Unit 10: Post WWII & 1950s-1960s

1950s - Era of Conformity

Conformity

• sense of “belonging”

• pressures within society to get along with everybody else

  • everybody wants to live the American dream

  • influence of TV advertisements

• Discourage differences

• a response to changing times

Housing Boom - Rise of Suburbia

• Legacy of the GI Bill - cheap interest rate loans for US veterans

• 1/3 of Americans will move to suburbs in the 50s

• Levittown - Long Island, New York

  • William Levitt - idea for prefabricated homes

    • creation of cheap, identical homes

  • Mass produced homes

  • Affordibility v variety

    • americans willing to give up the variey in homes because affordibility was seen as comfortable and conformity

  • Zoning ordinances

    • neighborhoods not open to blacks

      • “red lining”

• “White flight”

  • maintain the segregationist pattern

Architectural & Psychological Conformity

• The sense of security & status that home ownership brough was acceptable to millions of Americans

• “No man who owns his own home is a Communist”

Conformity in Gender Roles

Men

• expected to be the “breadwinners”

  • supposed to earn the money

• climb the “corporate ladder”

  • by 1956 - white collar workers outnumber blue collar workers

  • suit & tie - uniform of the male worker

Women

• expected to marry young and encouraged to be a homemaker

  • sign of success

• raising family and help husband

• Ideal mothers = Mrs. Cleaver

  • mom was supposed to go to PTA meetings and take care of the house work

Individuality

• Youth culture emerging

• Birth of Rock n’ Roll

• Beat generation

  • writing style is different

• Civil rights movement

Characteristics of the Beat Generation

• rejection of conformity

• searching for the true meaning of life

  • reactiom to WWII

• identified with the downtrodden and outsiders

• identified with urban blacks

• influenced by “be-bop” jazz

• spontaneity in art, literature

  • first thought = best thought

Modern Civil Rights Movement

• NAACP lawsuits

  • challenging conformity through the courts

  • Brown v Board of Education

    • sueing because the board told a black family in the school district that they had to go to a black school

    • overurned Plessy v Fergusen which laied down the term “seperate but equal”

    • claimed that seperate but equal is unconstitutional

• Lynching of Emmett Till & Legacy

  • young Till living in Chicago had relatives in Mississippi

  • goes to visit in the summer

  • went into a white owned store and told the white female cashier “bye baby”

    • womens husband and a group of white men went and killed him

• Montgomery, Alabama - Dec. 1955

• Little Rock, Arkansas

The Beginning of a Cold War

United Nations

• replaced the league of nations

• US is a huge player in its creation

• United Nations Security Council

  • main job is to keep international peace and deal with international world problems

  • has 15 members

    • 5 permanent members

      • Great Britian, France, Soviet Union, Nationalist China, US

        • had veto power

  • beleife that these world powers would work together to keep world peace

  • one of the first issues:

    • what is the future of nuclear energy and weapons

    • Societ Union wants to oulaw nuclear weapons while US doesn’t

Problems with Germany

• Germany was to be broken up into 4 sections and occupied by France, US, Great Britian, and the Soviet Union

• take the Nazis and put them on trial

  • Crimes against Humanity

  • Nurembeurg Trials

    • 24 Nazis put on trial and charged

      • 21 are found guilty

      • 11 are executed and one committs suicide before execution

• Issues proposed by Soviet Union:

  • Stalin propeses de-nazifiying Germany needed to be stronger

    • wanted 50,000 Germans to be executed

    • doesn’t want Germany to grow into a great industrial power again

Constructing a Cold War

Hard Line Soviets

• strong action taken by Stalin

• capital of Berlin was broken into 4 parts

  • the city of Berlin is located within the soviet zone

• Stalin will order a blockade of Western Berlin to send a sign to the Allied powers

• Truman doesn‘t want to start a war but still takes action

  • OK’s the Berlin Airlift

    • planes landing in West Berlin and delivering supplies to German citizens

    • tries to basically call the Soviet Unions bluff

    • continues for almost 1 year untill Stalin lifts the blockade

Truman’s Containment

• wants to ensure that Stalin cannot further his influence in Western Europe

• Containment → Soviet Union cannot spread their influence any further

  • Truman Doctrine → US will provide military and financial assistance to any country threatened by communism

    • put in place in Greece and Turkey first

  • Marshall Plan → US will give financial assistance to rebuild strong capitalist economies in western europe

    • we cannot let the devistated countries from WWII remain in these states

    • poverty and unemployment breeds communist ideals

    • if we rebuild those countries we will have markets in western europe

Communisim at Home

• just how much as communisim infiltrated the US?

