Key Themes in Post-War American History and Civil Rights

According to Time magazine's Henry Luce, what was the key word to explain the essence of the United States?

Freedom

What unfortunate consequence arose from casting the Cold War as a struggle between freedom and slavery?

It made it difficult to discern legitimate postwar struggles for economic and political freedom from those simply motivated by American interests.

What led to Republican control of both houses of Congress in 1946?

Large numbers of middle-class voters voted Republican, while workers stayed at home.

What was one way in which Black Americans gained more rights between 1945 and 1952?

Eleven states established Fair Employment Practices Commissions.

How did the political climate change in the South during World War II and the early Cold War years?

The number of African Americans registered to vote increased sevenfold.

Why did southern Democrats fear losing their position in the Democratic Party after the 1948 national convention?

Party liberals under the leadership of Hubert Humphrey had added a strong civil rights plank to the party platform.

Why did Harry Truman's loyalty review system target gay men and lesbians working for the government?

Gay men and lesbians were considered susceptible to blackmail and thought to be lacking the qualities necessary to fight communism.

Why were African Americans excluded from many new suburbs being built in the 1950s, like those in Levittown?

Banks and private developers refused to allow African Americans to purchase Suburban houses out of fear of losing white customers

The Housing Act of 1949

reinforced the concentration of poverty in nonwhite urban neighborhoods.

To libertarian conservatives, freedom meant

racial equality and the end of a segregated society.

Between 1950 and 1970, suburbanization

Strengthened racial divisions.

Which of the following assessments of the civil rights movement is most accurate?

The movement came as a great surprise and was predicted only by a fee.

Which landmark Supreme Court case resulted in the 1946 desegregation of Orange County California schools?

Mendez v. Westminster

Most likely why did the US. Supreme Court not order the immediate implementation of its

ruling in Brown v. Board of Education in 19347

Some justices on the Court feared the outbreak of widespread violence with such a bold ruling.

What was the biggest issue with the Brown v. Board of Education decision for the writers of the Southern Manifesto?

They perceived it as an abuse of judicial power.

What did the Civil Rights Act of 1964 fail to address?

the right to vote in the South

Why are the riots in American cities during the 1960s best understood as battles

Urban Blacks saw the predominantly white police force as an occupying army.

Why did John F. Kennedy consider civil rights a moral crisis for the nation?

He found racial discrimination incompatible with the United States' claim for leadership of the free world.

What did the Greensboro sit in protest?

a lunch counter at Woolworths that refused to serve blacks

What philosophy did the protesters at the Greensboro sit-in adhere to?

Nonviolence

Why did the city of Birmingham start integrating downtown businesses in 1963?

Black children protesting in the streets were assaulted by police with nightsticks and attack dogs.

What could Birmingham police chief Eugene Connor have done to undermine Martin Luther King Jr's protest strategy in Birmingham in May 1963?

He could have allowed the protesters to march unimpeded.

How did the African American Civil rights protesters that marched in the early sixties in more than 186 cities feel about the danger of getting arrested?

Filling jails with demonstrators was a tactic adopted by the movement to gain national sympathy.

John P. Kennedys inaugural address asked Americans to

move beyond the consumer culture of the 1950s.

What event forced John F. Kennedy to take meaningful action in support of the civil rights

Movement?

King's demonstrations in Birmingham