1950s, 1960s, Civil Rights, Vietnam, Nixon

1950s Postwar Trends Economic

Coal, Steel and Railroad striked, wanted more money but the Office of Price Administration end the price control.

1950s Postwar Trends Social

A push for civil rights legislation. — Anti lynching law, and banning poll tax but ignored by Congress

EO 9981

July of 1948, and integrated armed forces

1946 Midterm Elections

Republicans win congress

Taft Hartley Act

1946- Took away rights from unions

Truman looses popularity 1948

Blamed for inflation and labor unrest

Southern Democrats 1948

Dixiecrats (Stromthurnmond)

Far Left Democrats 1948

Progressive Henry Wallace

Republicans 1948

Thomas Dewey

Result of 1948 election

Truman wins, Democrats take Congress

“Do nothing” Congress

Truman campaign criticizing blocking his progressive views (civil rights, etc)

The Fair Deal- Truman

• Extension of FDR’s new deal

• Min wage: 75 cents

• Extended SS coverage

• Flood control/ irrigation projects

• $$ to cities to build low income housing

Truman 1952

Popularity plummets, doesn’t run again because of Korean war and McCarthyism

1952 election results

Eisenhower wins, Republicans win congress

Pledge of Allegiance- 6/4/1954

Added “under God” because God is not associated with communism

Executive Order 10450 — 1953

• Expanded loyalty program to homosexuals “weak moral character”

• Prevents ability to serve in the military

GI Bill

Provided support for 10 million men and women released from forces

Housing crisis 1950s

Crowded apartments, rundown

Levi towns

Mass production of housing

New Role for women 1950s

Many want to continue working

OPA Ended control 1946

Prices increased, supply hasn’t caught up

TV guides 1950s

Opened up new challenges for people

TV Dinners 1950s

Brought together families

TV Stereotypes 1950s

Focused on stereotypical white families and gender norms

Rock and Roll Stars

Elvis Presley, Chuck Barry, Little Richie

View of Rock and Roll

targeted teenagers and seen as negative and rebellious

Beat culture 1950s

Slam poetry, rejected materialism, viewed as destructive to society

Automobile 1950s

• Changed houses (garages)

• Drive-ins

• Travel/Transportation easier

The Teenager 1950s

• Sock hops (dances)

• Stayed in school

• Businesses targeted products like makeup

Birth of the Boomers

1946-1962. Because of stable housing, and men had returned

Benjamin Spock

Write childcare books

Conformity

• Family: white picket fence, suburbs

• Men: Worked 9-5, providing for families and commuted to work

• Women: Stay at home moms, no jobs, lonely

• Teenager: Girls could learn how to be a homemaker, rebellious, James Dean

• Suburbia: Populate neighborhoods outside cities

Consumerism

• Lifestyle of buying alot of goods

• More goods availale post-war

• Advertising of goods

• Franchises: expand buisnesses

Planned Conscience

Reduced life form to force customers to replace them

National Highway Act

• 41,000 miles of highways nationwide

• Eisenhower created

• Helped cities grow

Minorities in 1950s

Staying in the cities, no money to leave

National Housing Act 1949

• Decent housing

• Revamp affordable housing from tenements

1960 democrat

John F. Kennedy

First roman catholic president

JFK

Running mate of JFK

LBJ (Texas)

JFK adresses religion

Presidential Debate, Stance on civil rights

Republican 1960 election

Richard Nixon (anti-communist)

New Deal style policies 1960

Push to abandon use of nukes

US relations w Cuba

• Cuba takes over US oil refineries and sugar cane farms

• US cuts off trade w Cuba

Soviets relation w Cuba

Aided w money and supplies

Planned invasion of Cuba

Meant to overthrow Castro, CIA trained Cubans, failure.

The New Frontier (JFK)

• Increased gov. spending, raised min wage, expanded social security.

