AMH2020

John Kennedy

Youngest president, 1961–1963, assassinated while campaigning — remembered for rhetoric, Bay of Pigs, Cuban Missile Crisis

Richard Nixon

37th president, first to resign, impeached due to Watergate; campaigned on ending the Vietnam War and opened relations with China

Lyndon Johnson

36th president, took office after JFK’s assassination; started the Great Society programs, but Vietnam War escalation cost him a second term

Great Society

Johnson’s domestic agenda setting up federally sponsored welfare programs—Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start—to reduce poverty, racial injustice, crime, and improve the environment

Tet Offensive

Series of 1968 attacks by North Vietnam and Viet Cong during the Tet holiday; shook U.S. public confidence and shifted opinion against the war

Watergate

Scandal over the 1972 break‑in at the DNC offices in the Watergate complex; Nixon’s cover‑up led to loss of support and his resignation

Domino Theory

Belief that if one country fell to communism, neighboring countries would follow—used to justify U.S. involvement in Vietnam

Containment

U.S. strategy (from Truman onward) to block Soviet and communist expansion via alliances, economic aid, and military intervention

Tonkin Gulf Resolution

1964 Congressional resolution, after alleged attacks on U.S. ships, giving LBJ authority to use military force in Vietnam without a formal war declaration

Fidel Castro

Cuban revolutionary who overthrew Batista in 1959 and established a communist government allied with the USSR, prompting U.S. actions like the Bay of Pigs and the Missile Crisis

Cuban Missile Crisis

13‑day standoff in October 1962 when the U.S. discovered Soviet nuclear missiles in Cuba; world teetered on nuclear war before a deal removed missiles from Cuba and Turkey

Robert Kennedy

Attorney General under JFK and 1968 presidential candidate, assassinated during his campaign

Roe V. Wade

1973 Supreme Court decision ruling state bans on abortion unconstitutional, establishing a woman’s right to choose

Jim Crow Laws

State and local laws enforcing racial segregation in the U.S. from the late 19th century until the 1960s

Plessey v Ferguson

1896 Supreme Court case upholding segregation under the “separate but equal” doctrine

Booker T. Washington

Educator who founded Tuskegee Institute and promoted Black progress through vocational education (“Atlanta Compromise”)

Bombingham

Nickname for Birmingham, AL, where 50+ racially motivated bombings occurred from 1947–1965 targeting Black homes, businesses, and churches

Marcus Garvey

Jamaican-born activist who led the Universal Negro Improvement Association, advocating Black pride and repatriation to Africa

Martin Luther King Jr.

Civil Rights leader famous for nonviolent protest and his “I Have a Dream” speech; assassinated in 1968

Freedom Summer

1964 voter‑registration campaign aiming to register African American voters in Mississippi amid violence and suppression

SCLC

Southern Christian Leadership Conference, founded by MLK Jr. in 1957 to coordinate nonviolent civil‑rights actions

Brown v. Board of Education

1954 Supreme Court decision declaring “separate but equal” unconstitutional in public schools

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Landmark law outlawing discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, or national origin; ended segregation in public places and workplaces; created the EEOC

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Prohibits states from using practices that deny voting rights on account of race; strengthens federal oversight of elections

John Lewis

Civil‑rights activist, 1961 Freedom Rider, founding member of SNCC, and longtime U.S. Congressman

Bloody Sunday

1965 violent attack on peaceful marchers in Selma, AL; spurred national outrage and helped lead to the Voting Rights Act

Rosa Parks

Civil Rights activist whose 1955 refusal to give up her bus seat sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott; served as NAACP secretary

Emmett Till

14‑year‑old African American brutally lynched in Mississippi in 1955 after being falsely accused of offending a white woman

W.E.B. DuBois

Scholar and co‑founder of the NAACP; first Black Harvard Ph.D., advocate for immediate civil rights and higher education for African Americans