• US is the only country to own nuclear weapons untill 1949

  • US responds that the Soviet Union must have spies in the US

• HUAC → House Un-American Activities Committee

  • existed during the war for Nazis and then focused on communists after WWII

  • Alger Hiss → accused of being a spy and giving information to the Soviet Union

Election of 1948

• Truman runs for re-election

• wins in a close election against republican nominee Dewey

Fall of China

• 1949 → China falls to communism

• Republicans argue how did the democrats allow China to fall

• Truman is now met with is communism at home and stopping progress abroad

• Rosenburgs

  • Husband had been working on the Manhattan project

  • accused of communism

    • the couple is put on trial and executed for communism

Korean War

• agreement between Soviet Union and US that Korea would be broken up into two zones to get rid of Japanese influence

  • Soviet Union → North Korea

  • US → South Korea

• 1950 → North Koreans being supported by the Soviet Union is going to militarily invade South Korea

  • Truman goes to the Security Council

  • Soviet Union is boycotting the Security Council because they are upset that the Chinese Government being represented in the Council is the old Nationalists and not the Communist China

    • US refuses to accept the Communist China

  • US is able to get the security council to vote to defend South Korea from North Korea because the Soviet Union cannot veto

    • is a Secutiry Council peace matter

  • US sends Douglas McArthur to help fight the North Korean government

• US troops succeed in pushing the Northern troops back, past the line

• China enters the war to help the North Koreans

• Stalemate all the way through Trumans Presidency

• war becomes unpopular and Truman has to fire McArthur

  • don’t see eye-to-eye on how to handel the war

  • McArthur wants to use nuclear bombs on North Korea and China

  • Truman wants a limited war and wants to avoid WWIII

    • just wants to keep Korea from becoming communist

“I Like Ike”

• Eisenhower hadn’t been involved in many politics

• Eisenhower runs for the Republican party in 1952

• promises the American people that they are going to bring an end to the Korean war

• says that the Democrats have been to week on communism and promises a stronger action against communism

Or is it McCarthy’s

• Republican senator

• starts to use communism to get him attention

• gives him power and influence

• recieves press and influence and makes accusation about communists

  • giving no evidence

  • claims that McCarthy wouldn’t be able to find a communist even if he waas surrounded by them

• claims that communists have infiltrated the US Army

• Eisenhower won’t let McCarthy go after the US Army

• McCarthy hearings go televised

• People get bored of him and he looses his power

• die of alcholism a year or two after this

• Eisenhower has to live with this histeria

Sputnik

• in the late 50’s Eisenhower is in his 2nd term

• Soviet Union has succesfully launched a satellite

• scares the Eisenhower administration and the US citizens

  • what is stopping the Soviet Union from putting Nuclear Weapons on a rocket and attacking the US

  • US had always thought they were ahead in science

• US is in a frenze

  • had been working on rocket technology under the war department

• US military tries to launch its first rocket several weeks after Sputnik

  • Flopnik

• brings forth NASA

A New Frontier : Kennedy’s America

• Republicans have Nixon as their canidate who will run against JFK for the democratic party

• JFK wins the election

The Beginning of the Modern Era Movement                      

In the 1940s..

• Brown v. Board of Education 1954 → Brung by the NAACP

• Overturned Plessy v. Ferguson (1896), which had allowed "separate but equal."

• Thurgood Marshall, NAACP lawyer, argued the case.

• Case from Kansas: Black children had to travel far to Black schools instead of nearby 

white schools.

• The Supreme Court ruled 9-0 that segregation in schools was unconstitutional.

• Emmit Till murdered (1955)

• 14-year-old Black boy brutally murdered in Mississippi for allegedly offending a white woman.

• His death and open-casket funeral drew national attention to racism in the South.

• Motogmety: The example (1955-56)

Rosa Parks (NAACP) refused to give up her seat to a white passenger.

Sparked a bus boycott organized by Martin Luther King Jr., launching him as a major leader.

Goal: End bus segregation.

• Little rock (1957)

• 9 Black students integrated into all-white Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas.

• Faced violent resistance; President Eisenhower sent federal troops to enforce desegregation.

