LBJ Notes

Voting Rights Act of 1965 

• The Civil Rights Act did not stop the techniques that southern registrars use to prevent black people from voting. 

• In 1965, MLK led a series of demonstrations despite facing police violence. The campaign consists of a 54-mile walk from Selma to Montgomery. 

• Johnson sent a Voting Rights Act to Congress, which was passed in 1965. This law stopped literacy tests and authorized federal officials to supervise elections in southern districts. 

• In just 5 years, black registration went up from 35% to 65%. 

Black Power 

• The civil rights laws did not target de facto segregation (separation of groups even though is it not required or sanctioned by law). 

• In large parts of the US, African Americans were not allowed to enter the suburbs, decent schools, exclusive clubs, and they were denied the most menial jobs. 

• For African Americans who managed to get a job, their minimum wage was half that for whites. 

Nation of Islam 

• In such an atmosphere, militants questioned the liberal goal of integration. Since the 1930s Islam dedicated to complete separation from white society. 

• Malcolm X learned the language of the downtrodden from his own experience as a former hustler, gambler, and prison inmate. 

• By 1965, Malcolm was moving towards a moderate position. He accepted integration but emphasized black community action. 

• By 1965-1996, the SNCC and CORE gave up working for nonviolent change. This was due to the slow pace of progress, internal divisions, and increasing violence. 

• The black power movement motivated African Africans to recover their cultural roots, heritage, and a new sense of identity. Because of this, African clothes and natural hairstyles became popular. 

Black Panthers 

• The Black Panther Party of Oakland called on the black community. 

• Because California law prevented carrying concealed weapons, Huey Newton and his followers brandished shotguns and rifles. 

• Newton forced a showdown between him and the police. He was wounded and ended up in jail. 

• Eldridge Cleaver attracted the attention of whites with his autobiography, Soul on Ice. 

• Even at the height of their notoriety, the Black Panthers never had more than 2,000 members nationwide. 

Violence in the Streets 

• No ideology shaped the reservoir of frustration and despair that was seen in the ghettos. A minor incident would trigger violence. 

• When violence is triggered, mobs would gather, and police cars and white-owned stores would be looted or firebombed. 

• To most whites, the violence was inexcusable. 

• MLK came to understand the anger behind the violence. He approached a group of blacks who claimed to have won. King was confused because many African Americans were killed during the riots. 

• For Johnson, ghetto violence and black militancy mocked his efforts to end segregation. 

• The Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts were an essential part of the Great Society Johnson hoped to build. 

• Johnson did what Kennedy promised. The growing white backlash and the anger exploding everywhere posed serious flaws in the practice of liberal reform. 

Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society 

• Insecurity was Lyndon Johnson’s Achilles’ heel. If JFK was a good president, then he would have to be a greater president. If FDR won in a landslide, Johnson would win by an even greater margin. 

• Johnson can be cruel to those who displeased him. Johnson did not understand why so few people genuinely liked him. 

• Lyndon Johnson was born in Stonewall, Texas. He arrived in Washington in 1932 as an ardent New Dealer who loved politics. 

• When Johnson became majority leader of the Senate in 1965, he became a moderate conservative who knew how to get the job done. 

Johnson’s Liberal Faith 

• Johnson posed certain strengths. No one was better at hammering out compromises than Johnson. To those who served Johnson, he could be loyal. 

• Johnson’s support for civil rights, aid to the poor, education, and the welfare of the elderly came from conviction. Like FDR, Johnson believed that the government should play an active role in managing the economy. 

• Like progressives, liberals wanted to improve society by using the intelligence of “experts.” 

• Liberals had confidence that poverty could be eliminated. 

Discovering Poverty 

• Kennedy recognized that prosperity alone could not ease the poor. 

• Michael Harrington’s book The Other America focused attention on the hills of Appalachia that stretched from western Pennsylvania south to Alabama, where a quarter of the population had to eat flour and dried-milk paste supplied by federal food programs. 

• Under Kennedy, Congress passed a new food stamp program and laws designed to revive impoverished areas' economies. 

