Civil Rights and the Vietnam War Review

Jackie Robinson

1st player to break the color barrier in MLB

Thurgood Marshall

NAACP lawyer, "Mr. Civil Rights, became 1st AA Supreme Court Justice

Rosa Parks

Mother of the Civil Rights Movement

Malcolm X

"Black Muslim" who supported black separation; assassinated in 1965

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Leader of SCLC, supported non-violence and civil disobedience

Brown v. BOE

1954 case that overturned the 1896 "separate but equal" decision

Dwight D. Eisenhower

Used the National Guard to protect the "Little Rock 9" in 1957

Birmingham

Most segregated city in the south; MLK wrote a famous letter after being arrested here

Earl Warren

Chief Justice from 1953-1969; decisions protected the rights of the accused

Freedom Riders

Determined to test whether southern states would obey a Supreme Court ruling to desegregate; met with mob violence

Medicaid

Low cost health insurance coverage for the poor

Barry Goldwater

"Landslide Lyndon" defeated him with the help of the Daisy Campaign in 1964; radical

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

Gave LBJ a "blank check" in dealing with the Vietnam War in 1964; escalated U.S. involvement

Operation Rolling Thunder

LBJ's code name for the air war against North Vietnam (lasted 3 years)

Great Society

LBJ's domestic program to lift Americans out of poverty and promote equal rights

Dien Bien Phu

Location where the French were defeated by the Vietminh in May 1954

Ho Chi Minh City

After South Vietnam fell, Saigon was renamed…

Tet Offensive

Turning point of Vietnam War; major Viet Cong attack on South Vietnam in 1968 (VN New Year)

Pentagon Papers

Secret government study on Vietnam; NY Times revealed the government had lied about the war

Viet Cong

Vietnam Communist guerrillas in South Vietnam (National Liberation Front)

Vietnamization

Nixon's policy to turn the war over to South Vietnam; U.S. would train and equip SVN military

Gerald Ford

POTUS when South Vietnam fell to the Communists in 1975

My Lai Massacre

Example of U.S. brutality/distress; Over 500 civilians were killed in a small village in SVN

Ngo Dinh Diem

Rich Catholic who led South Vietnam until the U.S. supported a plot to have him "overthrown"

LBJ

Who said "In a land of great wealth, families must not live in hopeless poverty"?

Conscientious Objector

Against the war for religious or moral reasons; a way to try to avoid the draft

JFK

POTUS who moved slowly on Civil Rights until brutality against AA's pushed him to propose a stronger Civil Rights bill

RFK

Assassinated June 1968 in California

Domino Theory

Principle described by IKE that stated if Vietnam fell, then all the nations in SE Asia would fall to Communism

James Meredith

African American who transferred to Ole Miss and JFK sent marshals to protect him

James Earl Ray

Assassinated MLK, Jr. on April 4, 1968

Hawks

People who support war, for example they viewed Vietnam as a war against Communism

Weathermen

Discontent faction of SDS; wore hardhats and used pipes and clubs to fight police in Chicago

Black Panthers

Radical/Militant group that promoted "black power"

Kent State

Clash between students and National Guardsmen resulted in 4 students killed and 9 wounded

Saigon

Capital of South Vietnam

Hanoi

Capital of North Vietnam

March on Washington

Where Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech

Sit-Ins

Form of protest that resulted in many participants being sent to jail

Deferment

Enabled college students to postpone being drafted into military service

Ho Chi Minh Trail

Supply route that passed through Cambodia and Laos

Cambodia

Nixon announced U.S. forces would invade here in 1970; referred to as an "incursion"

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Addressed public accommodations, desegregate schools, employment, voting, ends Jim Crow

24th Amendment

Eliminated poll tax

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Federal officials oversee voter registration in the south; eliminated literacy test

Wayne Morse

One of Two Senators who voted against the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution (D, Oregon)

Robert McNamara

Secretary of Defense under JFK & LBJ who formed Vietnam policies

Counterculture

Hippies who rejected the conventions of the 1960s

William Westmoreland

U.S. General in Vietnam who kept asking for increasing numbers of troops and declared that the Tet Offensive had been an American victory

Hubert Humphrey

Democratic candidate in the Election of 1968

26th Amendment

Lowered the voting age from 21 to 18

Geneva Accords

Meeting that created the division of Vietnam at the 17th parallel in 1954

Woodstock

A trouble-free gathering of 300,000 people in Bethel, NY in August 1969

Paris Peace Accords

Ceasefire signed between the U.S. and North Vietnam in Paris in January 1973 (the war continued between North and South Vietnam until 1975)

Draft

Legal means of forcing people to serve in the Armed Forces (ages 18-26)

"Silent Majority"

Term Nixon used to refer to the American people who supported his policies on Vietnam

Montgomery Bus Boycott

Involved 50,000 African Americans and lasted a little over a year (1955-1956); ended because of a Supreme Court ruling

Medgar Evers

Field secretary of the NAACP in Mississippi who was shot and killed the night JFK announced a stronger Civil Rights Bill