invade Cuba. In addition, Kennedy pledged to remove American missiles located in Turkey and Italy, where they could easily be launched into the Soviet Union.

The resolution of the crisis marked a temporary improvement in relations between the two nations, and for the first time, the Kremlin and the White House established a permanent hotline for direct communication. Kennedy himself described calling the Soviets’ bluff as “one hell of a gamble” (as cited in Fursenko & Naftali, 1997, p. ix). It represented the most danger- ous moment of the Cold War, when any misstep on either side could have resulted in nuclear war (Fursenko & Naftali, 1997).

Figure 12.1: The Cuban conflict, 1961–1962

The Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world close to the brink of nuclear war but ended in the removal of Soviet missiles in Cuba and U.S. missiles in Turkey.

Golfo de Batabanó

Golfo de Guacanayabo

G u l f o f

M e x i c o

A T L A N T I C

O C E A N

C a r i b b e a n

S e a

Bahía de Cochinos

(Bay of Pigs)

Guantánamo Bay

Havana

Andros Island

Guantánamo Bay U.S. Naval

Station

Guanajay IRBM Site

Sagua La Grande MRBM Site

Remedios IRBM Site

San Cristobal MRBM Site

B A H A M A S

C U B A

FLORIDA (USA)

Miami

F lo r ida Key

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Section 12.1 The Kennedy Years

Technology in America: Birth of the Space Age

After launching the world’s first orbiting satellite in 1957, the Soviet Union temporarily enjoyed technological superiority over the United States in the realm of space exploration. Established as a new federal agency in 1958, at the height of the Cold War, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) aimed to perform basic research and develop military and civil space exploration programs (Eastman, 1958). NASA’s task was not to bring U.S. space capabilities in line with the Soviet Union, but to ensure that the U.S. space program left the Soviets far behind in technology and implementation.

Thus began the so-called space race of the 1960s, when the Soviets and Americans raced to place the first man in space and to reach the moon. Although the Soviet cosmo- naut Yuri Gagarin became the first man to orbit the earth in 1961, only Americans made a moon landing.

In the 1960s Americans believed reaching the moon offered the ultimate prize and sym- bol of scientific and national superiority. In May 1961 Kennedy delivered the now famous

NASA/Associated Press

Seen here in his Mercury space suit, John Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth, on February 20, 1962.

Berlin Two months after the Bay of Pigs, Kennedy traveled to Vienna, Austria, to meet with Khrush- chev. The meeting accomplished little except for some antagonistic exchanges between them, along with a threat from Khrushchev insinuating that he would begin restricting American access to West Berlin. A dispute over the Berlin Wall quickly became Kennedy’s most per- plexing international concern. Built in 1961 to divide East Berlin (controlled by the Soviet Union) and West Berlin (under Western European and U.S. influence), it was one of the only places in the world where Cold War participants confronted each other eye to eye.

In June 1963 Kennedy flew to West Berlin to personally address the people of the city. Though he knew no German, he wanted to include a phrase in the native language that would resonate with his audience. He recalled from his history classes that Roman citizens proudly said Civis romanium sum, which meant “I am a citizen of Rome” in Latin. Kennedy thought that a similar sentiment in German, Ich bin ein Berliner, meaning “I am a Berliner,” would inspire his Ger- man audience.

The speech, well received among West Berliners, formed an iconic moment in the Cold War, expressing America’s strength and commitment to its partners and allies in the fight against communism (Smyser, 2009). Khrushchev derided Kennedy’s determined tone but agreed to continue seeking a middle ground. Following the close call of the Cuban Missile Crisis, both world leaders recognized the real danger nuclear attacks posed for both Americans and Soviets.

Kennedy used this change in momentum to achieve some positive gains in the United States’ relationship with the Soviet Union. Among his important accomplishments was the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, which the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union signed on August 5, 1963. It banned all nuclear tests except those conducted underground. The treaty was an important step in soothing fears of nuclear contamination but did not stop the produc- tion and stockpiling of nuclear weapons, which continued throughout the Cold War.

(continued)

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Section 12.1 The Kennedy Years

“Urgent National Needs” speech before a joint ses- sion of Congress. He predicted that the United States would land a man on the moon before the decade’s end, declaring:

Now it is time to take longer strides—time for a great new American enterprise—time for this nation to take a clearly leading role in space achievement, which in many ways may hold the key to our future on Earth. (Launius, 2004, pp. 127–128)

Kennedy asked the entire nation to commit itself to achieving this goal quickly and efficiently—and before the Soviet Union. This component of the Cold War required a boost in education, especially in science and math. Arguing that such education was important to national security, Kennedy funneled federal funds to both government research and science and math education.

NASA entered the space race behind the Soviets and did everything in its power to win, not just techni- cally but also with publicity. The agency impressed the nation with quick and dramatic accomplishments, including John Glenn’s first manned space orbit of the earth on February 20, 1962.

The early astronauts like Glenn were daring test pilots willing to risk their lives flying experimental aircraft on a daily basis. However, this was not the image that NASA wanted for the space program. In place of the daredevil image, NASA “wished to portray this unprecedented, dangerous, high-risk endeavor as something precise, careful, moderate, reliable, technically sound, and unfailingly cautious” (Allen, 2009, p. 163).

NASA achieved its goals when Neil Armstrong stepped onto the surface of the moon on July 20, 1969. At the moment his foot touched the surface, he spoke the famous words: “That’s one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind” (as cited in Hansen, 2005, p. 493). Eventually, the United States and Soviet Union curtailed some of the competition in the space race and collaborated on several space programs, beginning with a joint docking mission in 1975.

Space technology created many products and technologies that still benefit consumers today. Among these are airplane deicing systems, freeze-dried food, cordless hand vacuum cleaners, and memory foam.

For further reading, see: Anderson, C. V. (2002). National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA): Background, issues, bibliography. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science.

Kay, W. D. (2005). Defining NASA: The historical debate over the agency’s mission. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Technology in America: Birth of the Space Age

In the 1960s Americans believed reaching the moon offered the ultimate prize and sym- bol of scientific and national superiority. In May 1961 Kennedy delivered the now famous

NASA/Associated Press

Seen here in his Mercury space suit, John Glenn was the first American to orbit the Earth, on February 20, 1962.

Technology in America: Birth of the Space Age (continued)

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Section 12.1 The Kennedy Years

Southeast Asia During his tenure in office, Kennedy significantly increased the U.S. military commitment to Southeast Asia. He accepted Eisenhower’s domino theory but differed from his predecessor in important ways. While Eisenhower primarily sent economic aid and military equipment to the region, Kennedy sent 16,000 combat advisors into Vietnam because he believed that the nation symbolized the wider Cold War competition for the hearts and minds of the non- White world (Melanson, 2005). Faced with growing movements for civil rights among multi- ple minority groups at home, a commitment to help the Asian nation in its struggle to remain free made America seem more tolerant.

By 1963, however, the troubles in Vietnam were worsening almost daily. The U.S.-supported premier of South Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, a devout Catholic in a largely Buddhist nation, was corrupt, repressive, and out of touch with his people. His attempts to convert the nation to Catholicism sparked intense protest. The most shocking of these was conducted by a Bud- dhist monk who protested Diem’s policies by sitting on the street, pouring gasoline over his head, and lighting himself on fire. Other monks soon followed suit.

The horrific photographs of such protestors outraged millions of people worldwide. Madame Nhu, the premier’s sister-in-law, made the situation worse when she said that she clapped her hands with each suicide and called them “barbecued monks” (as cited in Hatcher, 1990, p. 141). At this moment the Kennedy administration knew it needed a dramatic change in course (Hatcher, 1990).

In the fall of 1963, American CIA operatives learned of a military plan to assassinate and overthrow Diem, and though U.S. officials did not directly support it, they did nothing to pre- vent it from happening or to inform Diem his life was in danger. Instead, American officials signaled a willingness to work with a new government in Vietnam. On November 2 a group of Army of the Republic of Vietnam officers captured Diem, assassinated him in the back of a car, and dumped his body in an unmarked grave next to the house of the U.S. ambassador to Vietnam (Herring, 2002). The people of South Vietnam largely applauded Diem’s death and celebrated with street demonstrations, but the Soviet Union and China condemned the act.

Assassination Three weeks after Diem’s assassination, at 1:40 p.m. on Friday, November 22, 1963, Walter Cronkite broke into regularly scheduled CBS television broadcasts with a somber announce- ment. Kennedy had been shot and killed in Dallas, Texas, while traveling in a motorcade. Vice President Lyndon Johnson took the oath of office onboard Air Force One as Kennedy’s body was transferred back to Washington, DC.