• Robert Kennedy headed a presidential committee to fight delinquency in urban slums by involving the poor in community action programs. 

• By August 1964, Johnson passed the Economic Opportunity Act, which addressed every major cause of poverty. It included training programs, granted loans, and launched VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America). 

• Sargen Shriver directed the new Office of Economic Opportunity. 

• The speed that Johnson demanded led to confusion, conflict, and waste. Officials at OEO had to battle with other cabinet departments along with local and state officials. 

The Election of 1964 

• In 1964, Johnson’s political stock remained high. He announced his ambition to form a “Great Society,” where poverty and racial injustice no longer existed. 

• The idea to form a Great Society seemed likely when the Republican Party chose Barry Goldwater of Arizona as their presidential candidate. He was a true son of the West. He was at heart a libertarian. 

• Goldwater believed that the government should not dispense welfare, subsidize farmers, tax incomes on a progressive basis, or aid public education. 

• Because of Goldwater’s extreme views, Johnson could portray himself as a moderate. He chose Minnesota’s liberal senator Hubert Humphrey to be vice president. 

• The election ended in a landslide. Johnson received 61% of the vote. As a result, the Democrats gained 2-to-1 majorities in both houses of Congress. 

Programs in Education 

• As a former teacher, Johnson made education a cornerstone of the Great Society. He believed that stronger schools could compensate the poor. 

• The Elementary and Secondary School Act gave educational equipment, money for books, and enrichment programs to students in low-income school districts. 

Medicare and Medicaid 

• Johnson pushed for the Medicare Act, which would provide the elderly with hospital health insurance. It targeted the elderly because older people used hospitals 3 times more than other Americans. 

• Medicaid was created because Medicare did not target the poor who were not elderly. 

• Participating states received federal grants to pay for the medical expenses of the elderly or those who were too poor to afford medical care. 

Immigration Reform 

• The Great Society reformed immigration policy. Johnson passed laws that allowed family reunification and admission of skilled workers. 

• The National Origins Act was a law passed in 1924 to restrict immigration to the US based on nationality and race. It also set quotas on the number of immigrants from Europe. 

• By the 1960s, American attitudes were changing in terms of both race and religion. New laws were passed to eliminate quotas, allowing people from all around the world to immigrate to the US. 

• The Immigration Act of 1965 abolished the national origins system. It gave preference to reuniting families of those immigrants already in the US. 

• The act was offset by prejudice towards Central Americans, especially Mexicans. 

• The National Origins Act did not put a restriction towards the number of immigrants from the Americas. 

• Widespread poverty in Latin American nations had left thousands unemployed and desperate to find work. 

The Environment 

• A mass-consumption economy took an increasing toll on the environment. 

• Many Americans were concerned about acrid smog from factories and automobiles, about lakes and rivers polluted by detergents, pesticides, and industrial wastes, and about the disappearance of wildlife. 

• Harriet Beecher Stowe challenged the belief that through science and technology, humans could “improve on nature.” 

• Rachel Carson’s critics dismissed her as hysterical. She taught Americans to think ecologically. She showed the interconnection of living things and how toxic chemicals moved through the food chain. 

• Carson’s alarms about the environment inspired a broad movement to protect the environment. 

• In 1964, Congress passed the National Wilderness Preservation System Act to set aside 9.1 million acres of wilderness as “forever wild.” 

• First, Congress established pollution standards for interstate highways and a year later provided funds for sewage treatment and water purification. 

• Mining companies, cattle grazers, and the timber industry opposed environmental reform. 

• Despite all of this, Johnson wanted to do more. 

• In 1966, Johnson pushed for more bills to raise the minimum wage, improve auto safety, and mass transit. 

• The Fair Housing Act banned discrimination in housing, and the Truth-in-Lending Act protected consumers from unfair credit practices. 

Evaluating the Great Society 

• Historians have difficulty measuring the impact of the Great Society. 

• The Great Society produced more legislation and more reforms than the New Deal. 

• Economic statistics suggested that general prosperity did more to fight poverty than all the OEO programs. 

