Chapter 27: America in an Era of Turmoil (1960– 1975)

New Frontier

Group of domestic policies proposed by John Kennedy that included Medicare and aid to education and urban renewal; many of these policies were not enacted until the presidency of Lyndon Johnson

Great Society

Overarching plan by President Lyndon Johnson to assist the underprivileged in American society; it included the creation of the Department of Housing and Urban Affairs and the Head Start and Medicare programs

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Major civil rights legislation that outlawed racial discrimination in public facilities, in employment, and in voter registration

Black power

Philosophy of some younger blacks in the 1960s who were impatient with the slow pace of desegregation; its advocates believed that blacks should create and control their own political and cultural institutions rather than seeking integration into white-dominated society

Roe v. Wade (1973)

Supreme Court decision that made abortion legal (with some restrictions)

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

Congressional resolution passed in August 1964 following reports that U.S. Navy ships had been fired on by North Vietnamese gunboats off the Vietnam coast; in essence it gave the president the power to fight the Vietnam War without approval from Congress

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)

Radical, activist student organization created in 1960 that advocated a more democratic, participatory society

Counterculture

Movement by young people in the 1960s who rejected political involvement and emphasized the need for personal instead of political revolution

Kent State University

Campus in Ohio where four students who were part of a 1970 protest against U.S. involvement in Cambodia were shot and killed by National Guardsmen

1960

John Kennedy elected president

1961

Freedom Rides

1962

James Meredith enters University of Mississippi

1963

John Kennedy assassinated; Lyndon Johnson becomes president

1964

Beginning of Johnsons War on Poverty programs

1965

Elementary and Secondary Education Act passed

1966

Stokely Carmichael calls for "black power"

1967

Riots in many American cities

1968

Martin Luther King assassinated

1969

Woodstock Music Festival

1970

United States invades Cambodia

1971

Pentagon Papers published by the New York Times

1972

Nixon reelected

1973

Vietnam cease-fire announced; American troops leave Vietnam Roe v. Wade decision

1975

South Vietnam falls to North Vietnam, ending the Vietnam War

1960

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) formed

1960

Sit-ins began Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) formed

1961

First American travels in space

1961

Construction of Berlin Wall

1961

Bay of Pigs invasion

1962

SDS issues Port Huron Statement

1962

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson published

1962

Cuban Missile Crisis

1962

The Other America by Michael Harrington published

1963

Civil rights march on Washington

1963

The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan published

1963

President Diem assassinated in South Vietnam

1964

Johnson reelected

1964

Tonkin Gulf Resolution

1964

Free Speech Movement at Berkeley begins

1964

Civil Rights Act enacted

1965

Johnson sends more troops to Vietnam

1965

Voting Rights Act passed

1965

Murder of Malcolm X

1965

Watts riots burn sections of Los Angeles

1965

Medicare passed

1966

Formation of Black Panther party

1966

Formation of National Organization for Women (NOW)

1967

Antiwar demonstrations intensify

1968

Robert Kennedy assassinated

1968

Student protests at Columbia University

1968

Battle between police and protesters at Democratic National Convention

1968

Richard Nixon elected president

1968

American Indian Movement (AIM) founded

1968

Tet Offensive

1968

My Lai Massacre

1970

Killings at Kent State, Jackson State

John F. Kennedy

He was a senator and representative from Massachusetts. The first president born in the 20th century and a Roman Catholic, promised to change the nation. At his inauguration, he asked Americans to “*Ask not what your nation can do for you—ask what you can do for your country*.”

Richard Nixon

Vice President _________, the Republican presidential contender, was just four years older than Kennedy, but some voters saw him as "*too linked to the past*" because of his Eisenhower administration ties. Healso suffered from technical development.

*The Other America*

Michael Harrington's 1962 book *________* reminded Americans that many individuals were still underprivileged despite the nation's prosperity.

Defense Department

The space program, like the _________, benefitted from cold war tensions.

Yuri Gagarin

He became the first person to circle Earth in 1961, humiliating the US.

John Glenn

He orbited Earth in February 1962,

Alan Shepard

__________ became the first American in space in May.

Lee Harvey Oswald

An ex-marine and Communist sympathizer, _________, shot and assassinated Kennedy in Dallas.

Jack Ruby

A Dallas nightclub owner, killed Oswald two days after his arrest.

Warren Commission

They investigated President Kennedy's assassination after his stunning death.

Volunteer in Service to America (VISTA)

In 1964, the president created the __________ program, which sent volunteers to aid impoverished areas.