For the next 4 days, CBS covered the story nonstop, without commercial interruptions. Authorities arrested Lee Harvey Oswald, claiming that his rifle shots from the Texas School Book Depository building mortally wounded the president in the back of the head. Just 2 days

President Lyndon Johnson took the oath of office aboard Air Force One just hours after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. His wife, Lady Bird, and Jacqueline Kennedy are by his side.

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Section 12.2 The Freedom Movement Expands

later, while Oswald was being trans- ferred to jail, Dallas nightclub owner Jack Ruby shoved a pistol in Oswald’s ribs and killed him, further obscuring the details of the event and preventing Oswald from sharing his motives.

Speculation about a conspiracy to kill the president continues even today. Some claimed it was impossible for Oswald, a former marine with men- tal health issues, to have acted alone, and pointed to possible evidence of a second shooter. Other speculation even suggested CIA or even Soviet involvement. To search for the truth, Johnson appointed a special commis- sion headed by Chief Justice Earl War- ren, which eventually concluded that Oswald operated alone.

12.2 The Freedom Movement Expands

Prior to his death, President Kennedy was poised to make substantial civil rights advances as the movement gained momentum in the 1960s. The civil rights activism of the 1950s took a new turn during his presidency and received considerable support from both the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Martin Luther King Jr. and other activists wanted to spread the momentum of the Montgomery Bus Boycott (see Chapter 11) to a full-fledged movement against segregation across the South.

Along with other southern ministers, King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in 1957, but the organization struggled to gain traction after Montgom- ery. The number of African American voters in southern states actually decreased between 1956 and 1960 because militant local Whites employed violence, intimidation, and fraudu- lent registration tactics to suppress their exercise of the franchise (Aldridge, 2011). In the 1960s a new generation of civil rights activists emerged to drive the movement and the SCLC in new directions.

New Tactics African American college students in the South, whom established African American leaders, including King, had once criticized as apathetic and apolitical, pushed the movement for civil rights forward in the 1960s. Influencing members of the SCLC and inspiring others to join in peaceful acts of civil disobedience, they were responsible for dramatic changes that continue to impact Americans in the 21st century.

President Lyndon Johnson took the oath of office aboard Air Force One just hours after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. His wife, Lady Bird, and Jacqueline Kennedy are by his side.

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Section 12.2 The Freedom Movement Expands

Sit-Ins On February 1, 1960, four African American students from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University entered a Woolworth’s drugstore in Greensboro, North Carolina, and sat at the Whites-only lunch counter. African Americans were permitted to shop in stores such as Woolworth’s but were denied service at the lunch counter. Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair Jr., Joseph McNeil, and David Richmond, all freshmen, acted out of frustration and impatience with the slow, legalistic methods of King and older civil rights activists. Like other politically aware and well-educated African American youth, they rejected the conser- vative and cautious methods of their elders and were determined to take matters in their own hands.

When the four students were asked to leave, they did so, but the following day 29 students appeared at the lunch counter. Over succeeding days the pro- test grew until hundreds of students, African American and White, occupied the lunch counter. They sat quietly and endured taunts, curses, and even being spat upon. The protest spread to other stores in other cities across the South. Police generally left the protest- ers alone, but when violence erupted, protestors and their White challengers were often arrested. Although college student protestors generally retained their cool and held to nonviolent prin- ciples, when high school students joined the protests it was common for fights to ensue as tempers flared. In Portsmouth, Virginia, White and Afri-

can American high school students were arrested for exchanging blows after a sit-in. Violence following a Chattanooga, Tennessee, sit-in on February 23 involved more than 1,000 people, leading to the arrest of 30 White people and ending only after police turned fire hoses on the crowd (Carson, 1981). Fearing a loss of business, some stores quickly opened lunch coun- ters to all shoppers, but others closed their restaurants to impede protests. The Greensboro Woolworth’s held out through more than 6 months of protests before finally integrating at the national corporation’s order (Aldridge, 2011).

SNCC and the Freedom Riders The sit-ins were widely publicized, including features in newspapers and the nightly news broadcasts. The vision of well-dressed and well-mannered students politely protesting seg- regation gained the student movement favor. To better coordinate activities, student leaders formed the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), an integrated organiza- tion that soon had chapters throughout the South. Between 1960 and 1965 SNCC was an important driving force in the civil rights movement, pushing older activists to go along with its vocally assertive tactics.

Four students occupy stools at the Woolworth’s lunch counter on the second day of the Greensboro, North Carolina, protest, February 2, 1960.

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SNCC’s tactics inspired an older civil rights organization, the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), to sponsor a series of “Freedom Rides” to force southern states to comply with a 1960 Supreme Court ruling banning segregation in public interstate travel. Taking routes across multiple southern states, White and African American volunteers, carefully selected by CORE, sat together on buses and used restrooms and waiting areas in bus stations without regard to segregation rules. It was one of the most dangerous strategies of the civil rights movement, and riders took a special course in nonviolent resistance in anticipation of physical attack by organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan and other advocates of maintaining segregation.

Freedom Riders hailed from all walks of life. Walter Bergman, a retired Michigan college pro- fessor, was among the riders aboard two buses, a Greyhound and a Trailways, that departed from Washington, D.C., bound for New Orleans in May 1961. Bergman was a longtime advo- cate of social justice causes and believed the New Deal had not gone far enough in its attack on poverty (New York Times, 1999).

Traveling across several southern states, one of the buses carrying Bergman and the other Freedom Riders made a scheduled stop in Anniston, Alabama, on May 14, 1961. It was Moth- er’s Day, and many local residents were just finishing a midday family meal. Media accounts let them know when the buses were scheduled to arrive, and a mob of angry Whites headed by Ku Klux Klan leader Kenneth Adams intercepted the Greyhound.

The mob slashed the bus’s tires, but the driver managed to speed away. Six miles out of town, now on flat tires, the driver stopped the bus and fled as dozens of cars filled with angry Whites converged. A firebomb crashed through a window, setting the bus on fire. The mob held the doors closed, temporarily preventing the riders’ escape, but there were no major injuries.

A second Trailways bus carrying more Freedom Riders arrived in Anniston an hour later, and its riders suffered an even worse fate. Whites boarded the bus at the station and brutally beat the Freedom Riders, including Walter Bergman, with clubs and soda bottles (Noble, 2013). Media images of the burning bus and beaten riders gained public sympathy for the cause, but Bergman was severely injured. Beaten unconscious, he suffered a stroke a few days later and remained wheelchair- bound for the remainder of his life. Like Ron Kovic, Bergman did not let his disability stop him, and he remained an outspoken advocate of freedom and justice.

Following the events in Alabama, the Freedom Riders continued to Mississippi, reinforced with members of CORE and SNCC to replace the wounded riders. When they entered Jackson on May 24, state police and National Guard troops surrounded the buses. When the riders tried to use the Whites-only facilities in the bus depot, they were promptly arrested.

Underwood Archives/Getty Images

Freedom Riders escape a burning Greyhound bus after it was firebombed near Anniston, Alabama, on May 14, 1961.

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Aiming to fill the jails, the subsequent buses also headed for Jackson, where Yale Univer- sity chaplain William Coffin joined southern ministers Ralph Abernathy and Fred Shuttles- worth in the city jail. When the local jail filled, officials transferred the Freedom Riders to the state penitentiary, where at one point as many as 300 endured harsh treatment. The violence the Freedom Rides provoked shocked the nation and brought much needed atten- tion to the civil rights cause.

March on Washington Sit-ins, Freedom Rides, and other tactics kept the demand for civil rights at the forefront of the nation’s attention during Kennedy’s presidency and prompted him to craft a civil rights bill. Early in his presidency Kennedy was reluctant to speak out in favor of civil rights for African Americans, largely because he feared losing the support of White southerners. After observing the actions of civil rights activists in their struggle to integrate public schools, lunch counters, universities, and other venues, however, the president shifted toward a strong sup- port for the movement. To support the civil rights bill that would advance the cause of African American rights, the leaders of multiple freedom, economic, and civil rights organizations came together for a gathering in the nation’s capital. Planned as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, this largest ever political rally for human rights on August 28, 1963, is considered by many as the most memorable moment in the civil rights movement.

In the days leading up to the event, the president and Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy grew ever more anxious. At one point, the Kennedy administration sought to stop the march, weighing the enormous possibility for change against the potential for domestic unrest. Both men worried about the reaction of White Americans but also realized that the moment marked a turning point in the movement and for U.S. society. At risk was the fate of major civil rights legislation that President Kennedy supported. Attorney General Kennedy assigned a small number of Justice Department staff to help with the event’s coordination. Despite the con- cerns, the event proved a success. Standing before a crowd of nearly 250,000, Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech. Few would have guessed that within 3 months the president who proposed the civil rights bill they celebrated would be gone.