• All these events prove the beginning of the civil rights movement 

Beginning of the Era

• Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)

• Made up of religious pastors (Martin luther king junior & etc)

• Form church organization to organize protest, nonviolent, civil disobedience protest 

• Use black audience to push for change and reform 

• Student Nom-Violent Coordinating committee (SNCC)

• Youth need to get involved to fight for civil rights

• Adopts similar things like the SCLC approach

• Doing things  at the level of collage student and protest

• Congress on Racial Equality (CORE)

• Another major group using peaceful protest to challenge segregation.

These 3 organizations help shape and modern the Beginning of the Modern era movement

• All very well thought out and planned out, organized

Youth- led protests emerge

Following the 1960 election and the Montgomery protest ……

SNCC hosts some protests…. 

The Sit-ins 

Sit-ins Movement

• Began Feb 1, 1960: 4 Black students sat at a white-only lunch counter in Greensboro, NC.

• Nashville students, trained in nonviolence by John Lawson, led major sit-ins.

• Faced violence and arrests but remained peaceful.

• Black community supported them (food, bail money).

• Within a year, many lunch counters were desegregated.

The freedom rides (1961)

• Protested segregation in interstate bus travel, despite Supreme Court rulings against it.

• Black and white riders rode buses into the South to challenge segregation laws.

• Met with violent mobs, lack of police protection.

• Gained federal attention, pushing the government to enforce desegregation rulings.

Confrontation in Birmingham 1963

• SCLC-led protests in Birmingham, AL against public segregation.

• Police chief "Bull" Connor used violent tactics: dogs, fire hoses.

• MLK, jailed, wrote "Letter from Birmingham Jail" advocating for nonviolent resistance.

• Media coverage drew national sympathy and political action.

 the March on Washington 1963

• Massive march to demand civil rights legislation.

• MLK’s "I Have a Dream" speech delivered.

• Helped push for Civil Rights Act (1964).

Fall 1963: Assassination of JFK

• Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson becomes president.

• Johnson pushes for change, pressuring Congress to take action.

• Key Idea: Strong leadership can drive change, even if deeply ingrained beliefs resist it.

Summer 1964: Mississippi & Black Voter Registration

• Civil rights activists spread throughout Mississippi to register Black voters.

Voting Rights Act of 1965

• Passed following the Selma-to-Montgomery March, led by Martin Luther King Jr.

• National TV channels interrupted normal programming to broadcast the march.

• Initially, very few Black voters were registered in Texas.

• Impact: After the law passed, federal examiners were sent to the South, registering 15,000 more Black voters.

• Signed by Lyndon B. Johnson.

• Made racial discrimination in public spaces illegal, marking a victory over segregation in the South.

Mid-1960s: Shift in the Civil Rights Movement

• Northern Black communities faced discrimination at a different level than the South.

• 69% of Black Americans lived in neglected urban areas.

• Growing frustration led to increased support for Black Power and Black Nationalism (separatism).

• This shift contributed to the end of the Civil Rights Movement as the focus turned toward economic and social equality.

The Separatist Movement

• SNCC (Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee):

  • New leader Stokely Carmichael promotes Black Power.

  • Movement becomes more militant, moving away from MLK’s philosophy.

• Malcolm X: Advocated for more militant action.

• Black Panthers:

  • Originally formed to fight police brutality.

  • Later incorporated militant tactics, unlike earlier civil rights groups.

The End of the 1960s

• 1968 Open Housing Act:

  • Prohibited discrimination in housing sales, rentals, and financing based on race, religion, national origin, sex, and later, disability and family status.

• Election of 1968:

  • George Wallace’s candidacy had a major impact.

  • Richard Nixon wins, promoting the Southern Strategy (emphasizing law and order to attract white Southern voters).

• Moynihan Report:

  • Argued that the Black family structure was weakened by discrimination and was a root cause of struggles in Black communities.

Received major criticism for blaming Black families rather than systemic racism.