• Although Americans continued to pay lip service to the notion that government should remain small, no strong movement formed to eliminate Medicare and Medicaid. 

• Few Americans disputed the right of the government to regulate industrial pollution, or to manage the economy, and provide citizens with a safety net or benefits in sickness and in old age. 

The Reforms of the Warren Court 

• Although Lyndon Johnson and Congress left the stamp of liberalism on federal power, the judicial branch played a role that proved equally significant overall. 

• Supreme Court chief justice Earl Warren turned the judicial branch into a center of liberal reform. 

• Warren’s political skills, compassion, and tact were instrumental in bringing the decision made in Brown v. Board of Education. He continued to use these skills until he retired in 1969. 

Protecting Due Process 

• In 1950, right rights of citizens accused of a crime but not convicted were unclear. Those who could not afford lawyers had to face trial without representation. 

• The Court ruled that the 14^th Amendment provided broad guarantees of due process under the law. 

• Gideon v. Wainwright made it clear that all citizens were entitled to legal counsel in any case involving a jail sentence. 

• In Escobedo v. Illinois and Miranda v. Arizona, the Court declared that individuals detained for a crime must be informed of the charges against them, of their right to remain silent, and of their right to have an attorney present during questioning. 

• These rights were intended to benefit the poor, who were most likely to be in trouble with the law and least likely to understand their rights. 

Banning School Prayer 

• In Engle v. Vitale, the Course ruled something that troubled conservative religious groups. 

• In this case, the New York State Board of Regents required that public school students recite a prayer. Even if dissenting children could be excused, the Court ruled that forcing students to recite a prayer violated the Constitution. 

• In 1963, the Supreme Court extended the ban on school prayer to cover the reading of the Bible and the Lord’s Prayer. 

• In Griswold v. Connecticut, the Warren Court overturned a 19^th-century law that banned the sale of contraception or providing medical advice about its uses. 

• The combination of decisions reforming criminal rights, prayer, free speech, and morality would become a battleground in the 1980s and beyond. 

One Person, One Vote 

• The Supreme Court’s most far-reaching decision was the least controversial. 

• As the population of cities grew, states redrew their legislative districts to reflect the change. Rural communities would dominate urban areas. 

• In Baker v. Carr, the Supreme Court rule that the states must apportion seats by the principle of “one person, one vote.” 

The Counterculture 

• In 1964, around 800 students from UC Berkley met in western Ohio to train for the voter registration campaign in the South. 

• SNCC coordinators instructed middle-class students who grew up in peaceful white suburbs. They trained them to assume the fetal position if they were beaten by police. 

• Local police in Philadelphia, Mississippi, investigated the disappearance of 3 people. They found their mangled bodies, bulldozed into the earthworks of a newly built dam. 

• By the mid-1960s, conservatives, civil rights groups, and the poor were not alone in rejecting liberal solutions. 

SDS and Port Huron 

• More than a few students were disillusioned with the slow pace of reform. 

• Tom Hayden, raised in a working-class family outside Detroit, and Al Haber were a driving force in forming the radical Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The group had little sympathy for radicals who grew up in the 1930s. 

• Hayden argued that action was the route to change: through sit-ins, protests, and confrontation. 

• At a meeting in Port Huron, the SDS condemned the modern bureaucratic agency. They called for participatory democracy. 

The Free Speech Movement 

• The Free Speech Movement at UC Berkley was a case in point. 

• For many, they believed UC Berkley was the gem of the California state university system. But to people like Tom Hayden and the SDS, Berkley was a bureaucratic monster that made 30,000 students go to imperial classrooms to listen to lectures from remote professors. 

• In the fall of 1946, Berkley declared off-limits the one small area where political organizations could advertise their causes. 

• When university police tried to remove a CORE recruiter, thousands of angry students surrounded a police car for 32 hours. 

• Mississippi politicized Mario Savio and 12 veterans from the 21 Freedom Summer. When Clark Kerr threatened to expel Savio, 6,000 students took control of the administration building. 

• The rebellious spirit of the 6,000 students spread to other major universities, such as Michigan, Yale, and Columbia. 