Midmovement Achievement President Kennedy supported a broad-based bill that would end discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin, but at the time of his death it was stalled in the House of Representatives. Upon assuming the presidency, Johnson used his political influence to propel the measure through Congress by suggesting that the bill honored the legacy of the fallen president. Even though he realized that the bill could swing southern political support toward the Republican Party, Johnson pushed ahead. Addressing a joint session of Congress in November 1963, he said, “No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor Presi- dent Kennedy’s memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long” (as cited in Loevy, 1997, p. 159). The House voted 289 to 126 on the final bill, and the Senate approved it by a measure of 73 to 27.

The Civil Rights Act of 1964 counts as a major victory of the civil rights movement. It out- lawed discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin when hiring, pro- moting, or firing employees; in public accommodations; and in all programs receiving federal

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funding. At the last moment conservative Virginia representative Howard W. Smith added the word sex to the final language in the hope that adding women into the mix would kill the bill. Despite his intention, the final law also included a ban on gender discrimination.

The act also created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission within the Justice Department to oversee its implementation and enforce its antidiscriminatory provisions. Finally, it expanded the right of the federal government to prosecute civil rights violations in southern states.

Freedom Summer Voting rights stood out as the major civil rights hurdle not addressed by the 1964 law. Most southern states had disfranchised African Americans in the late 19th and early 20th centuries through violence and intimidation as well as unfair poll taxes and literacy tests. Invigorated by recent victories, multiple civil rights organizations and White northerners moved into Mis- sissippi, a state widely known for strident opposition to African American civil rights, in the summer of 1964 to participate in drives to register African American voters. Although most of the leadership and financing came from SNCC, other groups including CORE and the NAACP, and King’s SCLC also lent support.

Mississippi’s White residents resented the intrusion of outsiders bent on forcing social change. Almost immediately, activists faced physical attack. On June 21 a deputy sheriff arrested three CORE orga- nizers; one African American, James Chaney; and two Whites, Michael Schwerner and Andrew Good- man. After they were released later that night, a group of angry residents murdered all three, and their bodies were later found hastily buried nearby.

Reports of their disappearance and subsequent murder, and especially of the two White northern organizers, galvanized the nation and brought criti- cal attention to the issue of voting rights. Although the Civil Rights Act of 1964 allowed the federal gov- ernment to conduct a criminal investigation in the case, Mississippi State prosecutors refused to try the 18 men the FBI arrested. It was not until 2005 that some of those responsible came to trial and were convicted.

Freedom advocates also sought a way around the White domination of Mississippi’s political system. Civil rights organizers formed the Mississippi Free- dom Democratic Party (MFDP) that aimed to take the state’s seats at the 1964 Democratic National Convention in Atlantic City, New Jersey. A televised hearing examined the credentials of party delegates,

Fannie Lou Hamer of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party demanded that her delegation be seated as the true Democratic Party from the southern state. Her activism forced a compromise that would make future conventions more inclusive.

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including SNCC organizer Fannie Lou Hamer, known for singing Christian hymns during voter registration drives.

Elected vice chair of the MFDP delegation, Hamer testified to the violence and intimidation she and other African Americans faced in their drive to vote or help register others. At the end of her testimony, she declared:

If the Freedom Democratic Party is not seated now I question America. Is this America, the land of the free and the home of the brave, where we have to sleep with our telephones off of the hook because our lives be threatened daily, because we want to live as decent human beings in America? (as cited in Lee, 1999, p. 89)

Convention organizers offered to seat two African American delegates as a compromise and to reform the selection process for succeeding conventions, but the MFDP refused.

The Voting Rights Act Hamer’s impassioned testimony failed to win her party seats at the convention but did heighten awareness of the problem of African American disfranchisement. It was primar- ily, however, the continued violent attacks upon nonviolent protestors that finally moved the nation and Johnson to act. In January 1965 Martin Luther King Jr. initiated a voting rights cam- paign focusing on the city of Selma, Alabama, where only a few hundred of the city’s 15,000 African Americans had registered to vote.

The culmination of the drive was to be a peaceful march covering the 54 miles between Selma and the state capital at Montgomery. On two occasions television cameras captured marchers under police assault as officers attacked them with cattle prods, tear gas, and clubs.

Moved to act, Johnson addressed Congress, asking that it enact a law guaranteeing all Amer- icans the right to vote. Closing his speech with the language of the civil rights movement, he assured the nation, “we shall overcome” (as cited in Albert & Hoffman, 1990, p. 212). Congress quickly passed the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which Johnson signed into law on August 6. The law established federal jurisdiction over elections and required certain juris- dictions (mostly in the South) to seek the attorney general’s approval before implementing changes that affect voting, such as redrawing districts (Aldridge, 2011).

Expanding the Fight for Equality A host of groups paralleled and followed the African American civil rights movement, redefin- ing what it meant to be an American and challenging the conservative status quo that domi- nated the postwar era. Often referred to as part of the New Left, these groups sought a broad range of economic and social reforms. Unlike the Communist Party sympathizers of an earlier generation, they rejected the Soviet Union as a model and generally eschewed involvement in labor politics. Instead, they emphasized the liberalism of the New Deal as a model for eco- nomic justice. They emulated the tactics of the civil rights movement, including sit-ins, boy- cotts, and peaceful protests, and applied them to their own causes.

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Women’s Liberation One movement challenged the secondary status of women in American society. Early in the 20th century, women’s rights activists had focused their energy on winning the right to vote, but with that battle won, 1960s feminists emphasized a broad range of issues, including offi- cial legal inequalities, sexuality, the workplace, and reproductive rights (Horowitz, 1998). In 1957 writer and journalist Betty Friedan conducted a survey of her college classmates for their upcoming 15th reunion. She found that most of her fellow graduates of Smith College were unhappy in their traditional roles as housewives. Even affluent women living in the suburbs with all the mod- ern conveniences felt unfulfilled. She continued to research the issue and published her findings in The Feminine Mystique, the 1963 best seller that sparked the beginning of second-wave feminism.

Friedan’s Feminine Mystique resonated most strongly with White middle-class women. She urged women to seek a career path for fulfillment. At the time of the book’s publication, single women did not have access to birth control, and married women did not have access to credit independent of their husbands. Access to birth control and family planning, which Friedan supported, gave women the ability to pace the birth of their children, plan careers, and pursue professional goals. Earning their own wages also offered women more financial freedom and purchasing power of their own.

Seeking economic and social justice, feminists formed consciousness-raising groups through- out the United States. In 1966 the National Organization for Women (NOW) formed with Friedan as its first president. Modeled on civil rights groups, NOW called for equal opportu- nity in the workplace and education and objected to media portrayals of women.

Some feminists gained militant reputations as they publicly rejected things they regarded as objects of female oppression, such as bras, girdles, and high-heeled shoes. Stereotypes of women as “bra burners” did not depict reality, however. Feminists sought equality of the sexes, and they did not burn their undergarments in protest. Instead, they organized and worked diligently to overturn laws and support new legislation.

Women of color and working-class women often did not relate to Friedan’s brand of femi- nism, however. Many of these women, who never had a choice but to work, endured an ever- widening wage gap and were relegated to clerical jobs, sales jobs, or other so-called women’s work. Some feminists came to embrace a more radical form of feminism and joined groups such as the Redstockings movement, which formed in 1969 to raise public consciousness about women’s oppression in a male-dominated society and to call for supportive legislation for family planning and other women’s issues (Rosen, 2013).

Associated Press

Betty Friedan, the first president of the National Organization for Women, demanded an end to discrimination and called for equality between the sexes.

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Latino Civil Rights Hispanic Americans began demanding equal rights in the 1940s, but in the 1960s Latinos formally organized in support of economic justice and legal equality. Hispanic Americans in eastern cities such as Philadelphia and New York, largely Puerto Ricans, faced issues of urban poverty and discrimination and focused on those needs. In the West, where many Mexican Americans worked in agriculture, the struggle for civil rights was more closely linked to the labor movement. In California, César Chávez emerged in 1965 as leader of a 5-year struggle to organize migrant farmworkers and improve the working and living conditions of Latinos in the Southwest.

The son of migrant farmworkers, Chávez watched and admired the activism of Martin Luther King Jr. He patterned his struggle in the fields after King’s nonviolent protests, using marches, rallies, and hunger strikes to bring attention to the United Farm Workers’ cause. A national grape boycott finally pressured growers to agree to a contract that gave workers better pay and living conditions. Chávez became a nationally recognized labor and civil rights leader and continued to fight for change through the 1970s.

