The Great Society
1950s-1970s
Contents
The Great Society, 1950s-1970s:
JFK and LBJ
The Cuban Missile Crisis was a time of great anxiety in America. Eight hundred women demonstrated outside the United Nations Building in 1962 to promote peace.
|
Johnson gives Senator Richard Russell the famous “Johnson Treatment.”
|
Review:
- How did Kennedy respond to the continuing challenges of the Cold War?
- What were the goals of Kennedy's New Frontier?
- How did Johnson's Great Society programs change life for most Americans?
- How did the Warren Court protect Americans' civil liberties?
The Civil Rights Movement
Rosa Parks' arrest for her refusal to move from her seat to make room for a white male passenger motivated the Montgomery bus boycott. (Colorized photo)
|
Ruby Bridges was the first African American child to attend formerly whites-only William Frantz Elementary School in Louisiana during the New Orleans school desegregation crisis on November 14, 1960. (Colorized photo)
|
School desegregation was a tense experience for all involved, but none more so than the African American students who integrated white schools. The Little Rock Nine were the first to do so in Arkansas. Their escorts, the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army, protected students who took that first step in 1957.
|
In 1959, photographer John Bledsoe captured this image of the crowd on the steps of the Arkansas state capitol building protesting the federally mandated integration of Little Rock’s Central High School. This image shows how worries about desegregation were bound up with other concerns, such as the reach of communism and government power.
|
Demonstrators march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965 to champion African American civil rights.
|
Lyndon B. Johnson sits with Civil Rights Leaders in the White House. One of Johnson’s greatest legacies would be his staunch support of civil rights legislation.
|
Review:
- How did African Americans challenge segregation after WWII?
- Why was Brown v. Board of Education important?
- Why did Eisenhower send federal troops to Little Rock, Arkansas?
- What role did Parks and King play in the Montgomery bus boycott?
- How did the civil rights movement gain ground in the 1960s?
- How did the Civil Rights Act of 1964 try to end discrimination?
- What impact did the protests in Selma, Alabama have on the nation?
- What impact did Malcolm X have on the civil rights movement?
- What gains did the movement make by the early 1970s?
The Vietnam War
The draft fell disproporiately on working class and minority men.
|
|
|
anti-war posters
Review:
- How did the United States become involved in the Vietnam War?
- Why did American public opinion turn against the war?
Vietnamization
Richard Nixon campaigns in Philadelphia during the 1968 presidential election.
First Lady Pat Nixon supported Richard Nixon's 1968 presidential campaign promise of "Peace With Honor."
Vietnamization
|
Vietnamization Quizlet
|
Review:
- What factors contributed to Richard Nixon's election as president in 1968?
- What were the consequences of American defeat in the Vietnam War?
The Counterculture
Epitomizing the folk music and protest culture of 1960s youth, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan are pictured here singing together at the March on Washington in 1963.
Women’s Liberation March from Farrugut Square to Lafayette Park in Washington, D.C. 1970
Conservative activist Phyllis Schlafly campaigns against the Equal Rights Amendment in 1977
|
The Counterculture
|
The Counterculture Quizlet
The window under the Stonewall Inn sign reads: “We homosexuals plead with our people to please help maintain peaceful and quiet conduct on the streets of the Village–Mattachine.” Photograph 1969.
|
|
In 1971 a woman could not:
|
Review:
- Why did many young Americans embrace the counterculture movement in the 1960s?
- What victories and setbacks did second-wave feminism face?
- What prompted the American Indian Movement, Chicano movement, and gay liberation movement?
- Why did adopt Americans new protections for the environment?
Readings
|
|
| ||
|
|
| ||
|
|
| ||
|
|
| ||
Primary Sources
- Barry Goldwater, Republican Nomination Acceptance Speech (1964) - In 1964, Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona accepted the Republican Party’s nomination for the presidency. In his speech, Goldwater refused to apologize for his strict conservative politics. “Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice,” he said, and “moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”
- Lyndon Johnson on Voting Rights and the American Promise (1965) - On March 15, 1965, Lyndon Baines Johnson addressed a joint session of Congress to push for the Voting Rights Act. In his speech, Johnson not only advocated policy, he borrowed the language of the civil rights movement and tied the movement to American history.
- Lyndon Johnson, Howard University Commencement Address (1965) - On June 4, 1965, President Johnson delivered the commencement address at Howard University, the nation’s most prominent historically black university. In his address, Johnson explained why “opportunity” was not enough to ensure the civil rights of disadvantaged Americans.
- National Organization for Women, “Statement of Purpose” (1966) - The National Organization for Women was founded in 1966 by prominent American feminists, including Betty Friedan, Shirley Chisolm, and others. The organization’s “statement of purpose” laid out the goals of the organization and the targets of its feminist vision.
- Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders (1968) - Riots rocked American cities in the mid-late sixties. Hundreds died, thousands were injured, and thousands of buildings were destroyed. Many communities never recovered. In 1967, devastating riots, particularly in Detroit, Michigan, and Newark, New Jersey, captivated national television audiences. President Lyndon Johnson appointed an 11-person commission, chaired by Illinois Governor Otto Kerner, to explain the origins of the riots and recommend policies to prevent them in the future.
- George M. Garcia, Vietnam Veteran, Oral Interview (2012/1969) - In 2012, George Garcia sat down to be interviewed about his experiences as a corporal in the United States Marine Corps during the Vietnam War. Alternating between English and Spanish, Garcia told of early life in Brownsville, Texas, his time as a U.S. Marine in Vietnam, and his experience coming home from the war.
- Statement by John Kerry of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (1971) - On April 23, 1971, a young Vietnam veteran named John Kerry spoke on behalf of the Vietnam Veterans Against the War before the Senate Committee of Foreign Relations. Kerry, later a Massachusetts Senator and 2004 presidential contender, articulated a growing disenchantment with the Vietnam War and delivered a blistering indictment of the reasoning behind its prosecution.
Slideshows
Videos
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|