Chapter 36 Vocab

Chapter 36 Vocab

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Federal law that banned racial discrimination in public facilities and strengthened the federal government’s power to fight segregation in schools. Title VII of the act prohibited employers from discriminating based on race in their hiring practices, and empowered the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to regulate fair employment.

affirmative action

Program designed to redress historic racial and gender imbalances in jobs and education. The term grew from an executive order issued by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965 mandating that projects paid for with federal funds take concerted action against discrimination based on race in their hiring practices. In the late 1960s, President Nixon’s Philadelphia Plan changed the meaning of affirmative action to require attention to certain groups, rather than protect individuals against discrimination.

Great Society

President Lyndon Johnson’s term for his domestic policy agenda. Billed as a successor to the New Deal, the Great Society aimed to extend the postwar prosperity to all people in American society by promoting civil rights and fighting poverty. Great Society programs included the War on Poverty, which expanded the Social Security system by creating Medicare and Medicaid to provide health care for the aged and the poor. Johnson also signed laws protecting consumers and empowering community organizations to combat poverty at grassroots levels.

Tonkin Gulf Resolution

In August 1964, two American destroyers in the Bay of Tonkin were reportedly fired upon by North Vietnamese torpedo boats. With only two dissenting votes, Congress responded not with a formal declaration of war but with a joint resolution giving President Johnson license to use “all necessary measures” to strike back. Where the United States had previously offered limited assistance in Vietnam, the resolution led to rapid and massive American military involvement in the region.

Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965

A landmark immigration law that abolished the 1921 “national origins” formula and established new admission criteria, based mainly on immigrants’ skills and family ties with U.S citizens. Despite President Lyndon Johnson’s assurances that it was “not a revolutionary bill,” the 1965 act radically transformed America’s demographic profile as Latin America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East replaced Western Europe as the nation’s main sources of immigrants.

Freedom Summer

A voter registration drive in Mississippi spearheaded by a coalition of civil rights groups. The campaign drew the activism of thousands of black and white civil rights workers, many of whom were students from the North, and was marred by the abduction and murder of three such workers at the hands of white racists.

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party

Political party organized by civil rights activists to challenge Mississippi’s delegation to the Democratic National Convention, who opposed the civil rights planks in the party’s platform. Claiming a mandate to represent the true voice of Mississippi, where almost no black citizens could vote, the MFDP demanded to be seated at the convention but were denied by party bosses. The effort was both a setback to civil rights activism in the South and a motivation to continue to struggle for black voting rights.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Legislation pushed through Congress by President Johnson that prohibited ballot-denying tactics, such as literacy tests and intimidation. The Voting Rights Act was a successor to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and sought to make racial disenfranchisement explicitly illegal.

Watts

A predominantly black neighborhood in Los Angeles, California. On August 11, 1965, after word spread that an act of police brutality had been committed against a black man, a vicious riot erupted in Watts. It left 34 people dead and over 1000 injured, undermining Dr. King’s policy of nonviolence and turning many activists in the black civil rights movement toward a more militant, belligerent style of protest.

Black Panther party

Organization of armed black militants formed in Oakland, California, in 1966 to protect black rights. The Panthers represented a growing dissatisfaction with the nonviolent wing of the civil rights movement and signaled a new direction to that movement after the legislative victories of 1964 and 1965.

Black Power

Doctrine of militancy and separatism that rose in prominence after 1965. Black Power activists rejected Martin Luther King’s pacifism and desire for integration. Rather, they promoted pride in African heritage and an often militant position in defense of their rights.

Six-Day War

Military conflict between Israel and its Arab neighbors, including Syria, Egypt, and Jordan. The war ended with an Israeli victory and territorial expansion into the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank. The 1967 war was a humiliation for several Arab states, and the territorial disputes it created formed the basis for continued conflict in the region

Tet Offensive

A series of surprise attacks instigated by the Viet Cong in January 1968 that inflicted at least 150,000 casualties on both sides. Though the Viet Cong suffered heavy losses and were eventually repulsed, Ho Chi Minh scored a vital political victory by further dampening Americans’ already waning enthusiasm for the war.

Stonewall Rebellion

Uprising in support of equal rights for gay people sparked by an assault by off-duty police officers at a gay bar in New York. The rebellion led to a rise in activism and militancy within the gay community and furthered the sexual revolution of the late 1960s.

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)

A campus-based political organization founded in 1961 by Tom Hayden that became an iconic representation of the New Left. Originally geared toward the intellectual promise of “participatory democracy,” SDS emerged at the forefront of the civil rights, antipoverty, and antiwar movements during the 1960s.

Young Americans for Freedom (YAF)

Formed during the cultural ferment of the 1960s, the YAF was the conservative counterpart to SDS (Students for a Democratic Society), which attracted radical students on campuses nationwide. The YAF helped to propel Barry Goldwater’s 1964 presidential candidacy and to energize a resurgent conservatism during the Reagan years.

Vietnamization

Military strategy launched by Richard Nixon in 1969. The plan reduced the number of American combat troops in Vietnam and left more of the fighting to the South Vietnamese, who were supplied with American armor, tanks, and weaponry.

