America & the 'Great Society'

Kennedy’s New Frontier

• JFK promised there would be a new generation of leadership - he wanted to make USA a better, fairer pleace “ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”

• Success - committed to Civil Rights Movement, cut taxes, gav grants to businesses, increased min wage, introduced Peace corps

• Failures - some thought he could’ve done more, new equipment meant less workers needed, min wage didn’t help those not in work

Johnson’s Great Society

• 2 significant laws passed ruign LBJ presidency - Civil Rights Bill that JFK promised when he was alive and the Voting Rights Act in 1965

• Operation Headstart gave money to schools to improve education for the poor

• Minimum wage increased

• Housing act funded low income housing

• Medicare - healthcare for elderly and low income families (JFK idea)

• LBJ encouraged US involvemt in Vietnam - which was unpopular

Feminist Movement

• Women’s right to reproduction (abortion was illegal at the time in US)

• NOW wrote to politicians, organised demonstrations and took companies court

• Women’s Lib - more extreme younger group of women

• 1972 - Equal Rights Amendment (ERA) was passed, there was a stop ERA campaign by Phyllis Schlafly and ERA didn’t become part of the constitution

Roe v Wade

Campaign to legalise abortion

Feminists argued they should be free to decide what happens to their own body

Lawyers argued that 21 year old Jane Roe had the right to an abortion, she already had 2 children up for adoption 1973, Supreme Court ruled that women had the right to safe and legal abortion