Stacy/Ellington, Fabric of a Nation for AP® U.S. History, 2e, Period 8 (1945-1980), English

affirmative action

Policies that first emerged from the civil rights movement of the 1960s meant to overcome historical patterns of discrimination against Blacks, women, and other minorities in education and employment. Affirmative action guidelines controversially established limited preferences in hiring and college admissions to favor groups that had been historically discriminated against.

American Indian Movement (AIM)

An American Indian group, formed in 1968, that promoted “red power,” the preservation of tribal cultural traditions, poverty relief, and improved living conditions on reservations and condemned the continued mistreatment of American Indians.

baby boom

A term that refers to the sharp U.S. population increase between 1946 and 1964 resulting from the end of World War II, postwar economic prosperity, improvements in health care, and a trend toward marriage at a younger age.

Bandung Conference

A conference of twenty-nine Asian and African nations held in Indonesia in 1955, which declared their neutrality in the Cold War struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union and condemned colonialism.

Bay of Pigs invasion

An unsuccessful attempt under the Kennedy administration to overthrow Cuban leader Fidel Castro by sending 1,400 armed Cuban exiles to invade the island in 1961. Castro’s troops contained the poorly trained invaders, and the failed invasion proved to be an international embarrassment for the United States.

Beats

A small group of young poets, writers, intellectuals, musicians, and artists who challenged mainstream American politics and culture in the 1950s.

Berlin Airlift

The large-scale transport of food and supplies to West Berlin by the U.S. and British governments during the Soviet blockade of Berlin from 1948 to 1949. The Berlin Airlift was responsible for breaking the Soviet blockade of West Berlin.

Berlin Wall

A wall built by the Soviet Union in 1961 to keep East Berliners from escaping to West Berlin. The Berlin Wall quickly became a Cold War symbol of the “iron curtain” that Winston Churchill described in a 1946 address in Missouri. The destruction of the Berlin Wall in 1989 symbolized the end of the Cold War.

Black Panther Party

A radical Black power group founded by Huey P. Newton and Bobby Seale in 1966 to promote Black empowerment and armed self-resistance in Black communities. The group’s influence waned by the early 1970s largely due to repression by law enforcement.

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka

A landmark 1954 Supreme Court decision that overturned the “separate but equal” principle established by Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896. Although the Brown ruling banned school segregation, few schools in the South were racially desegregated for more than a decade.

Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA)

Established in 1824, the BIA is responsible for management of American Indian lands and implementation of federal policy toward American Indian nations.

Camp David accords

An agreement between Israel and Egypt facilitated by President Carter in 1978.T he accords led to a peace treaty and normalization of relations between the two nations.

Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)

The intelligence organization established by the 1947 National Security Act. The CIA is part of the executive branch and is responsible for gathering information and conducting espionage in foreign nations. It was originally created to counter Soviet spying operations.

Christian Right

A coalition of evangelical Christians and Catholics that supported traditional values, laissez-faire economics, and an anticommunist foreign policy. The Christian Right, also known as the religious right, joined forces with political conservatives to form a powerful conservative voting bloc in the Republican Party.

Civil Rights Act of 1964

A landmark act signed into law in 1964 by President Lyndon Johnson that prohibited discrimination in public accommodations and employment and increased federal enforcement of school desegregation and voting access.

Cold War

The political, economic, and military conflict, short of direct war, between the United States and the Soviet Union between 1945 and 1991.

Commission on the Status of Women

A commission appointed by President Kennedy in 1961. Its 1963 report, American Women, highlighted employment discrimination against women and recommended legislation requiring equal pay for equal work regardless of sex.

containment

The U.S. strategy to prevent the spread of communism and Soviet influence around the world. First outlined by U.S. diplomat George Kennan in 1946, containment became a key element of U.S. Cold War policy.

counterculture

Young cultural rebels of the 1960s and 1970s who rejected conventional cultural and social norms. The movement began in San Francisco and was known for anti- establishment rock music, protests against the Vietnam War, drug use, and the practice of “free love.”

deindustrialization

The decline of manufacturingin a specific town, region, or nation. Along with increased foreign competition and a rise of overseas outsourcing, deindustrialization led to a significant decline in union membership, as populations shifted across the country away from urban centers in search of new economic opportunity in the South and West.