Nixon Doctrine

President Nixon’s plan for “peace with honor” in Vietnam. The doctrine stated that the United States would honor its existing defense commitments but, in the future, countries would have to fight their own wars.

silent majority

Nixon administration’s term to describe generally content, law-abiding, middle-class Americans who supported both the Vietnam War and America’s institutions. As a political tool, the concept attempted to make a subtle distinction between believers in “traditional” values and the vocal minority of civil rights agitators, student protesters, counterculturalists, and other seeming disruptors of the social fabric.

My Lai

Vietnamese village that was the scene of a military assault on March 16, 1968, in which American soldiers under the command of 2nd Lieutenant William Calley murdered hundreds of unarmed Vietnamese civilians, mostly women and children. The atrocity produced outrage and reduced support for the war in America and around the world when details of the massacre and an attempted cover-up were revealed in November 1969.

Kent State University

Scene of massacre of four college students by National Guardsmen on May 4, 1970, in Ohio. In response to Nixon’s announcement that he had expanded the Vietnam War into Cambodia, college campuses across the country exploded in violence. On May 14 and 15, students at historically black Jackson State College in Mississippi were protesting the war as well as the Kent State shooting when highway patrolmen fired into a student dormitory, killing two students.

Pentagon Papers

Secret U.S. government report detailing early planning and policy decisions regarding the Vietnam War under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. Leaked to the New York Times in 1971, it revealed instances of governmental secrecy, lies, and incompetence in the prosecution of the war.

détente

From the French for “reduced tension,” the period of Cold War thawing when the United States and the Soviet Union negotiated reduced armament treaties under Presidents Nixon, Ford, and Carter. As a policy prescription, détente marked a departure from the policies of proportional response, mutually assured destruction, and containment that had defined the earlier years of the Cold War.

Miranda Warning

A statement of an arrested person’s constitutional rights, which police officers must read during an arrest. The warning came out of the Supreme Court’s decision in Miranda v. Arizona in 1966 that accused people have the right to remain silent, consult an attorney, and enjoy other protections. The Court declared that law enforcement officers must make sure suspects understand their constitutional rights, thus creating a safeguard against forced confessions and self-implication.

Philadelphia Plan

Program established by Richard Nixon to require construction trade unions to work toward hiring more black apprentices. The plan altered Lyndon Johnson’s concept of “affirmative action” to focus on groups rather than individuals.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

A governmental organization signed into law by Richard Nixon in 1970 designed to regulate pollution, emissions, and other factors that negatively influence the natural environment. The creation of the EPA marked a newfound commitment by the federal government to actively combat environmental risks and was a significant triumph for the environmentalist movement.

Earth Day

International day of celebration and awareness of global environmental issues launched by conservationists on April 22, 1970.

southern strategy

Nixon reelection campaign strategy designed to appeal to conservative whites in the historically Democratic South. The president stressed law and order issues and remained noncommittal on civil rights. This strategy typified the regional split between the two parties as white southerners became increasingly attracted to the Republican party in the aftermath of the civil rights movement.

primary elections

For much of American history, party leaders chose presidential candidates. But reforms to the nominating process in the late 1960s and early 1970s required presidential hopefuls to run popular campaigns to garner their party’s support. The shift to primary elections weakened the traditional political parties and opened opportunities for newcomers and “outsiders” to enter the political arena.

War Powers Act

Law passed by Congress limiting the president’s ability to wage war without congressional approval. The act required the president to notify Congress within forty-eight hours of committing troops to a foreign conflict. An important consequence of the Vietnam War, this piece of legislation sought to reduce the president’s unilateral authority in military matters.

All Volunteer Force (AVF)

Disenchantment with the Vietnam War led Congress to end conscription in 1973, causing the U.S. military to rely solely on volunteers. The resultant shift away from a “citizen’s army,” which had been in place since World War II, to an army of full-time professionals resulted in a leaner force that could be deployed in overseas conflicts with less political cost.

Malcolm X

(1925-1965) Black militant, radical minister, and spokesman for the Nation of Islam until 1964. Having eschewed his family name "Little," Malcolm preached a doctrine of no compromise with white society. He was assassinated in New York City in 1965.

Eugene McCarthy

(1916-2005) Liberal antiwar senator from Minnesota who rallied a large youth movement behind his presidential campaign in 1968. Challenging sitting President Johnson in the New Hampshire primary, McCarthy captured 41 percent of the vote and helped ensure that Johnson would quit the race.

George C. Wallace

(1919-1998) Southern populist and segregationist. As governor of Alabama, he famously defended his state’s policies of racial segregation. He ran for president several times as a Democrat but achieved his greatest influence when he ran as a third-party candidate in 1968, winning five states.

Henry A. Kissinger

(1923-) National security adviser and secretary of state during the Nixon and Ford administrations. He was responsible for negotiating an end to the Yom Kippur War as well as for the Treaty of Paris that led to a cease-fire in Vietnam in 1973.

Warren E. Burger

(1907-1995) Chief justice of the Supreme Court from 1969 to 1986. Burger was responsible for bringing the Court somewhat back to the right after the Earl Warren years. He presided over major cases involving abortion, affirmative action, the death penalty, and school desegregation.

Rachel Carson

(1907-1964) American conservationist whose 1962 book Silent Spring galvanized the modern environmental movement that gained significant traction in the 1970s.

George McGovern

(1922-2012) Liberal senator from North Dakota who lost a landslide election to Richard Nixon in 1972. He eventually lost his Senate seat in the conservative revolution that swept Ronald Reagan into the White House in 1980.