• Increase military funding

• Created the peace corps to give money to Latin America

• Invested heavily in NASA

• Fought poverty, supported civil rights, proposed tax cuts

JFK’s Assasin

Lee Harvey Oswald (sided w Castro)

Lee Harvey Oswald’s murderer

Jack Ruby

Civil Rights Act of 1964

End discrimination in public places

Economic Opportunity Act

1 billion dollars for job training, youth programs and poverty

1964 democrat

LBJ

1964 republican

Barry Goldwater (believed gov. had no responsibility to fix poverty, use of nukes)

The Great Society Education

1 billion to help purchase materials for schools

Medicare

Provided hospital and low cost medical insurance for Americans 65 or up

Medicaid

Extended health insurance to welfare recipients

The Great Society Housing

Built 240,000 units of low-rent housing, Department of Housing and Urban Development (Robert Weaver)

The Great Society Immigration

National Origins act established immigration quotas that discriminated strongly against people from Western Europe

Warren Court

Pushes LBJ’s activist agenda

Great society impact on poverty

21% to 11%

Tax cuts great society

decreased taxes, funding programs add up the debt

Plessy V. Ferguson

“seperate but equal”

Emmett Till

Lynched, unfair trial

Brown v. Board of Education

Ruling to integrate schools

Little Rock 9

9 black students to integrate central HS, national guard included

Ralph Abernathy

Worked w MLK to organize boycotts

Montgomery Bus Boycott

Refusal to ride buses in Montgomery for over a year

Southern Christian Leadership Conference

• fought jim crow laws

• peaceful and organized movement

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Commitee

Sponsored by MLK

CORE

• Northern students that wanted more aggression against racial acts

James Meredith

First black person to attend Ole Miss

Children’s Crusade

• 1000 kids arrested

• MLK against using kids in violence

• Gained support through TV

George Wallace

Gov. of Alabama that blocked James Hood from enrolling

Voting Rights act 1965

Eliminates literacy test, Allows federal gov. to register votes denied by state

March from Selma

Response to 50 mile march

Malcom X

• Critical of MLK

• calls for armed self defense

• Black separate from white society

Black Panthers

• self-sufficiency, full employment

• exemption from service in Vietnam

• armed self defense

MLK Assassination

James Earl Ray

Impacts of White Flight

• left deterioration of cities (schools and housing)

Black power

meant to unify groups

Impact civil rights

• Social: pride, increased representation in media, more HS and college graduates

• Economic: Affirmative action that equalized jobs

• political: investigate racial violence in cities, more black voters and elected officials

Ho Chi Minh

Led nationalist movement after WW1 in vitenam

Geneva Accords

Split vtenam between Soviets and US

Viet Cong

Communists living in S. Vietnam to overthrow

Ngo Dinh Diem

Leader of SV, corrupt, anti-budhist

Thic Quang Duc

Protested the treatment of anti-budhists in SV

Truman view on Vietnam

• Supported France in civil war

• Began military aid

• Took stance against communism

Eisenhower view on Vietnam

• Supported SV

• DOmino theory

• Sent more military aid and advisors

JFK view on Vietnam

• Continued increase in advisors

• Helicopter units

• Covert operations

August 2, 1964

fired at USSA Maddox, called in air strike.

Tonkin Gulf resolution

Gave LBJ full ability to do anything he wanted in Vietnam

General William Westmoreland

Wanted more US troops in Vietnam, unimpressed with SV troops

Operation Rolling Thunder

• Boost morale of SV

• Stop NV from sending support to SV

• Destroy NV transporation

• Bombed the Ho Chi Minh trail in Laos and Cambodia

Amerian War Tactics

• Napalm: flammable jelly used to set fire to jungles

• Agente orange: deadly pesticide

• Treatment: uproot civilians/harass

• Search and destroy villages w suspected communists

Vietnamese war tactics

• insurgency: violent armed rebellion using guerilla tactcis

• hit and run

• used tunnels and booby traps

sinking morale for US in vietnam

• Not valid reasons for American fighting

• Difficult terrain

• Many turned to drugs, alcohol and murder

Vietnam effects on the homefront

• Inflation: unhappy, prices increasing

• LBJ social programs get cut

• Gruesome combat shown on TV

Vietnam Draft

• Had to be a man, 18-26, mainly lower class

• Exemptions: medical, enrollment in college, national guard/coast guard

New Left

Youth movement on campuses

Students for a Democratic society: lead mach to DC

LBJ requires students to have good academic standing to defer draft