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Fair Deal
Truman's legislative program; it was largely an extension of the New Deal of the 1930s, and Truman had little success convincing Congress to enact it.
Taft-Hartley Act (1946)
Anti-labor law passed over Truman's veto; it provided a 'cooling off' period wherein the president could force striking workers back to work for 80 days. It also outlawed closed shops and allowed states to pass right-to-work laws.
Strom Thurmond
Democratic governor of South Carolina who headed the States' Rights Party (Dixiecrats); he ran for president in 1948 against Truman and his mild civil rights proposals and eventually joined the Republican Party.
Thomas Dewey
Twice-defeated Republican candidate for president (1944, 1948); his overconfidence and lackadaisical effort in 1948 allowed Truman to overcome his large lead and pull off the greatest political upset in American history.
Federal Highway Act (1956)
Largest public works project in United States history; Eisenhower signed the law, which built over 40,000 miles of highways in the United States at a cost of $25 billion and created the interstate highway system.
Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
Supreme Court decision that overturned the Plessy vs. Ferguson decision (1896); led by Chief Justice Earl Warren, the Court ruled that 'separate but equal' schools for blacks were inherently unequal and thus unconstitutional.
Earl Warren
Controversial Chief Justice of the Supreme Court (1953-1969); he led the court in far-reaching racial, social, and political rulings; including school desegregation and protecting rights of persons accused of crimes.
Thurgood Marshall
Leading attorney for NAACP in 1940s and 1950s, who headed the team in Brown vs. the Board of Education case; later, Lyndon Johnson appointed him the first black justice on the United States Supreme Court.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
America's greatest civil rights leader, 1955-1968; his nonviolent protests gained national attention and resulted in government protection of African American rights. He was assassinated in 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee.
Rosa Parks
NAACP member who initiated the Montgomery Bus Boycott in 1955 when she was arrested for violating Jim Crow rules on a bus; her action and the long boycott that followed became an icon of the quest for civil rights.
Malcolm X
Militant black leader associated with the Nation of Islam (Black Muslims); he questioned Martin Luther King's strategy of nonviolence and called on blacks to make an aggressive defense of their rights. He was assassinated by fellow Muslims in 1965.
Sit-ins
Protests by black college students, 1960-1961, who took seats at 'whites only' lunch counters and refused to leave until served; in 1960 over 50,000 participated in sit-ins across the South.
Freedom rides
Civil rights campaign of the Congress of Racial Equality in which protesters traveled by bus through the South to desegregate bus stations; white violence against them prompted the Kennedy administration to protect them and become more involved in civil rights.
John Lewis
American civil rights activist. He participated in the 1960 Nashville sit-ins and the Freedom Rides, was the chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) from 1963 to 1966, and was one of the "Big Six" leaders of groups who organized the 1963 March on Washington. In 1965 Lewis led the first of three Selma to Montgomery marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge where, in an incident that became known as Bloody Sunday, state troopers and police attacked Lewis and the other marchers.
Nashville sit-ins
A series of nonviolent protests against racial segregation in Nashville, Tennessee, in 1960.
Freedom Rides
Bus trips through the American South in 1961 to protest segregated bus terminals.
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
A civil rights organization founded in 1960 that played a key role in the American civil rights movement.
March on Washington
A massive civil rights rally in 1963 where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his 'I Have a Dream' speech.
Bloody Sunday
A day in 1965 when state troopers violently confronted civil rights marchers on the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
George Wallace
Alabama governor known for his pro-segregation stance and third-party presidential candidacies in 1968 and 1972.
Liberalism
A political ideology in the United States that endorses a regulated market economy and the expansion of civil and political rights.
Great Society
President Lyndon Johnson's social and economic program aimed at eliminating poverty and racial injustice.
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Legislation that desegregated public accommodations and broadened federal powers to protect individual rights.
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Legislation that expanded federal protection of voters and outlawed literacy tests.
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 (Hart-Celler Act)
Legislation that abolished the National Origins Formula and removed discrimination against non-Western and Northern European ethnicities.
Black Power
A rallying cry for black militants in the 1960s and 1970s, advocating for political power and cultural pride.
Betty Friedan
Author of 'The Feminine Mystique,' which raised issues regarding women's roles in society.
Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)
Proposed amendment to the U.S. Constitution aimed at outlawing gender discrimination, which fell short of ratification.
Stonewall riots
A series of confrontations in 1969 between police and gay rights activists that sparked the modern gay rights movement.