Red Power Native Americans also saw the 1960s as an opportunity to raise their voices against ineq- uity. They successfully fought against a federal attempt to terminate the sovereignty guar- anteed them under the reservation system, and Johnson’s policies made special efforts to extend programs to Native American tribes (Shriver, 1966). In 1968 the American Indian Movement (AIM) organized protests to bring attention to Native American issues and to

inspire the renewal of native culture. AIM also coordinated education and employment programs among rural and urban Native American commu- nities and demanded the restoration of commitments from earlier treaties with the U.S. government.

More militant Native American activ- ists gained national intention in 1969 by occupying Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. The Red Power group claimed that under an old treaty, all abandoned federal land reverted to Native Americans. The federal prison on Alcatraz closed in 1963, so the group argued it could rightfully reclaim own- ership. Calling themselves Indians of

Richard Oakes, Earl Livermore, and Al Miller (from left to right) speak at a press conference during the American Indian Movement’s takeover of Alcatraz.

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All Tribes, the group members held the island for 19 months until they were forcibly removed in June 1971. Although their claim failed, in succeeding years the federal government became more responsive to Native American activism, and many tribes regained important control over their reservation policies and programs linked to economics and education.

Gay Rights Gay men and lesbians did not enjoy much tolerance in 1960s America, and they were often forced to conceal their identities to avoid derision and discrimination. Until 1973 the Ameri- can Psychiatric Association considered homosexuality a mental illness, and in most states homosexual sex was outlawed. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 did not apply to gays, who could be fired from their jobs, arrested for sexual behavior, or even have their children taken away.

A vibrant but underground gay community emerged in the United States during the 1950s and 1960s. As early as 1953 the pro-gay ONE Magazine began publishing from Los Angeles, although the following year the U.S. Post Office declared it to be an obscene publication and banned its circulation in the mail. After winning an important First Amendment legal battle in the Supreme Court case of One, Inc. v. Olesen, it began circulating again, and until 1967 it provided an important forum for gay news and dialog among subscribers in cities across the nation.

Subscribers often wrote to detail the discrimination and violence the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community experienced. Many detailed the urban antigay crackdown as police in disguise raided gay bars or otherwise tried to entrap unsuspecting men. One cor- respondent informed ONE readers of recent activity in the Northeast: “Philadelphia raided twice. Carted the boys to jail for a nite for ‘frequenting a disorderly place’” and “NYC still quiet and closed down fairly tight, so streets are busy” (Loftin, 2012, pp. 109–110). New York City would not remain quiet for long. Despite the risks, some gays did organize to demand equality.

A gay rights movement emerged from a series of violent protests and demonstrations that began on June 29, 1969. That night police raided the Stonewall Inn, a bar in New York’s Greenwich Village where gay men, transvestites, and lesbians regularly gathered. Refusing to submit to police, the bar’s patrons fought back, resisting arrest and in one case trying to overturn a police vehicle. This confrontation sparked a series of protests known as the Stonewall Riots that continued over the next 6 days.

After the initial violence, more peaceful protests took place in a nearby park, and activists began to form a more coordinated gay rights movement. Two important organizations came out of the protests. The Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance were emblematic of new gay rights organizations that inspired thousands of gay men and lesbians across the United States to demand civil and human rights (Carter, 2004). Their collective strength cre- ated a movement to overturn antigay laws and to push for gay rights.

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American Experience: Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring

The modern environmental movement, also rooted in the 1960s, received a huge boost with the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson’s nonfiction book, Silent Spring. The book shocked the nation by revealing the detri- mental effects of pesticides, especially DDT, the most widely used pesticide in agricultural production. A marine biologist by training, Carson wrote a series of popular nonfiction nature books in the 1950s and even won a National Book Award before turning her atten- tion to the environmental problems pesticides caused. She later credited a letter from a friend with bringing the issue to her attention, and she spent several years conducting research and consulting other scientists.

Silent Spring emphasized the negative impacts humans often have on the natural world. Carson argued that pesticides harmed more than undesirable insects and that DDT in par- ticular killed birds and aquatic life and posed harm to humans as well. Carson also revealed the relationship between large-scale farm- ers, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the chemical industry in promoting the use of pesticides and concealing their ill effects. She argued that economic self-interest kept these industries from honestly assessing the risks and that instead they falsely told the public that the pesticides were safe.

A special television program based on her book and hosted by Eric Sevareid reached 10 million to 15 million CBS viewers. The book was also distributed widely as a main selec- tion of the Book of the Month Club. It remains one of the best-selling nonfiction books of all time. The scientific community largely backed Carson’s research, but the chemical industry, and especially the DuPont Corporation, derided her findings as nonsense.

At the insistence of environmentalists, Congress passed important legislation to protect clean air and water. The pesticide DDT, once considered safe enough to spray on school- children, was banned for use in the United States in 1972. Carson was already ill with cancer when Silent Spring appeared, and she died 2 years later, but the questions she raised remain central to environmentalism. How does human-generated pollution and chemical use travel through the food chain to affect human health? Are Americans destroying them- selves as well as the world around them? (Tyrrell, 2006).

For further reading, see: Carson, R. (2002). Silent spring. (40th anniversary edition). New York: First Mariner Books.

Murphy, P. C. (2005). What a book can do: The publication and reception of Silent Spring. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press.

Popular scientist Rachel Carson inspired the modern environmental movement with her book Silent Spring, which exposed the dangers of pesticides and other chemicals.

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Black Power Federal backing for civil and voting rights concentrated in the South, but African Americans in other areas of the country expressed their own desires for change. Uttered in 1966 by SNCC leader Stokely Carmichael, Black Power became a phrase associated with calls for African Americans all over the United States to unify to support community change and to celebrate their heritage. The movement argued that all people of African descent should come together to achieve self-determination and to oppose the oppression of people of color by the White race.

Carmichael and others also used the term to express their frustration with the slow and moderate gains of the nonviolent civil rights movement. The Black Power movement gave expression to a growing belief that African Americans should not have to ask White society to support them in a struggle for civil rights. Instead, they demanded that they be accorded the rights guaranteed them as Americans. Through Black Power, young civil rights activists articulated a more militant stance and set of tactics in pursuit of black freedom.

Malcolm X The militant and sometimes threatening expression of Black Power is most associated with the influence of Malcolm X. Born Malcolm Little in Nebraska in 1925, he grew up in a house- hold far removed from the Jim Crow South with a father who supported the Black Nationalism of Marcus Garvey (see Chapter 5).

While imprisoned for burglary, Little became affiliated with the Nation of Islam, which had formed in the 1930s and celebrated African American self-actualization and cultural contri- butions to American society. Changing his name to Malcolm X because he believed Little was a slave surname, he became the movement’s leading spokesman. Under his leadership, the Nation of Islam swelled to more than 30,000 members by 1963.

Malcolm X challenged the nonviolent tactics and philosophy of Martin Luther King Jr. and the early student move- ment. He called for African American pride and separation from White soci- ety, and he urged African Americans to resist White violence “by any means necessary.” Carmichael and student leaders of SNCC agreed and began to emphasize African American pride and to seek solidarity with people of color around the world.

Other organizations followed his lead as well, including the Black Panther Party for Self Defense, which formed in Oakland, California, in 1966 to combat

Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X supported different paths to achieving civil rights. They met only once, at the U.S. Capitol in 1964.

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police brutality. The organization also supported community programs for youth and pro- vided social programming and meal services to poor African American neighborhoods. The Black Power movement received unprecedented attention from the national press and faced considerable backlash from White Americans. Images of Black Panther members dressed in black leather and holding rifles made a shocking contrast to the nonviolent protests in the South. With the rise of African American militancy, national support for civil rights began to diminish.

Urban Riots Adding to militants’ demands for change were a series of uprisings in northern and western cities. In many states African American unemployment was double the rate for Whites, and working African Americans routinely earned less than Whites. Rising expectations for equal- ity and social change moved faster than economic change. African Americans found that new civil rights guarantees did little to improve their financial conditions, and many still lived below the poverty level. From the mid-1960s, pressures stemming from this reality led to violent riots in urban centers outside the South.

One of the largest uprisings, which took place in August 1965 in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles, was triggered by the arrest of African American motorist Marquette Frye. His brother and mother somehow came into contact with police as well, and they were also arrested. A crowd that gathered during the altercation grew as rumors of police brutality spread, and soon rioting erupted. For 6 days as many as 50,000 city residents attacked police and firefighters, looted White-owned businesses, and burned buildings. Finally subdued with the help of the National Guard, the Watts uprising resulted in $40 million in property damage as well as 34 deaths and more than 1,000 injuries (Campbell, 2008).