Young Americans for Freedom 

• Not all radicalized students on campus were leftists. To the conservative members of the YAF, those behind the Free Speech Movement were a crowd of beats, liberals, and Communists. 

• YAF had a large membership who wanted to limit the federal government’s power, which they believed threatened true freedom and liberty. 

• Barry Goldwater embodied for YAF members the values they cherished. Although he lost, the ranks of the YAF would create a new generation of conservative activists. 

Ecumenism 

• Pope John bade the council deal with issues that engaged the world in the 1960s while he was dealing with cancer. He wished to bring the church hierarchy closer. 

• By the time the council concluded in 1965, Pope John had died. His successor was Pope Paul VI, and the actions of the council transformed the church. 

• Many changes seemed small, though they affected the everyday lives of Catholics. It was not required to go without meat on Fridays and confess on Saturdays. Priests would now face the congregation rather than the altar. 

• Vatican II encouraged a spirit of ecumenism, in which Catholics would seek greater understanding with other Christians. 

• The changes of Vatican II energized many American Catholics and led them to embrace further reform within and without the church. For example, Fathers Daneil and Philip Berrigan were involved in the antipoverty and antiwar movements. 

• Those who did not take the streets felt the effects of Vatican II. 

Communes 

• The counterculture of the 1960s had much in common with utopian movements and earlier religious revival. 

• Counterculture best favored Hendry David Thoreau, Zen Buddhism, and other Asian philosophies. 

• Communards would build geodesic domes based on Buckminster Fuller’s designs. 

• The birth control pill created an era of increased sexual freedom. The youth embraced the new freedoms to free themselves from repression. 

• Drugs became a new pleasure for some people. People would no longer be bound by conventional relationships. 

• The 1950s and the subculture of the beat generation led to the counterculture of the 1960s. 

• Unconventional drugs were a part of the scene for a long time. In the 1960s, their use expanded dramatically. 

• Leary’s approach to LCD was calm and contemplative. However, Ken Kesey accepted the existence of LCD with enthusiasm. 

• Writer Tom Wolfe dropped the rules that demanded distance by taking his readers on a psychedelic tour. 

The Rock Revolution 

• In the 1950s, rock and roll created a teen culture. In 1958, the Kingston Trio popularized folk music that appealed to teens. 

• As folk music grew in popularity, the lyrics focused more on political and social issues. 

• An example is Joan Baez, who helped define the folk style by dressing simply, wearing no makeup, and rejecting commercialism of pop music. 

• Folksingers reflected the activist side of counterculture. 

The Beatles 

• In 1964, the Beatles became extremely popular. Within a year, several teens were listening to The Beatles. 

• The Beatles members looked and sounded like nothing young Americans had experienced before. Their enthusiasm captured the Dionysian spirit of the new counterculture. 

• The Beatles’ enormous commercial success also reflected the creativity of their music. Along with other English bands, the Beatles reconnected white American audiences with rock and roll. 

Dylan 

• Until 1965, Bob Dylan was a folk artist who wrote about nuclear weapons, pollution, and racism. 

• Bob Dylan shocked fans by shifting to a “folk-rock” style using an electric guitar. His songs seemed to suggest that the old America was beyond redemption. 

• After a pilgrimage to India to study transcendental meditation, the Beatles produced one of the most influential albums of the decade. It blended sound effects with music. 

• In San Francisco, bands such as the Grateful Dead used acid rock and long pieces, which were aimed to echo drug-induced states of mind. 

Soul Music 

• The debt of white rock musicians to rhythm and blues led to increased integration in the music world. 

• The civil rights movement and a rising black social and political consciousness created “soul” music. Soul was the quality that expressed black pride and separatism. 

• Motown came out of Detroit, which combined elements of gospel, blues, and big band jazz. 

• The Supremes, the Temptations, Stevie Wonder, and other groups under contract to Motown Record Company appealed to black and white audiences. Yet it offered little social commentary. 

The First Be-In 

• Before 1967, Americans were vaguely aware of the hippies. 

• In January, a coalition of drug freaks, Zen cultists, and political activists banded together to form the first well-publicized Be-in. 

