Chapter 27

AFL-CIO

New name of the 1955 merger of the labor groups American Federation of Labor and the Congress of Industrial Organizations.

Apollo program

A NASA program to land an astronaut on the moon in the 1960s.

Army-McCarthy hearings

One of the earliest televised hearings of Congress, the spectacle of Joseph McCarthy demeaning and bullying witnesses whom he accused of communist sympathies led to his loss of public support and official censure for unbecoming conduct.

Baby Boom

A period of increased birthrate; the term is used most often to describe such a demographic trend from 1946 to 1964.

Beats

Term used to describe artists and authors, like Jack Kerouac, who were critics of middle-class society and conformity

brinksmanship

The attempt to gain a negotiating advantage by pushing a situation to the edge of war or other disaster.

Browder v. Gayle

The 1956 district court decision affirmed by the Supreme Court that ruled that Montgomery's bus segregation laws were unconstitutional.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

The 1954 Supreme Court Decision that overturned "separate but equal" opinion of Plessy v. Ferguson and provided federal support for the civil rights movement.

Claudette Colvin

An early leader in the civil rights movement who was arrested at the age of fifteen for not giving up her seat on a Montgomery bus nine months before Rosa Parks.

Echo Park

A national park on the border between Utah and Colorado that was threatened by development in the 1950s; environmental organizations rallied to block the dam project.

Federal Highway Act of 1956

Massive ten-year federal project to build over 40,000 miles of interstate highways initiated under President Eisenhower.

Fidel Castro

One of the leaders against Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship of Cuba, Fidel Castro took control of Cuba in 1959 and turned Cuba into a communist state with support from the Soviet Union.

Ho Chi Minh

Longtime supporter of Vietnamese independence who later became the leader of the communists of Vietnam.

intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM)

Missile capable of traveling over oceans and into space to deliver nuclear strikes.

John Foster Dulles

Secretary of state under Eisenhower who advocated for aggressive action against communism, as well as brinksmanship as a strategy to gain concessions from foreign powers.

Levittowns

Named after developer William Levitt, Levittowns were inexpensive suburban developments of similarly built homes.

Martin Luther King Jr.

Baptist minister who came to prominence during the Montgomery bus boycott and went on to be the voice of the civil rights movement until his assassination in 1968.

Rosa Parks

Civil rights activist who was arrested for not giving up her seat to a white passenger on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955; her arrest spurred the Montgomery bus boycott.

Sputnik

The first earth-orbiting satellite launched by the Soviet Union in 1957.

The Other America

Title of Michael Harrington's 1962 about the chronic problem of poverty in America.

U-2 crisis

A 1960 diplomatic incident between the United States and the Soviet Union when a U.S. U-2 spy plane was shot down by the Soviets after crossing Soviet air space.