The Watts Riot marked the tipping point for urban unrest. Similar violence soon erupted in the northern cities of Newark, New Jersey; Detroit; and Cleveland. In 1967 Johnson appointed a special commission to study the cause of the rioting, but no clear proposal for change emerged.

By the late 1960s poverty moved front and center among some civil rights and antiwar activ- ists. The issues of poverty and war coalesced as working-class young men disproportion- ately filled the ranks of the military while middle- and upper class youth remained in college, exempted from the draft. Established civil rights leaders turned their attention to urban liv- ing conditions and poverty. Martin Luther King Jr. refocused his efforts on his Poor People’s Campaign, an effort to gain economic justice for the millions of Americans living below the poverty line. However, by 1967 the escalation of the Vietnam War subsumed the nation’s attention and its resources.

12.3 Johnson’s Great Society

Although John F. Kennedy proposed the New Frontier, it was Lyndon Johnson who was referred to as the “last frontiersman” (Alsop, 1973, p. 8). Emerging from humble beginnings in the Texas Hill Country, Johnson was one of the most skilled politicians ever to assume the

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presidency. Before entering politics, Johnson earned a teaching degree and briefly taught high school in Texas. He also became a champion for Latino civil rights. During the New Deal he headed the National Youth Administration in Texas, where he used his teaching experience to expand educational opportunities for Texas youth. He left after 2 years to run for Congress.

First elected as a Democrat to the House of Representatives in 1937, he moved on to the Senate in 1948, where he served as majority leader. Johnson was committed to an agenda of liberal reform, and upon assuming the presidency he moved to complete Kennedy’s out- standing goals and to extend his own program of social welfare and civil rights. Although not as media savvy as Kennedy, Johnson worked behind the scenes to convince members of Con- gress to support his legislative agenda. In his first address to Congress, Johnson also assured the nation of his commitment to continue Kennedy’s actions in South Vietnam.

He proclaimed that he and the nation needed to “resolve that John Fitzgerald Kennedy did not live—or die—in vain” (as cited in Waldman, 2010, p. 192). The tax cut came next on the unfinished Kennedy agenda, and Johnson signed it into law in February 1964. Civil rights proved a tougher sell in Congress, where southern Democrats provided staunch opposition, and Johnson turned his attention toward equality for all Americans as the fall election began to consume the nation’s attention.

Johnson’s Social Programs In the year before the 1964 election, Johnson also began his own domestic legislative agenda under the umbrella of a program known as the Great Soci- ety. Johnson’s domestic goals were broad and aimed at eliminating poverty, increasing educational opportunities, and securing racial justice. He pro- posed a broad range of new spending programs to address the needs of education, the nation’s health care, and both urban and rural poverty.

Declaring a War on Poverty in his January 1964 State of the Union address, Johnson sought a range of legislation to address the struggles shared by poor families in their efforts to obtain food, educa- tion, work, and medical care. He promoted his plan with an April trip to the Appalachian town of Inez, Kentucky, where cameras captured his visit to the three-room cabin that was home to Tom Fletcher, his wife, and eight children. Johnson sat on Fletch- er’s porch and listened to his story. Fletcher was an unemployed coal miner who sometimes spent his nights caring for a sick neighbor who was too poor to go to the hospital. His family had very little food, two of his children had stopped going to school, and he had little hope for the future.

Tom Fletcher, shown here with President Lyndon Johnson, provided for his family, which included eight children, on $400 per year when he was employed at the saw mill.

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The White House had specifically chosen the compelling image of the president sitting on the porch of an ordinary American, one whose face was etched in misery, to personalize poverty and to serve as a symbol of the 35 million Americans who lived below the poverty level. John- son said, “I don’t know if I’ll pass a single law or get a single dollar appropriated, but before I’m through, no community in America will be able to ignore the poverty in its midst” (as cited in Gillette, 2010, p. xi).

At the president’s urging, Congress passed the Economic Opportunity Act in August 1964, creating 10 new programs aimed at reducing poverty in America (see Table 12.1). Congress also allocated a staggering $800 million to the programs for the first year. Controversial among the programs was the Community Action Program, which empowered poor people to oversee programs in their own communities, including early childhood education through Head Start, home weatherization programs, and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program. Operating with various degrees of success, Community Action organizations relied heavily on volunteers and a combination of federal, state, and local funding.

Table 12.1: Major programs of the Economic Opportunity Act

Program Purpose

Head Start Early childhood education for youth ages 3 to 5

Job Corps Vocational training for youth ages 16 to 24

Volunteers in Service to America Domestic program akin to the Peace Corps but focusing on reliev- ing poverty and related problems in the United States

Community Action Program Community-based agencies overseeing a range of antipoverty services

Legal Services Program (Legal Aid) Legal representation for those in need

Work Study Federally funded work assistance for college students

The Landslide 1964 Election Although he had held office less than a year before seeking the 1964 Democratic nomina- tion, Johnson and his agenda proved widely popular, even with Republican voters. A pollster canvassing in rural Texas, a region long considered a conservative stronghold, was amazed at what he discovered. Many of those polled compared Johnson to FDR, and not one opposed his candidacy. One woman, who claimed she had not voted for a Democrat since 1936, declared, “I’m not just for him, I’ll fight for him!” (as cited in Bernstein, 1996, p. 26).

The election of 1964 turned out to be one of the most lopsided in the nation’s history. John- son promised a series of social reforms, including poverty relief and an end to segregation, under his Great Society. His Republican opponent, Arizona businessman Barry Goldwater, stood in stark contrast, considered too conservative even by many party stalwarts. Credited with reviving the modern conservative movement, Goldwater mobilized opposition to the New Deal–like ideals and programs of his opponent, but his ideas proved to have little voter appeal in this election.

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Section 12.3 Johnson’s Great Society

Johnson won 44 of the 50 states, and an amazing 61% of the popular vote. It was the mandate he needed to finish his reform agenda. The election also strengthened the Democratic major- ity in Congress. In the House the Democratic majority approached two thirds after it took 36 seats from Republicans. The party’s lead of 68 to 32 in the Senate exceeded two thirds, although Democrats picked up only two seats.

The Great Society Continues The election gave Johnson a mandate to press forward with his Great Society initiatives (see Table 12.2). He used evidence gathered from his trip to Appalachia and from the President’s Appalachian Regional Commission, begun under Kennedy’s administration, to support the Appalachian Regional Development Act. Signed into law in March 1965, it created a perma- nent federally funded agency, known as the Appalachian Regional Commission, that aimed to increase employment, improve infrastructure, and reduce regional isolation through con- struction of a highway system.

The Great Society approached the nation’s education needs through two important pieces of legislation. The 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act allotted $1 billion in federal grants to states to aid schools in areas with high concentrations of poverty. The most far- reaching congressionally passed education measure, the bill aimed to provide equal access to education and to create a system of accountability without enacting a national curriculum. The Higher Education Act of 1965 similarly offered federal support and funding for state col- leges and universities and established scholarships and student loans. The new law made it possible for millions of American youth to afford a university education and established a long-lasting trend of public funding for higher education.

One of the most visible and long-lasting legacies of the Great Society came with revisions to the Social Security system to provide government insured health care services to the elderly and poor under the Medicaid and Medicare programs. Debate over a national health insurance program was not new, but the large Democratic majority in Congress finally made it a seri- ous possibility. Although conservative Republicans, including future president Ronald Reagan, condemned it as socialism, the bill passed the House by a margin of 313 to 115 and the Senate by a margin of 68 to 21. Johnson signed it into law on July 30, 1965 (Oberlander, 2003).

Table 12.2: Great Society legislation, 1965

Legislation Purpose

Elementary and Secondary School Act Provided $1 billion in public school funds

Higher Education Act Increased federal support to colleges and universities

Medicare Provided health care to the aged

Medicaid Provided health care to the poor

Voting Rights Act Prohibited racial discrimination in voting

Water Quality Act Required states to issue standards to assure water quality

Air Quality Act Instituted standards for regulating auto emissions

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Section 12.4 The Vietnam War

12.4 The Vietnam War

Johnson’s Great Society eventually took a backseat to the growing military and diplomatic cri- sis in Southeast Asia. In the months after the assassinations of South Vietnamese leader Diem and President Kennedy, political disarray and guerilla insurgency in South Vietnam made U.S. experts fear the capital of Saigon would fall to the enemy. Soviet support for the already Com- munist North Vietnam was expanding. Many of Johnson’s close advisors, including Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, urged military escalation, but the president hesitated.