Dennis v. United States

The 1951 Supreme Court decision upholding the conviction of communist leaders on the grounds they posed a “clear and present danger,” despite the absence of any evidence of an immediate uprising or plot.

détente

The easing of tensions during the mid-1970s between the Soviet Union and China and the United States. Détente resulted in the first arms-limitation treaty between the Soviet Union and the United States in 1972.

Dixiecrats

The nickname of Southern Democrats who created a segregationist political party in 1948, the States’ Rights Democratic Party, as a response to federal extensions of civil rights. Dixiecrats advocated a state’s right to legislate segregation. They ran Strom Thurmond in an unsuccessful bid for the presidency in 1948 against Truman.

domino theory

The prevalent belief during the Cold War, maintaining that if one country fell under the influence of communism, other surrounding countries would soon similarly fall under the influence of communism, like a row of falling dominoes.

Eisenhower Doctrine

An Eisenhower administration policy that promised economic and/or military assistance to a Middle Eastern country threatened by communist aggression. The strategy was meant to bolster containment and protect U.S. oil interests and pro-American governments.

Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)

A federal agency established by President Nixon in 1971 to regulate activities that resulted in pollution or other environmental degradation.

Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)

A proposed constitutional amendment to guarantee equal rights for men and women. The amendment was not ratified because fewer than three-quarters of the states ratified it by the 1982 deadline.

escalation

A policy of the Johnson administration of continuously increasing the numbers of ground troops in Vietnam from 1964 to 1968 in hopes of securing victory in the war.

Federal Employee Loyalty Program

A program established by President Truman in 1947, via executive order, to investigate federal employees suspected of disloyalty, communist ties, suspicious personal behaviors, and homosexuality. Hundreds of employees were terminated from their positions as a result of the investigations.

Free Speech Movement (FSM)

The 1964–1965 college student-led movement using sit-in and rallies to protest policies of the University of California at Berkeley that restricted students’ ability to protest for civil rights. The successful FSM protests inspired greater student activism on college campuses.

Freedom Rides

Integrated bus rides through the South in 1961 to test southern compliance with Supreme Court rulings on segregation. After Freedom Riders were attacked in Montgomery, Alabama, the Kennedy administration sent federal marshals to protect the riders.

Freedom Summer

A 1964 civil rights effort in Mississippi sponsored by a national coalition of civil rights organizations following the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. During the Freedom Summer, some eight hundred volunteers, mainly white college students, worked on voter registration drives and in freedom schools to improve education for rural Black youngsters.

Great Society

President Lyndon Johnson’s legislative reform program that called for an expansion of social welfare programs, medical care for the elderly, support for civil rights, protection of the environment, alleviation of poverty, and greater funding to education, especially for marginalized communities.

Gulf of Tonkin Resolution

A 1964 congressional resolution giving President Johnson wide discretion to use U.S. forces in Vietnam without an official declaration of war by Congress. The resolution allowed Johnson to escalate U.S. troop presence in Vietnam from tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands.

House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC)

A committee in the U.S. House of Representatives established in 1938 to investigate and combat domestic communism. After World War II, HUAC conducted highly publicized investigations of communist influence in government and the entertainment industry.

iron curtain

A term coined by Winston Churchill in a 1946 speech to describe the ideological and political divide between the communist Soviet Union and the non-communist Western world.

Kent State shootings

The killing of four students and wounding of nine others by the National Guard during a 1970 Kent State campus protest about the U.S. invasion of Cambodia as part of the Vietnam War. The incident sparked further antiwar sentiment and large protests.

Kitchen Debate

A July 24, 1959, impromptu debate during the Cold War at the American National Exhibition in Moscow in front of a display of an American kitchen between Vice President Richard Nixon and the Soviet Union’s First Secretary Nikita Khrushchev about the merits of capitalism and communism.

Korean War

A three-year conflict (1950–1953) that began when communist North Korea, supported by the U.S.S.R. and China, launched an invasion of anticommunist South Korea, supported by the United States and the United Nations. Despite enormous destruction, large loss of civilian lives, and involvement of both U.S. and Chinese troops, fighting stopped with a cease-fire rather than a peace treaty at a similar border between the two countries.