• The Diggers, a mysterious group, managed to supply free food and drink with Hell’s Angels policing them. 

• The West Coast was a place for Americans who wanted to seek opportunity, escape, and find alternative lifestyles. Today, the San Francisco Bay Area became the center of counterculture. 

• Colleges became centers of hip culture. They offered alternative courses and eliminated strict requirements. 

Ho Chi Minh 

• Ho Chi Minh, a Vietnamese nationalist, hoped to free his people from the French. Ever since WWI ended, he struggled to create an independent Vietnam. 

• After WWII, Ho Chi Minh led a guerrilla war against the French. It led to the French defeat at Dien Bien Phu in 1954. 

• At the Geneva Peace Conference, Ho Chi Minh promised to withdraw his forces north of the 17^th parallel. In return, the North and South would hold free elections. 

• Americans chose Ngo Dinh Diem to be leader of the South. They supported Diem’s decision not to hold elections. 

The Domino Theory 

• For Kennedy, Vietnam was just one of many anticommunist skirmishes his advisors wanted to fight. 

• Eisenhower’s domino theory says that if Diem’s pro-Western government fell to communism, the other nations of Southeast Asia would fall to communism as well. He saw a Communist victory as unacceptable. 

• After JFK was assassinated, Lyndon B. Johnson had to deal with Vietnam. He felt like a catfish. 

• The political attacks Democrats endured after China fell to the Communist and the Korean War taught Johson lessons he never forgot. 

• Until August 1964, American advisors focused on training and supporting the South Vietnamese army. 

• North Vietnamese troops infiltrated men and supplies along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. 

Tonkin Gulf Incident 

• American ships patrolling the Gulf of Tonkin supported secret South Vietnamese raids against the North. 

• On August 2, 3 North Vietnamese patrol boats exchanged fire with the Maddox. 2 nights later, a second incident occurred. An investigation could not determine whether enemy ships were near the scene. 

• Johnson publicized both incidents as aggression and ordered air raids on North Vietnam. He never disclosed the fact that the navy and South Vietnamese forces were conducting secret military operations. 

• Congress passed the Tonkin Gulf Resolution after Johnson said that authorities should take all necessary measures. 

• Senator Ernest Gruening of Alaska objected that the resolution would give Johnson the power to declare war. This power was reserved only for Congress. 

• Johnson insisted that he had limited goals. With his overwhelming victory in the 1964 election, he felt free to exploit the powers the resolution gave him. 

Escalation 

• In January 1965, Johnson received a disturbing letter from two top advisors. They said that with the current policy, the US would lose. 

• The US should either increase its attack or withdraw. Escalation would increase military pressure to the point where further resistance would. Ost more than the enemy was willing to give up. 

• Instead of weakening the resolve of the Vietcong and North Vietnamese, escalation hardened. 

Air Strikes 

• Restricted air strikes did not satisfy hawkish leaders. 

• In March, Johnson ordered Operation Rolling Thunder, a systematic bombing campaign aimed at increasing confidence in South Vietnam and cutting the flow of supplies from the North. The operation was a failure. 

• South Vietnamese leaders were fighting amongst themselves and wanted power instead of uniting the Vietcong. 

• Once the Americans established bases for where the new air strikes should launch, they became targets for guerrilla attacks. 

• Johnson’s decision to send 3,500 marines to Vietnam was crucial for Americanizing the war. 

• Defense Secretary McNamara wanted the escalation to be carried out without causing concern or excitement. He was scared about how China and Russia would react. 

• In 1968, at the height of the war, 536,000 troops were being supported with advanced military technology. They also got hot meals even in dense jungles. 

Effects of the Draft 

• Most Americans who were sent to Vietnam were drafted. Under the Selective Service System, young people could avoid the draft if they were college students or if they were working in crucial occupations. 

• The draft was changed so that students were called up through a lottery system. Those who knew the medial requirements would have liked to avoid getting drafted. 

• The poorest and least educated were most likely to avoid the draft. The Armed Forces Qualification Test and physical often screened them. 