Cesar Chavez
American labor leader and civil rights activist who co-founded the National Farm Workers Association.
Ideologically
His worldview combined left-wing politics with Catholic social teachings.
John Kennedy
President from 1961-1963, the youngest president ever elected, and the first Catholic to serve; he had a moderately progressive domestic agenda and a hardline policy against the Soviets.
Fidel Castro
Communist leader of Cuba who led a rebellion against the U.S.-backed dictator and took power in 1959; President Kennedy tried to overthrow him with the Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961 but failed.
Bay of Pigs
U.S.-supported invasion of Cuba in April 1961; intended to overthrow Communist dictator Fidel Castro, the operation proved a fiasco.
Nikita Khrushchev
Soviet leader from 1954-1964; he was an aggressive revolutionary who hoped to spread Communism into Africa, Asia, and Latin America.
Cuban Missile Crisis
A confrontation between the United States and the USSR resulting from a Soviet attempt to place long-range nuclear missiles in Cuba (October 1962).
Vietnam War
Conflict that pitted the communist government of North Vietnam and its allies in South Vietnam, known as the Viet Cong, against the government of South Vietnam and its principal ally, the United States.
Dien Bien Phu
French fortress in northern Vietnam that surrendered in 1954 to the Viet Minh; the defeat caused the French to abandon Indochina.
Ho Chi Minh
Communist leader of North Vietnam; he and his Viet Minh/ Viet Cong allies fought French and American forces to a standstill in Vietnam from 1946-1973.
Ngo Dinh Diem
American ally in South Vietnam from 1954 to 1963; his repressive regime caused the Communist Viet Cong to thrive in the South.
Lyndon Johnson
President from 1963-1969 who created the Great Society, a reform program unmatched in the twentieth century.
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (1964)
An authorization by Congress empowering President Johnson 'to take all necessary measures' to protect U.S. forces in Vietnam.
Barry Goldwater
Unsuccessful presidential candidate against Lyndon Johnson in 1964; he called for dismantling the New Deal, escalation of the war in Vietnam, and the status quo on civil rights.
Tet Offensive
A series of Communist attacks on 44 South Vietnamese cities in January 1968; although the Viet Cong suffered a major defeat, the attacks ended the American view that the war was winnable and destroyed the nation's will to escalate the war further.
New Left
Label for the political radicals of the 1960s; influenced by 'Old Left' of the 1930s, which had criticized capitalism and supported successes of Communism, the New Left supported civil rights and opposed American foreign policy, especially in Vietnam.
Robert Kennedy
John Kennedy's brother who served as attorney general and gradually embraced growing civil rights reform; later, as senator from New York, he made a run for the Democratic presidential nomination, which ended with his assassination on June 6, 1968.
Hubert Humphrey
Liberal senator from Minnesota and Lyndon Johnson's vice president who tried to unite the party after the tumultuous 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago; he narrowly lost the presidency to Richard Nixon that year.
Silent Majority
Label Nixon gave to middle-class Americans who supported him, obeyed the laws, and wanted 'peace with honor' in Vietnam; contrasted with students and civil rights activists who disrupted the country with protests in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
Sun Belt
Region comprising 15 southern states in the United States extending from Virginia and Florida in the southeast through Nevada in the southwest, including southern California; between 1970 and 1990, the South grew in population by 36 percent and the West by 51 percent, both well above the national average.
Richard Nixon
Controversial vice president (1953-1961) and president (1969-1974) who made his political reputation as an aggressive anticommunist crusader; his presidency ended with his resignation during the Watergate scandal.
Henry Kissinger
Advisor to Presidents Nixon and Ford; he was the architect of the Vietnam settlement, the diplomatic opening to China, and détente with the Soviet Union.
Detente
Period of the easing of Cold War tensions between the U.S. and the Soviet Union from 1967 to 1979; a time of increased trade and cooperation with the Soviet Union and the signing of the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) treaties.
George McGovern
Unsuccessful Democratic candidate for president in 1972; he called for immediate withdrawal from Vietnam and a guaranteed income for the poor.
Watergate scandal
Name applied to a series of events that began when the Nixon White House tried to place illegal phone taps on Democrats in June 1972; the burglars were caught, and Nixon and his aides obstructed the investigation, which cost him his office.
Gerald Ford
President (1974-1977) who served without being elected either president or vice president; appointed vice president under the terms of the Twenty-Fifth Amendment when Spiro Agnew resigned.