La Raza Unida (The United Race)

A Chicano political party, formed in 1969, that advocated job opportunities for Chicanos, bilingual education, and Chicano cultural studies programs in universities. The party was especially influential in states with large Latino populations such as California and Texas.

Levittown

The first mass-produced suburban housing developments, Levittowns were widely emulated by other developers and provided affordable housing for middle-class families, even as they used racially restrictive covenants to exclude Blacks.

Little Rock Nine

Nine students who, in 1957, became the first Black people to attend Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. Federal troops were required to overcome the resistance of white officials and the verbal and physical violence of white protesters.

March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom

An August 28, 1963, rally by civil rights organizations in Washington, D.C., that brought increased national attention to the civil rights movement.

Marshall Plan

A package of economic aid developed by U.S. Secretary of State George Marshall. The plan helped to rebuild Western Europe physically and economically, buffering it from communist influence and serving U.S. political and economic interests in the process.

McCarran Internal Security Act

The 1950 act that required communist organizations to register with the federal government, established detention camps for radicals, and denied passports to American citizens who had communist affiliations.

McCarran-Walter Immigration Act

The 1952 legislation that made it possible for Japanese noncitizens to become U.S. citizens. However, the act still maintained a race-based system of discriminatory national-origin quotas. Also known as the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952.

McCarthyism

A term used to describe the harassment and persecution of suspected communists and other political radicals during the Cold War. Named after Senator Joseph McCarthy, a prominent government figure who helped incite anticommunist panic in the early 1950s.

military-industrial complex

The phrase used by President Eisenhower in his 1961 farewell address in which he warned the nation against the close relationship developing between the government and the defense industry and the threat this posed to American democracy.

Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party (MFDP)

A political party formed in 1964 to challenge the all-white state Democratic Party for seats at the 1964 Democratic presidential convention and run candidates for public office. Although unsuccessful in 1964, MFDP efforts led to subsequent reform of the Democratic Party and the seating of an interracial convention delegation from Mississippi in 1968.

Modern Republicanism

The political approach of President Dwight Eisenhower that tried to fit traditional Republican Party ideals of fiscal conservatism and individualism alongside more progressive social policies within the broad framework of the New Deal. In conjunction with his military record, the platform gave Eisenhower broad cross-party appeal.

Montgomery bus boycott

A thirteen-month bus boycott in Montgomery, Alabama, that began in December 1955 with the arrest of Rosa Parks for refusing to give up her seat to a white man. The successful yearlong protest catapulted Martin Luther King Jr., a local pastor, into national prominence as a civil rights leader.

mujahideen

Religiously inspired Afghan rebels who resisted the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

mutually assured destruction (MAD)

The Cold War defense strategy adopted by the United States and the U.S.S.R. to deter a nuclear attack from the other country by threatening to retaliate with a massive nuclear strike in response. MAD fueled the arms race as both sides worked to convince the other of their ongoing ability to retaliate if attacked.

My Lai massacre

A massacre by U.S. troops on March 16, 1968, of nearly 500 elderly, women, and children in the South Vietnam area of My Lai. The massacre shocked the American public, diminished support for the Vietnam War among many Americans, and fueled growing anti-U.S. sentiment worldwide.

National Defense Education Act

A 1958 Cold War era act in response to the Soviet launch of Sputnik, which provided aid for instruction in science, math, and foreign language, and grants and fellowships for college students.

National Energy Act

Legislation signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1978, which set gas emissions standards for automobiles and provided incentives for installing alternative energy systems, such as wind and solar power.

National Interstate and Defense Highway Act

An act passed in 1956 that provided federal funds for the construction of a national highway system to link major cities and facilitate future wartime mobilization. As the largest public works project in American history, the act spurred economic growth, suburbanization, and the automobile as the main method of transportation for most Americans.

National Organization for Women (NOW)

A feminist organization formed in 1966 by Betty Friedan, Gloria Steinem, and other like-minded activists demanding an end to sexual discrimination and full equality between the sexes.

National Security Council (NSC)

The council created by the 1947 National Security Act to advise the president on military and foreign affairs. The NSC consists of the national security adviser and the secretaries of state, defense, the army, the navy, and the air force.

neoconservative

A disillusioned liberal who condemned the Great Society programs they had originally supported. Neoconservatives were particularly concerned about affirmative action programs, the domination of campus activism by New Left radicals, and left-wing criticism of the use of American military and economic might to advance U.S. interests overseas.