• Once in uniform, Hispanic, and black Americans who had fewer skills were often assigned to combat duty. 

• The average age of soldiers serving in Vietnam was 19, compared with an average of 26 during WWII. 

Body Counts 

• Most Americans who went to Vietnam were ready to fight. However, physical and psychological hardships hurt them. 

• Since success could not be determined by how much territory was gained, the measure was the body count: the number of soldiers that were killed. 

• GI sometimes took out their frustrations on innocent citizens because they could not determine who was good and who was bad. 

The Air War and Agent Orange 

• Most Americans assumed that superior military technology would guarantee success. Technology alone could not tell friend from foe. 

• Bombs of napalm and white phosphorus rained from the skies, coating everything. 

• Since soldiers could hide in the jungle, they made war on its vegetation. 

• The long-term health and ecological effects of what the soldiers did were severe. There were minimal benefits. 

• The American military buildup turned Vietnam from a place once able to support people and culture into a place to sustain a war. 

• The site the engineers chose to build the 9^th Infantry Division lay in a muddy river bottom along the Mekong River. 

• The base grew to include the largest heliport in the world, an airfield, enough barracks to house the entire division, and the water, sewage, and electricity to run the base. The base closed in the summer of 1969. 

• By 1967, the war cost more than $2 billion a month. To fight it, the US dropped more bombs than it did during WWII. 

The War at Home 

• As the war dragged on, several questions provoked debate among Americans. 

• Faculty members had to explain the issues to the students concerned. Many scholars familiar with Southeast Asia questioned the assumptions the president used to justify escalation. 

• The US and South Vietnam violated the Geneva Accords of 1954. The war was a civil war among the Vietnamese. 

• The Vietcong had grievances against Saigon’s corrupt government. 

Hawks and Doves 

• By 1966, national leaders had divided into camps of hawks and doves. 

• The hawks believed that the US must win in Vietnam to stop communism from spreading. This is the view that most people supported. 

• The doves believed the opposite. They were mostly a minority, who were less likely to support the war. 

• MLK, CORE, and SNCC opposed the Vietnam War. Muhammad Ali refused to serve in the army, even though the decision cost him his title. 

• By 1967, crowds of college students and faculty express their outrage. Some college protesters burned their draft cards. 

• In the fall, more violent protests evolved as antiwar radicals stormed a draft induction center in Oakland. With these protests, moderates believed that the US could not win the war. 

McNamara Loses Faith 

• Defense Secretary Robert McNamara became the most dramatic defector. He struggled to quantify the success of the war effort. 

• He became skeptical in 1967. If Americans had killed 300,000 Vietnamese, they should be winning the war. However, he found out that infiltration had increased. 

• At this point, McNamara had deep moral qualms about continuing the war indefinitely. 

• McNamara resigned with Johnson, who did not want to be remembered as the first American leader who lost a war. 

Military Success and the “Credibility Gap” 

• Though surprised by the Tet Offensive, American and South Vietnamese troops repulsed most of the assaults. 

• General Westmoreland said that Vietcong's “well-laid plans went afoul.” He was right because the enemy was driven back, leading to 40,000 deaths. 

• Americans received a message at home. Tete created a “credibility gap” between the optimistic reports and the war’s harsh reality. 

• Johnson kept saying that the Vietcong were on their last legs. Yet Ho Chi Minh insisted that North Vietnam would win. 

Stalemate 

• The Tet offensive sobered Johnson and Clark Clifford. He was a Johnson loyalist and believer in the war. 

• As Clifford reviewed the American position in Vietnam, the Joint Chiefs of Staff offered no good answers to his questions. 

• Clifford began making a case for de-escalation. 

“Clean For Gene” 

• The antiwar forces had created a political campaign in Eugene McCarthy from Wisconsin. He said that no matter the odds, he would challenge Johnson in the 1968 Democratic primaries. 

• Idealistic college students got haircuts and shaves so that they could look “clean for Gene” as they campaigned for McCarthy in New Hampshire. 

• Johnson won the primaries, but his margin was so slim that it amounted to a defeat. 