Entering the Quagmire Johnson overcame his reluctance in August 1964, when North Vietnamese torpedo boats apparently fired twice on an American destroyer in the Gulf of Tonkin in the South China Sea. Much later, once documentation became public, the public learned that the second attack had never occurred. Although intelligence services were still gathering evidence about the attacks, Johnson declared the incident an act of aggression and asked Congress to pass a joint resolution that gave him the authority “to take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression” (as cited in McMahon, 2003, p. 145). Only two senators opposed the measure (Hall, 2007).

Americanization of the War American troops acted in an advisory capacity before the escalation of the ground war in Vietnam, with just over 23,000 in the country in 1964. Johnson waited until after the fall election to begin openly supporting escalation of U.S. involvement, which became known as Americanization, but his show of strength in asking for the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution helped cement his victory.

By that point, continued instability in South Vietnam after the ousting of the dictator Diem became a rising concern. In the spring of 1965, the South Vietnam–based Viet Cong, who opposed the southern government and detested the presence of U.S. military advisors, also began to step up attacks against American personnel. McNamara urged action, including com- mitting thousands of American combat troops. He called the operation Rolling Thunder.

The swell of American ground troops began in 1965, and within 3 years more than a half mil- lion U.S. soldiers were “in country,” a term used by U.S. soldiers to mean they were in Vietnam. More soldiers meant more Americans killed, missing, or wounded in action. Total U.S. casual- ties grew from 2,500 at the end of 1965 to over 130,000 at the end of 1968, which marked the high point of American troop presence. Troops fought regular North Vietnamese army troops but also the Viet Cong, who were more difficult to identify because they were often disguised as civilians (see Figure 12.2).

Fighting in the humid jungles of Southeast Asia was difficult, so to aid American and South Vietnamese fighting forces, the U.S. military sprayed toxic chemical defoliants, including Agent Orange, to help clear the forests. Hitting millions of acres, the defoliants destroyed half of the nation’s timber. There was little consideration of the long-term effect of the chemicals on human and animal life (Patterson, 1996). Although evidence is not completely conclusive, studies show increased rates of cancer, as well as nerve and digestive disorders, among veter- ans exposed to the defoliant.

Figure 12.2: The Vietnam War

The escalation of the Vietnam War brought the incursion of more than a half million U.S. troops into the region. By the 1968 election, Americans were losing faith that the war was winnable and that it was possible to prevent the spread of communism into South Vietnam.

17º N. Demarcation line

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CA MAU PENINSUL A

Bangkok

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Ubon RatchataniRachasima

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Tuy HoaBuon Ma Thuot

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Lang Vei

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Cholon

Ca Mau

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Harbor mined, 1972

Maddox Incident, 1972

U.S. INV ASION, 1970

VIETNAMESE INVASION, 1978

Major U.S. base

Major battles of the Tet Offensive, (January 1968)

Boat people refugees (after U.S. withdrawal in 1975)

U.S. Seventh Fleet operations during the war

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CA MAU PENINSUL A

Bangkok

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Ubon RatchataniRachasima

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Cholon

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Harbor mined, 1972

Maddox Incident, 1972

U.S. INV ASION, 1970

VIETNAMESE INVASION, 1978

Major U.S. base

Major battles of the Tet Offensive, (January 1968)

Boat people refugees (after U.S. withdrawal in 1975)

U.S. Seventh Fleet operations during the war

Section 12.4 The Vietnam War

12.4 The Vietnam War

Figure 12.2: The Vietnam War

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Quang Ngai

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HanoiDien Bien Phu

Chu Lai

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Vung Tau

My Lai

Can Ranh Bay Bu Dop

CA MAU PENINSUL A

Bangkok

Long Binh

Khon Kaen

Udon Thani Nakhom Phanom

Ubon RatchataniRachasima

Ta Khli

Don Muang

Sattahip

Can Tho

Vinh Long

Dalat

Nha Trang

Quy Nhon

Da Nang

Hue

Quang Tri

Tuy HoaBuon Ma Thuot

Kon Tum

Khe Sanh

Lang Vei

Pleiku

Bien Hua Tan Son Nhut

Cholon

Ca Mau

My Tho

Demilitarized Zone (DMZ)

Harbor mined, 1972

Maddox Incident, 1972

U.S. INV ASION, 1970

VIETNAMESE INVASION, 1978

Major U.S. base

Major battles of the Tet Offensive, (January 1968)

Boat people refugees (after U.S. withdrawal in 1975)

U.S. Seventh Fleet operations during the war

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Section 12.4 The Vietnam War

Despite employing the full force of the U.S. military, troops made little progress in pushing the North Vietnamese forces out of the region. The North Vietnamese relied heavily on guerilla tactics and on sympathetic southern residents and political activists known as the Viet Cong, and they were willing to suffer high casualties.

The geography of Vietnam proved another problem for combat troops. Jungles dense with foliage, wet marshes, and even razor-sharp elephant grass made the combat mission almost unbearable. The North Vietnamese imprisoned U.S. soldiers in deplorable conditions and fought relentlessly. As U.S. casualty figures rose, some began to question the war’s goals and blamed the president for involving the nation in “Mr. Johnson’s War.”

Media and the War Thanks to modern media, Americans watched war developments on their televisions as war correspondents, including CBS Evening News anchor Walter Cronkite, reported directly from the conflict zone. During World War II and the Korean War, media coverage had been limited due to technological limitations and government censorship. Newspaper and radio accounts and short newsreels that aired in movie theaters before a feature film provided the main images and news of war in the 1940s. Television improved steadily in the 1950s, and net- works provided some war coverage, but Cronkite’s coverage of Vietnam brought the war home to millions of Americans.

Cronkite arrived in Southeast Asia shortly after the conclusion of the Tet Offensive, in which the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese launched a series of surprise attacks against the South and U.S. troops. Beginning in January 1968 on Tet, or the Lunar New Year holi-

day, and lasting well into February, it caught American and allied forces off guard and forced them to struggle to maintain control of several impor- tant cities. Although the assaults were ultimately repelled, the high number of casualties created a crisis for the Johnson administration and turned public opinion against the war.

Upon Cronkite’s return to the United States, CBS aired a special news broadcast focusing on the aftermath of the Tet Offensive. One of the most trusted men in America, Cronkite used the opportunity to express his own loss of faith in the American mis- sion. He told viewers:

It seems now more certain than ever, that the bloody experience of Vietnam is to end in a stalemate. To say that we are closer to victory today is to believe in the face of the evidence, the optimists who have been wrong in the past. (as cited in Oberdorfer, 1971, p. 251)

Troops in personnel carriers and on foot on the streets of Saigon during the height of the Tet Offensive in 1968.

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Section 12.4 The Vietnam War

Investigative reporters, photojournalists, and war correspondents bombarded the American public with news and images of the war. These also influenced a growing antiwar sentiment.

Just weeks after the end of the Tet Offensive, on March 16, 1968, U.S. Army infantry soldiers participated in a shocking massacre of between 347 and 504 unarmed men, women, and children in the South Vietnamese village of My Lai. The soldiers also committed gang rape. Photographs and news of the My Lai Massacre shocked the world, although it took nearly 2 years to uncover the full story. Although more than two dozen soldiers faced charges, only one served jail time. Convicted of killing 22 civilians, Lt. William Calley Jr. ultimately served less than 4 years in prison. His trial sparked a growth in those opposed to the war (Hall, 2007).

The Antiwar Movement As casualty numbers rose and images of the horrors of war reached the United States, the American public began to question the Cold War consensus. At first dissenters came largely from the ranks of student protestors and intellectuals. At the beginning of Americanization in 1965, only 24% of Americans surveyed in a Gallup Poll believed U.S. involvement in Vietnam was a mistake. By September 1968, 54% believed involvement to be a mistake, and that figure rose steadily to 60% on the eve of withdrawal in January 1973 (Gillespie, 2000).

Student radicals formed one leading group, Students for a Democratic Society, in 1962 to argue that “the war is immoral at its root” and “is foreclosing the hope of making America a decent and truly democratic society” (McMahon, 2003, p 428). Media images stereotyped antiwar advocates as young, radical, and disaffected, but their ranks swelled following the Tet Offensive (McMahon, 2003).

Young men expressed dissent by burning their draft cards, and a number fled to Canada to avoid military service. Antiwar protesters gathered in groups large and small. One of the larg- est, in October 1967, saw nearly 100,000 gather at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. By 1968 antiwar sentiment emanated from powerful members of the business and financial communities, the media, and even the government. All came to question the reasons underly- ing American commitment to Vietnam. Public opinion polls showed a steady erosion of sup- port as the presidential election of 1968 approached (McMahon, 2003).

1968 As discord grew, confidence in Johnson’s ability to win the war waned. Antiwar Democratic senator Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota announced that he would challenge the president for the 1968 Democratic nomination. His campaign gained momentum with the support of the growing antiwar protests, and he came within 7 points of winning in the important New Hampshire primary.