New Frontier

President John F. Kennedy’s domestic agenda. Kennedy promised to battle “tyranny, poverty, disease, and war,” but, lacking strong majorities in Congress, he achieved relatively modest results.

New Right

A conservative coalition of old and new conservatives, as well as disaffected Democrats, who supported strong U.S. national-security initiatives, low taxes, and reduced government intervention in the economy.

North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)

A Cold War military alliance and security pact intended to enhance the collective security of the United States and Western Europe. Originally consisting of twelve nations in 1949, as of 2023, thirty-one NATO member nations operate under the principle of “an attack against one member is considered as an attack against all.”

NSC-68

A document issued by the National Security Council in 1950 that advocated intensification of the policy of containment both at home and abroad and a massive buildup of the U.S. military. NSC-68 defined U.S. nuclear policy, peacetime military spending, and a policy of anti-Soviet propaganda overseas and vigilance against the communist threat at home.

Operation Wetback

The forced deportation of 250,000 to 1.3 million undocumented Mexican immigrants during the Eisenhower administration.

Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)

An organization formed by oil-producing countries to control the price and supply of oil on the global market.

Pentagon Papers

A classified report on U.S. involvement in Vietnam leaked to the press in 1971. The report confirmed that the Kennedy and Johnson administrations had misled the public about the origins and nature of the Vietnam War.

Port Huron Statement

The manifesto of the Students for a Democratic Society written in 1962 that condemned liberal politics, Cold War foreign policy, racism, and research- oriented universities. It called for the adoption of “participatory democracy.”

Potsdam Conference

The July 1945 meeting in Germany between Truman and Stalin. The two leaders agreed to free elections in Eastern Europe, Soviet withdrawal from northern Iran, and the creation of four Allied occupation zones in Germany.

redlining

A discriminatory practice in which residents of certain neighborhoods are denied financial services. The term originated when the federal Homeowner’s Loan Corporation in the 1930s created maps outlining the riskiest areas to lend in red, making it difficult for the predominantly minority residents in redlined urban communities to obtain mortgages.

Roe v. Wade

The 1973 Supreme Court decision that women have a constitutional right to an abortion based on an implied right to privacy in the Fourteenth Amendment. The decision was overturned in the 2022 Supreme Court ruling Dobbs v. Jackson’s Women’s Health Organization, which dismantled federal Roe v. Wade abortion rights in favor of federal or state-by-state legislation.

school busing

The transporting of students to schools within and across school districts to accelerate school desegregation. The practice of school busing was often controversial and continued well into the 1990s.

Second Red Scare

Mass fears of communist influence infiltrating the United States and threatening national security from the late 1930s through the 1950s. Such fears resulted in the creation of government-controlled programs and entities such as the House Un-American Activities Committee and the Federal Employee Loyalty Program.

Servicemen’s Readjustment Act (GI Bill)

An act that provided college and vocational tuition, low-interest mortgage loans, and unemployment insurance to World War II veterans. Known as the GI Bill, the 1944 law spurred college enrollment, home ownership, and overall economic growth.

Smith Act

A law signed by Franklin Roosevelt in 1940, which prohibited teaching or advocating the destruction of the U.S. government.

Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

An organization founded in 1957 by Bayard Rustin, Martin Luther King Jr., and other Black ministers following the successful Montgomery bus boycott to encourage more nonviolent protests against racial segregation and disfranchisement in the South. It was instrumental in organizing major civil rights protests through the 1960s.

Sputnik

The first artificial satellite, launched in 1957 by the Soviet Union. The launch prompted a major increase in U.S. spending on the space race as well as scientific research and development.

stagflation

A period of economic instability in the 1970s characterized by slow economic growth, high inflation, and high unemployment.

Stonewall riots

A series of protests in 1969 by the gay and lesbian community in New York City after a police raid at the Stonewall Inn, a gathering place for gay men, turned violent. This uprising helped launch the gay liberation movement of the 1970s.

Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I)

An agreement between the United States and Soviet Union in 1972 to curtail nuclear arms production. The pact froze for five years the number of antiballistic missiles (ABMs), intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), and submarine-based missiles that each nation could deploy.

Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT II)

A strategic arms limitation treaty agreed on by President Jimmy Carter and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev in 1979. After the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, Carter persuaded the Senate not to ratify the treaty, thereby ending the period of détente.

Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)

A student-led civil rights organization that grew out of the sit-ins of 1960. The organization originally focused on taking nonviolent direct action and political organizing to achieve its goals.

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)

A student-led activist organization that advocated the formation of a “New Left” to overturn the social and political status quo. SDS growth on college campuses was fueled by opposition to U.S. Cold War policies, especially involvement in the Vietnam War.

Sun Belt

The southern and western parts of the United States, to which millions of Americans moved after World War II. Migrants were drawn by the region’s climate and jobs in the defense, petroleum, and chemical industries.

Superfund

A reserve fund established in 1980 to be used by the Environmental Protection Agency to clean up sites of industrial pollution and waste deemed particularly hazardous to public health.

Taft-Hartley Act

The 1947 law that curtailed unions’ ability to organize. It prevented unions from barring employment to non-union members and authorized the federal government to halt a strike for eighty days if it interfered with the national interest.

Tet Offensive

A widescale offensive mounted by Vietcong and North Vietnamese forces specifically targeting population centers across South Vietnam in January 1968. The offensive was turned back, but its initial success surprised many Americans and increased public opposition to the war.

To Secure These Rights

Report issued by the Committee on Civil Rights in 1947 that advocated extending racial equality. Among its recommendations was the desegregation of the military, which Truman instituted by executive order in 1948.

totalitarianism

A form of government in which all aspects of political, economic, social, and cultural life are controlled by the state, typically in the hands of a single political party. During the Cold War, the United States often described its communist rivals as inflicting a totalitarian system on the countries where they held power.

Truman Doctrine

The U.S. pledge during the Truman administration to provide political, military, and economic aid to all democratic countries under threat of communism from internal or external sources. Truman issued the doctrine in response to perceived communist threats to Greece and Turkey.

Twenty-sixth Amendment

The 1971 constitutional amendment lowering the voting age to eighteen in federal, state, and local elections.

Vietcong

The popular name for the National Liberation Front, formed in 1959 in South Vietnam. The Vietcong waged a military insurgency against the U.S.-backed president, Ngo Dinh Diem, and received support from Ho Chi Minh, the leader of North Vietnam.

Vietnam War

Conflict between the communist nationalist government in North Vietnam, backed by the Soviet Union and China, against the United Nations and U.S.-backed South Vietnam government. The war is seen as part of a series of proxy wars as a result of Cold War tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1975.

Vietnamization

President Richard Nixon’s strategy of turning over greater responsibility for the fighting of the Vietnam War to the South Vietnamese army.

Voting Rights Act

A 1965 act that eliminated literacy tests and other measures commonly used at the time in southern states to prevent Black Americans from voting. The act resulted in dramatic increases in Black voter participation.

War Powers Resolution

An act that limited the ability of the president to wage war without the approval of Congress. The 1973 resolution required the president to consult with Congress within forty-eight hours of deploying military forces and required a declaration of war from Congress if troops remained on foreign soil beyond sixty days.

Warsaw Pact

A military alliance of the Soviet Union with its seven satellite nations in response to the U.S. Marshall Plan and establishment of NATO. The pact, formed in 1955, was dissolved in 1991 at the end of the Cold War.

Watergate

The political scandal and cover-up that forced the resignation of President Nixon in 1974. The scandal centered on a break-in at the Democratic Party headquarters in 1972 and subsequent efforts of the Nixon White House to conceal the administration’s involvement in the break-in. The Watergate scandal undermined public trust in government.

White Citizens’ Council (WCC)

An organization created in protest following the Brown v. Board of Education decision. The WCC consisted mainly of businessmen and professionals who intimidated Black members of the community by threatening their jobs, denied bank loans to Black Americans, and rejected rock ’n’ roll music.

Yates v. United States

The 1957 Supreme Court ruling establishing that the Justice Department could not prosecute someone for merely advocating an abstract doctrine favoring the violent overthrow of the government. The ruling was seen as a severe blow to the enforcement of the 1940 Smith Act.