United States History Chapter 24: The Shattered Society

Lyndon Johnson

President Kennedy’s vice president who implemented the “Great Society”

“Great Society”

Lyndon Johnson’s plan to end poverty and inequality in which government helps all citizens gain the opportunity to better themselves politically, socially, and economically

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Act that established fairer procedures for voter registration, forbade racial discrimination in public buildings, and authorized withholding federal funds from projects or institutions that were racist to minorities, and created the Equal Opportunity Commission.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Act that sent federal officials into states to help register blacks to vote and outlawed literacy tests for voters.

24th amendment

amendment ratified in January 1964 which outlawed the use of poll taxes

“war on poverty”

Lyndon Johnson 's initiative aimed at reducing poverty rates in America through various social programs and reforms.

Barry Goldwater

Republican senator who ran against Lyndon Johnson in the 1964 election and lost.

Earl Warren

Leader of the Warren Court, which pursued a policy of judicial activism, interpreting the law and constitution broadly to address with the judges perceived as major social problems.

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

a semi-declaration of war in vietnam

Paris Peace Talks

settled the Vietnam war after five years of talking

Eugene McCarthy

An anti-war Minnesota democrat senator

Robert Kennedy

JFK’s son, killed in Los Angeles, was planning to run against Lyndon Johnson in 1968

Hubert H. Humphrey

vice president of Johnson who ran after he bowed out

Richard Nixon

Republican candidate who took the middle of the road, very popular

George Wallace

third-party candidate in 1968 who had a significant following

silent majority

Nixon’s conception of most Americans who do not speak up for what they want

Busing

Court-ordered shipping of black students into white schools and vice versa

New Economic Policy

Nixon’s response to the deteriorating economic situation he was thrown into when he assumed the presidency

Henry Kissinger

Nixon’s secretary of state who helped relax tensions between the US and the Soviet UnionV

William Calley

a lieutenant who ordered the killing of three hundred civilians for suspected assistance of the Viet Cong in Vietnam; was given life in prison but Nixon gave him house arrest for twenty years

Kent State University

In which demonstrators protesting the invasion of Cambodia rioted and was the site of a clash between national guardsmen and said demonstrators resulting in the deaths of a few

Pentagon papers

papers published by Daniel Ellsberg that showed the Kennedy and Johnson administrations’ failings and deceptions

George McGovern

very liberal South Dakota senator who ran against Nixon in the 1972 election

War Powers Act of 1973

required that the president notify Congress within forty-eight hours of his committing US troops to military action and withdraw such troops after sixty days unless Congress specifically approves continued use of those forces