Johnson was shocked at his poor showing in the primary, and also worried that Robert F. Kennedy, the former attorney general and brother of John F. Kennedy, would also draw votes. Concerned about his ability even to secure his party’s nomination, Johnson made it easier for a whole field of potential opponents when he surprisingly announced in March that he would not seek reelection.

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Section 12.4 The Vietnam War

More stunning events rocked the nation in the months leading up to the August Democratic National Convention. On April 4 in Memphis, Tennessee, a White assassin killed Martin Luther King Jr. as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel. King had come to the city to join a sanitation workers’ strike. The news sent shockwaves throughout the nation and sparked another intense round of urban rioting and violence. In cities with large African American communities, such as Washington, D.C., and Baltimore, the unrest lasted for days. In Baltimore crowds filled the streets and burned and looted businesses. It took police and the National Guard until April 14 to fully restore order.

With Johnson out of the race, Kennedy challenged McCarthy for the Democratic nomination. On June 4 he narrowly beat McCarthy to win the California primary. The Kennedy campaign celebrated early into the morning of June 5, but as Kennedy exited the Los Angeles Ambas- sador Hotel (through the kitchen so as not to disturb the party), Sirhan Sirhan, a Palestinian immigrant from Jordan, shot him in the head with a small caliber bullet. Kennedy died in the early hours of the next day.

The Democratic Party limped on toward its primary in August. Held at Chicago’s International Amphitheatre, it turned into one of the most chaotic political events in U.S history. Outside the convention hall, 10,000 antiwar protestors marched in the streets and were met by 23,000 Chicago police and National Guardsmen. Police attacked demonstrators with nightsticks, and the entire event was televised live on network news. Inside the convention hall delegates began to demand a return to the usual establishment politics that would be evident in the nomination of Vice President Hubert Humphrey. McCarthy supporters protested, but in the end Humphrey gained the nomination.

Nixon and the Silent Majority Meanwhile, the Republicans had res- urrected the political career of former vice president Richard Nixon, who won the election by a narrow margin, campaigning on his tremendous politi- cal experience. He promised stability for a nation that was weary of war, pro- test, social unrest, and assassinations. Nixon appealed to what he believed was the so-called Silent Majority of Americans whose opinions were rarely expressed, especially in the turbulent months leading up to the 1968 elec- tion. He pleaded for the votes of those citizens who had neither protested the Vietnam War nor joined in any coun- terculture movement. Upon taking office, he and his special assistant for national security affairs, Henry Kiss- inger, began to devise a way to achieve “peace with honor” in Vietnam.

Richard Nixon greets a crowd of supporters during the 1968 presidential campaign. His candidacy appealed to a silent majority of Americans who were not engaged in activism or protest, and his victory marked the beginning of a conservative turn in U.S. politics.

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Summary and Resources

Chapter Summary

• Following the affluent and anxious postwar decade, the United States entered into a challenging and troubling era in the 1960s. The Cold War continued to dominate for- eign relations and drew the United States into several conflicts, including the lengthy Vietnam War.

• President John F. Kennedy took the world to the brink of nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis and then pledged American support for South Vietnam’s independence.

• Kennedy’s domestic agenda made few achievements before his assassination only 3 years into his presidency, but it did set the agenda for his successor, Lyndon Johnson.

• Johnson’s Great Society and War on Poverty sought to expand the welfare state and made some important strides to eradicate poverty in America.

• Beginning in 1965 the escalation of the Vietnam War detracted attention and resources from social programs, but an expansion of the civil rights movement made major, lasting achievements.

• Federal guarantees for civil and voting rights ended legal segregation in the South and encouraged women, gays, Native Americans, and others to pursue their own civil rights agenda.

• In urban areas rising economic expectations created a tense climate that periodically erupted into rioting and violent protest.

• By the decade’s end the nation had had enough of war and, with the election of Richard Nixon in 1968, sought a less turbulent future.

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April 1961: Bay of Pigs invasion fails to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro.

August 28, 1963: Between 200,000 and 300,000 civil rights activists gathered for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

July 2, 1964: Civil Rights Act is passed marking an end to segregation in schools, the workplace, and public accommodations.

November 22, 1963: Lee Harvey Oswald assassinates the president.

August 7, 1964: The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution is passed by Congress.

August 6, 1965: Voting Rights Act is passed and prohibits racial discrimination in voting. January 1968:

Tet Offensive in Vietnam begins.

April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

June 6, 1968: Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated after a campaign rally in Los Angeles, California. 1968:

U.S. Troops in Vietnam number 549,500.

October 14―28, 1962: Cuban Missile Crisis, a 13-day confrontation over the installation of Soviet missiles in Cuba, brought the United States close to nuclear war.

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Associated Press

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Associated Press

Eddie Adams/Associated Press

Summary and Resources

Chapter 12 Timeline

April 1961: Bay of Pigs invasion fails to overthrow the government of Fidel Castro.

August 28, 1963: Between 200,000 and 300,000 civil rights activists gathered for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

July 2, 1964: Civil Rights Act is passed marking an end to segregation in schools, the workplace, and public accommodations.

November 22, 1963: Lee Harvey Oswald assassinates the president.

August 7, 1964: The Gulf of Tonkin Resolution is passed by Congress.

August 6, 1965: Voting Rights Act is passed and prohibits racial discrimination in voting. January 1968:

Tet Offensive in Vietnam begins.

April 4, 1968: Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee.

June 6, 1968: Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated after a campaign rally in Los Angeles, California. 1968:

U.S. Troops in Vietnam number 549,500.

October 14―28, 1962: Cuban Missile Crisis, a 13-day confrontation over the installation of Soviet missiles in Cuba, brought the United States close to nuclear war.

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Associated Press

Hulton Archive/Getty Images

Associated Press

Eddie Adams/Associated Press

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Summary and Resources

Post-Test

1. Which of the following statements about John F. Kennedy’s New Frontier is true? a. Kennedy’s domestic agenda plans were achieved during his short presidency,

making it one of the most significant accomplishments of the decade. b. Few of Kennedy’s plans were realized, but his ideas set the agenda for Johnson’s

programs in the remainder of the decade. c. Kennedy’s New Frontier programs paled in comparison to those of Johnson. d. The New Frontier focused more on plans for international relations than domes-

tic needs.

2. One positive result from the Cuban Missile Crisis was that: a. A permanent line of communication, or hotline, was established between the

Kremlin and the White House. b. Cuba was saved from Communist influence and the Soviet Union. c. It justified the earlier events of the Bay of Pigs invasion. d. It demonstrated that Kennedy was a strong leader.

3. What was the purpose of the Economic Opportunity Act? a. It created multiple agencies to support the civil rights agenda. b. It declared discrimination in the workplace unconstitutional. c. It created multiple agencies to support poverty relief. d. It created and organized the War on Poverty.

4. Which civil rights leader founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to organize and support civil rights activities? a. Malcolm X b. Stokely Carmichael c. Martin Luther King Jr. d. A. Philip Randolph

5. Which civil rights activity was considered to be the most dangerous and often led to violent confrontation? a. freedom rides that challenged segregation on interstate bus lines b. sit-ins that aimed to end segregation in restaurants and other facilities c. marches and rallies in Washington, D.C. d. boycotts that involved refusing to purchase a particular product, such as Califor-

nia grapes

6. Which of the following statements about the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party is true? a. It managed to overcome White opposition and assumed two delegate seats at the

1964 Democratic National Convention. b. It was an integrated party that represented both White and African American

freedom activists in Mississippi. c. It succeeded in challenging the White domination of the state’s political system. d. It failed to take Mississippi’s convention seats but brought important national

attention to the issue of voting rights in the South.

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Summary and Resources

7. What is the significance of the 1969 Stonewall Riots? a. The riots helped publicize the American Indian Movement’s goals. b. The riots led directly to the organization of the United Farm Workers union in the

Southwest. c. The riots helped galvanize gay and lesbian rights activists and prompted the for-

mation of gay rights organizations. d. The riots helped uncover urban poverty and unequal economic opportunity.

8. Why did the expression of Black Power receive negative press and backlash from some Whites? a. Some believed that the tactics of Black Power advocates would take too long to

achieve change. b. Black Power advocates did not express their goals publicly. c. The press had trouble differentiating Black Power activists from members of the

Southern Christian Leadership Conference. d. Black Power advocates suggested that violence might be necessary in order to

achieve full equality.