LBJ Withdraws 

• White House speechwriters put together an announcement that bombing raids in North Vietnam would stop in hopes that peace talks could begin. 

• On March 31, Lyndon Johnson announced de-escalation in Vietnam. He also said that he would not run for reelection. 

• Johnson’s announcement shocked everyone. 

• The Vietnam War was one of the savviest, most effective politicians of the era. North Vietnam responded by sending delegates to a peace conference in Paris, where negotiations began taking place. 

King and Kennedy Assassinated 

• On April 4, MLK traveled to Memphis to support striking sanitation workers. James Earl Ray fatally shot MLK while he was relaxing on a balcony. 

• The violent reaction to MLK’s assassination eroded his campaign of nonviolence. Riots broke out in ghettos of the nation’s capital. 

• On June 5, Sirhan Sirhan assassinated JFK. 

• The loss of MLK and JFK was painful for many Americans. Both men exemplified the liberal tradition. 

• MLK sought reform for the poor of all aces without using a fist and a gun. Robert Kennedy rejected the war JFK had supported, and he sympathized with the poor and minorities. 

• Robert Kennedy was popular among traditional white ethics and blue-collar workers. 

• Though Lyndon Johnson intended to step down, he still dominated the Democratic Party and chose Hubert Humphrey as his successor. 

• As vice president, Humphrey was associated with the war and the old-style reforms that would not satisfy radicals. 

• The Republicans chose Richard Nixon as their presidential candidate. 

Convention Mayhem 

• Chicago was the fiefdom of Richard Daley, who is a symbol of machine politics. 

• Daley was determined that the radicals would not ruin the Democratic convention. The radicals were determined to ruin it. 

• When Daley refused to allow a peaceful march past the convention site, the radicals marched anyway. The police turned on the crowd in what looked like a police riot. 

• Reporters, medics, and other innocent bystanders were injured. At 3 a.m., the police invaded Eugene McCarty’s hotel headquarters and had to take some of his assistants from their beds. 

• President Johnson did not appear at his own convention. Theodore White wrote in his journal “The Democrats are finished.” 

Revolutionary Clashes Worldwide 

• The clashes in Chicago took place against the backdrop of a global surge in radicals. 

• In 1966, Chinese students were in the vanguard of Mao Zedong’s Red Guards. They were enforcing a Cultural Revolution that would purge China of all cultural influences. 

• Mao became a hero to radicals outside China despite the revolution persecuting millions of educated people. 

• In Italy, students denounced the Marxism of the USSR and the Italian Communist Party. 

• In France, French students at the Sorbonne in Paris rebelled against the university’s efforts to discipline activists. 

• Students in the Czech Republic rebelled against the Soviet domination of their nation until Soviet tanks crushed them. 

George Wallace 

• Radicals were not the only Americans alienated from the political system. 

• George Wallace, governor of Alabama, sensed this frustration. While running for president, he sought the support of blue-collar workers and the lower middle classes. 

• Wallace first came to national attention in 1963, when he barred integration of the University of Alabama. 

• Wallace pursued the Democratic presidential nomination in 1964. For the race in 1968, he created the American Independent Party. 

• George Wallace said that he was too sharp to appeal to law and order, militarism, and white backlash. He called for job-training programs, stronger unemployment benefits, national health insurance, a higher minimum wage, and a further extension of union rights. 

REFLECTION: During the mid-20th century, the United States found itself amid radical social, political, and cultural changes. Landmark legislation abolished discriminatory practices that allowed several previously marginalized groups to participate and be represented more. The pride and self-determination movements, based on culture, were at an all-time high, challenging systemic injustices and promoting a sense of identity. Poverty and a general lack of education and healthcare motivated efforts to make a better life for all, while inefficiency and resistance to change often stalled these efforts. Alternative lifestyles and environmental concerns challenged societal norms on everything from music to legislative reform. Legal strides toward the protection of individual rights brought justice to historical inequities, while conflicts abroad fueled debates about national priorities and values, further polarizing public opinion. Progress and tension were admixed in this framework, defining the era as one characterized by activism, innovation, and the quest for justice and equity.