Housing and Urban Development Act of 1965

The ______________ created the Department of Housing and Urban Development to oversee affordable housing and $3 billion in city upgrades.

**Great Society**

The American welfare state expanded greatly during Lyndon Johnson's **___________** policies. Medicare and Medicaid reduced poverty by 40% in the US.

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Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

After becoming famous during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, King and other clergymen created the __________________).

**Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee** (SNCC)

Young African Americans wanted to fight harder and quicker for their rights. In 1960, these youth founded the ____________.

Congress for Racial Equality

In order to enforce a Supreme Court rule that bus terminals and waiting rooms should be integrated, the _____________ recruited groups of African-American and white volunteers to travel buses across the South.

Freedom Riders

The ___________ were beaten and their bus destroyed by a white mob in Anniston, Alabama. Southbound Freedom Riders increased.

Robert Kennedy

In September 1962, the attorney general defied demonstrators and the governor by sending 500 U.S. marshals to enroll James Meredith at the University of Mississippi.

*I Have a Dream*

The crowd was motivated by Martin Luther King Jr.'s "*______________*" speech.

**1964 Civil Rights Act**

Race, sex, religion, and national origin were prohibited under the **___________**. Public spaces were now discrimination-free. To combat employment prejudice, the measure established the EEOC.

1965 Voting Rights Act

The ____________ prohibited practices like literacy tests that had prevented African Americans from voting.

Black Muslims

African Americans were pushed to improve themselves by relying on their own efforts by the Nation of Islam, also known as the ___________, since whites were seen as racial adversaries.

Malcolm X

Black Muslim assassins killed _____________ in February 1965 when he questioned some of the Nation of Islam's racial beliefs.

Stokely Carmichael

He removed whites from the SNCC and advised African Americans to arm. Black power, championed by him, fostered pride in African-American history and culture.

Bobby Seale

Huey Newton

Founders of Black Panther

*Ms. Magazine*

Gloria Steinem's *_____________* popularized a new word of address for women without regard to marital status in 1972.

Roe v. Wade

Women enjoy the right to abortion in the first and second trimesters, with certain limits, under the 1973 ____________ Supreme Court ruling.

Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)

The feminist movement's inability to pass an ___________ was unique.

Phyllis Schlafly

He and other grassroots campaigners opposed the ERA by arguing that it would lead to the draft and coed restrooms.

American Indian Movement (AIM)

This promoted Native American pride and protested the policies of the U.S. government on reservations.

Stonewall Riots

The __________ began in June 1969 following a police raid on a homosexual club in New York City. This fostered homosexual pride.

Ngo Dinh Diem

American authorities did little to stop a cabal of military men from overthrowing and assassinating South Vietnamese president __________ a few weeks before President Kennedy's 1963 assassination.

Gulf of Tonkin

In August 1964, Johnson announced that North Vietnamese gunboats had assaulted American destroyers in the ___________, omitting key information including that the American warships were collecting intelligence on North Vietnam and that South Vietnamese gunboats were close.

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

The _______________ empowered the president to "prevent future aggression" in Southeast Asia after an apparent unprovoked strike.

Communist Tet Offensive

The _______________ on January 30, 1968, was the war's most important military battle. The Communists utilized the holiday ceasefire to strike throughout South Vietnam to destroy the government and weaken the US.

My Lai Massacre

The ____________ occurred in March 1968, when American forces killed 400 Vietnamese people, including children and newborns.

Port Huron Statement

SDS's manifesto, the __________, criticized American consumerism and called for "participatory democracy."

Free Speech Movement

Berkeley's 1964 ban on political activism sparked the __________. Student protests pushed the institution to back down.

Timothy Leary

A former lecturer and LSD advocate, advised American teenagers to "tune in, switch on, and drop out."

Age of Aquarius

The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane played "acid" rock in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury area in 1967, a hippie hangout where some dreamed for a new "______________."

Pete Townshend

The personal over the political was so strong at Woodstock that musician __________ drove radical activist Abbie Hoffman off the stage when he tried to steal a microphone during The Who's performance.

Kent State University

Four _____________ students were killed by Ohio National Guardsmen during a rally. Jackson State University police murdered two students.

Pentagon Papers

The ____________ were released to the New York Times by former Defense Department officer Daniel Ellsberg in 1971. These papers from the Kennedy and Johnson administrations showed that the government had misled to Congress and the American people about Vietnam.

Saigon

The US evacuated ambassadors and other Americans in Vietnam a day before North Vietnamese tanks entering ________ on April 30, 1975.