9. Which event helped turn the support of the American public against the Vietnam War? a. the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution b. the Tet Offensive c. Vietnamization d. the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

10. The year 1968 is considered one of the most turbulent in U.S. history for all of the following reasons EXCEPT a. U.S. troops faced high casualties in Vietnam. b. Johnson decided not to seek reelection, opening the field to multiple Democratic

candidates. c. Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy were assassinated. d. The Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war.

Answers: 1 (b), 2 (a), 3 (c), 4 (c), 5 (a), 6 (d), 7 (c), 8 (d), 9 (b), 10 (d)

Critical Thinking Questions

1. How did the civil rights movement change in the 1960s? 2. Did the American presidents have a good reason for fighting the Vietnam War? 3. How did the events of the 1960s change life in America? 4. Is violence or nonviolence the most effective means of achieving social change? 5. Are there any struggles or events in the 21st century that compare to those of the

1960s?

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Summary and Resources

Additional Resources

Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=95&page=transcript This agreement between the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union banned the testing of nuclear bombs in the atmosphere, outer space, or underwater.

Kennedy’s Remarks on the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/fAKdumxxPESkFnuFXDF0lg.aspx In this audio account, President Kennedy outlines his reasons for supporting the treaty.

Official Program for the March on Washington

http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=96&page=transcript The schedule of events for the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, held on August 28, 1963, included many of the nation’s most prominent civil rights activists.

Receipt for Captain Robert White, Last American Prisoner of War Released After Vietnam War

http://docsteach.org/documents/305362/detail?mode=browse&menu=closed&type[] =written-document&sortBy=era&page=53 The North Vietnamese held hundreds of American military personnel captive during the long Vietnam War. Robert White, whose plane was shot down in 1969, was considered the last to be released in 1973.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=100&page=transcript Considered the culmination of the long struggle for civil rights, this act prohibited discrimi- nation against voting qualifications based on race.

National Head Start Association

http://www.nhsa.org Part of the Great Society, the Head Start program provided early childhood education to youth in low-income communities.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

http://sclcnational.org Founded by Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists in 1957, the organization continues to advocate in favor of racial justice.

House of Representatives Roll Call Vote on Civil Rights Act of 1964

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/treasures_of_congress/Images/page_24/72a.html After days of debate, the House passed the Civil Rights Act by a vote of 290 to 130.

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http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=95&page=transcript

http://www.jfklibrary.org/Asset-Viewer/fAKdumxxPESkFnuFXDF0lg.aspx

http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?flash=true&doc=96&page=transcript

http://docsteach.org/documents/305362/detail?mode=browse&menu=closed&type[]=written-document&sortBy=era&page=53

http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=100&page=transcript

http://www.nhsa.org

http://sclcnational.org

http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/treasures_of_congress/Images/page_24/72a.html

Summary and Resources

The Civil Rights Act of 1964

http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/civil-rights-act The Civil Rights Act guarantees equal protection of the laws and created the Equal Employ- ment Opportunity Commission.

John F. Kennedy’s Inaugural Address

http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=91 In his inaugural speech, Kennedy famously challenged Americans to actively engage in pur- suits to benefit their country.

Answers and Rejoinders to Chapter Pre-Test

1. True. In October 1957 the Soviet Union shocked the world by launching and orbit- ing Sputnik, the first human-made satellite. In the wake of Sputnik, the United States realized it needed to extend the containment of communism into outer space. Less than 1 year after Sputnik, the U.S. government created the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

2. False. The Bay of Pigs was a dismal failure. The invasion collapsed with 300 of the American-trained insurgents killed by Castro’s tanks and guns and 1,100 captured by his army. Kennedy accepted blame for the humiliating fiasco.

3. True. Known as a curative strategy, the aim of the Great Society was to eliminate family poverty by providing a host of programs to break the hereditary cycle of pov- erty. These included literacy, education, and manpower training.

4. True. After 1964 Johnson changed course with the goal to “Americanize” the war, placing the entire burden on the United States in the conflict.

5. False. The 1968 election was fraught with discord that represented growing impatience on issues of racial and social justice and the rising opposition to the Vietnam War.

Rejoinders to Chapter Post-Test

1. Kennedy’s short presidency meant that few of his goals were realized during his term, but his ideas set the agenda for social and economic reform during Johnson’s administration.

2. A special hotline phone connection established immediate communication between the Soviet leader and U.S. president, allowing faster communication in event of an emergency.

3. Funded with $800 million in congressional appropriations in its first year, the act created 10 new programs aimed at reducing poverty, including Head Start and the Job Corps.

4. King founded the organization in 1957 to coordinate civil rights activities in the South. The group favored a measured nonviolent approach to activism that was not always popular with student activists.

5. Freedom Riders were required to take a special course in nonviolent resistance in anticipation of physical attack by angry Whites and organizations such as the Ku Klux Klan.

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http://www.archives.gov/education/lessons/civil-rights-act

http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=91

Summary and Resources

6. The party was offered two delegate seats but refused them. Nevertheless, MFDP leader Fannie Lou Hamer’s televised testimony made many Americans aware of southern voter suppression.

7. Beginning in New York’s Greenwich Village neighborhood, gay men and lesbians fought back against police attack. The 6-day riots sparked the creation of the Gay Liberation Front and the Gay Activists Alliance to push for gay rights.

8. Urging African American self-help and community development, Black Power advo- cates also took a more militant approach to civil rights and argued the necessity of resisting White violence using any means necessary.

9. The surprise attacks of the Tet Offensive in January 1969 caught American and allied forces off guard and led to heavy casualties. News reports and images brought the horror home and made many in the United States question support for the war.

10. The year marked one of the most unsettling points in the 20th century. The Vietnam War seemed unwinnable, King and Kennedy were assassinated, and the Democratic Party was in disarray following Johnson’s decision not to seek another term.

Key Terms

American Indian Movement (AIM) The organization of Native Americans formed in 1968 to bring attention to Native Ameri- can issues and to foster a renewal of native culture.

Bay of Pigs The failed invasion of Cuba by CIA-sponsored operatives; the goal was to liberate Cuba from communism.

Berlin Wall A physical wall constructed in 1961 to divide Soviet-controlled East Ger- many from U.S.-controlled West Germany.

Black Power A movement pushing for the unification of African Americans in pursuit of civil rights and reform and especially in celebrating African American heritage.

Civil Rights Act of 1964 A major victory of the civil rights movement, this law prohibits workplace discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin.

Cuban Missile Crisis The October 1962 standoff between the United States and Soviet Union over the potential placement of nuclear missiles in Cuba. It is regarded as the time when the Cold War conflict came closest to nuclear war.

Economic Opportunity Act Passed in August 1964, this act created 10 new pro- grams aimed at reducing poverty, including early childhood education and job training programs.

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution A joint resolu- tion of Congress passed August 7, 1964, authorizing the president to use necessary force in defense of Vietnam and Southeast Asian allies.

March on Washington for Jobs and Free- dom This largest gathering of the civil rights movement occurred August 28, 1963, when more than a quarter million Whites and African Americans rallied in the nation’s capital.

missile gap A Cold War term used by presi- dential candidate John F. Kennedy to stir fear that the Soviet Union had a superior number of powerful missiles.

National Organization for Women (NOW) A women’s rights organization formed in 1966 to call for equal opportunity in the workplace and education, as well as promote positive media images of women.

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Summary and Resources

New Frontier Announced by John F. Ken- nedy when accepting the Democratic nomination, the term became a label for his domestic and foreign programs as president.

Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Signed by the United States, Great Britain, and the Soviet Union on August 5, 1963, it restricted nuclear testing to underground explosions.

Peace Corps Created by executive order, the organization sent American men and women abroad to aid developing nations establish educational and economic institutions.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) A civil rights organization formed in the wake of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and most often associated with the leadership of Martin Luther King Jr.

space race The competition between the United States and Soviet Union for suprem- acy in space flight.

Stonewall Riots Six days of rioting by New York’s gay community that led to the forma- tion of important organizations to demand civil and human rights for gays, lesbians, and transgender Americans.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commit- tee (SNCC) A student-led civil rights organi- zation formed in 1960. It later focused on the Black Power movement and protest against the Vietnam War.

Students for a Democratic Society A student activist organization with chapters in many cities and on college and university campuses. It served as an organizing force for student antiwar protests.

Tet Offensive The surprise offensive against U.S. and allied forces in the Vietnam War began on Tet, or the Lunar New Year, in January 1968. Gruesome images and high casualty figures from the fighting made this a defining moment that turned the American public against the war.

Voting Rights Act of 1965 This act estab- lished federal authority over elections and required certain jurisdictions to seek fed- eral approval before implementing changes affecting voting, such as redrawing districts.

War on Poverty President Lyndon John- son’s legislative program that aimed to eradicate poverty in the United States.

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