Vietnam War

Occupation

• French → french capability of running a colonie is gone after WWII and they loose occupation of Indochina

• Japanese → occupies Indochina after WWII

• French Returns → returns to french Indochina

  • people don’t want the french there

  • Dien Bien Phu → run by Hocimin to get the french out of Indochina

    • pivitol event in which the french are defeated by the gorilla army

• Geneva Conference → held when France announces that they are going to leave Indochina, to discuss what is going to happen to it

  • concerns about Ho Chi Minh

  • agreement that their will be countries:

    • Laos

    • Cambodia

  • creates a Vietnam with two parts: North and South

Pre-War

• Ho Chi Minh → organized the Viet Minh in North Vietnam

  • pushing for independence

  • wants to unite all of Vietnam under 1 government and wants to remove all western influence

• Ngo Dinh Diem → backed by US in South Vietnam

  • no connection to Ho Chi Minh

  • US hopes that he becomes more popular than Ho Chi Minh so that when elections are held, he will be voted as leader

    • never works and elections are never held

• Opression → Ngo Dinh Diem opressed his own people

  • Budhists were one group that was targeted

    • causes Budhists to become active in protests

      • some catch themselves on fire to show their dislike for the Diem government

US Involvement

• Truman → allows France to take French Indochina and agrees to assist the French in regaining their territory

  • Military Assistance Advisory Group (MAAG)

• Eisenhower → supports the push for Vietnam

  • continues to send financial and military advisors to support Diems government

  • supports the opression tactics because Diem isn’t communist

• JFK → inherites this relationship with the South Vietnamese government

  • continues to support the Diem government because he wants to be seen strong on communism

  • uses CIA in South Vietnam

• Lindon Johnson (LBJ) → steps will be taken to send a more active military presence to Vietnam

  • Gulk of Tonkin Resolution → August 7,1964

    • congress aproves the president as comander in cheif

      • gave all necessary measure to repel any armed attack against the forces of the US and to prevent further agression

  • wanted to escalate the war

  • need an excuse to rally the troops

    • The Madiz was attacked by Vietnamese torpedoes

  • turns into escalated military presence which leads to the war

War

• Viet Cong → in South Vietnam and support Ho Chi Minh and the communist efforts to unite Vietnam

  • US sees this group as an enemy

  • can’t distinguish Viet Cong from the rest of the South Vietnamese population

number of US soldiers are continuously being sent to Vietnam to fight the war

• Tet Offensive → occured in 1968

  • Tet Truce was supposed to occur in which both sides would stop for a couple days

  • Viet Cong plan to attack american troops in different cities

    • wanted to attack the american presence

  • if Viet Cong are captured, they are killed immediately

  • this news comes out to the US people

  • turning point in american involvment

• Living room war → name given to the war because people could watch the war on tv

  • seeing this changes the oppinions on some americans on the involvment in Vietnam

A Divided Nation: LBJ, The Counterculture & Vietnam in the 1960s

• LBJ’s Great Society → war on poverty

  • continuation of the New Deal

  • LGB sponsors the largest reoform agenda since the New Deal

  • 2 important pieces of legislation in aftermath of JFK;s assassination

    • Civil RIghts Act of 1964

      • banned discrimination based on race & gender in employment & ending segregation in all public facilities

    • Economic Opportunity Act of 1964

      • office of econommic opportunity → aimed at attacking the roots of American poverty

        • Head Start, Medicare, PBS, National Endowmenf for the Humanities, Food stamp program, public televison, immigration policy based on connecting families instead of meeting quotas

          • the hightide of government involvement

  • Immigration Reform Act of 1965

• The Counterculture Movement → the Hippie movement

  • cultural changes and political disputes over Vietnam are diving American society by the late 1960s

  • the hippie movement

    • rejection of “conformity”

    • anti-establishment movement

    • influence of Timothey Leary

      • message → wanted to create a bomb and reconnect immigrants

      • drop out of highscool, drop out of college, drop out of junior executive, drop out of senior executive, tune in, turn in, drop out

  • into pychadelic drugs

  • free drug movement

  • anti-war movement

• Anti-war protests →

  • protest on college campuses against Vietnam War as American escalation…

  • protest at the Pentagon

  • protest at the Democratic National Convention

    • police beat protestors after violence breaks out

• Presidental Election of 1968 →

  • Eugene McCarthy v Robert Kennedy

    • both democrates and promote an anti-vitnam stance

    • Kennedy is assassinated

  • George Wallace also runs

  • Hubrt Humphrey wins election to run as Democratic

  • Richard Nixon runs for Republican party and wins the election in 1968

    • claims that he will get the US out of Vietnam

• Vietnamization → it is time for South Vietnam to fight against the North to fight their own war

  • will still provide some economic and military assistance