Reform and Rebellion in the Turbulent Sixties,

Transcription

1 Reform and Rebellion in the Turbulent Sixties,

2 I. John F. Kennedy: The Camelot Years

3 The Election of 1960 Kennedy ran against Vice President Nixon Although clearly more qualified than Kennedy, Nixon was outshone by Kennedy during the famous television debates Kennedy overcame large odds to become America s s first Catholic president Kennedy represented youth, vigor, idealism and important change; his presidency had been termed Camelot due to America s s almost royal regard for him, especially after his assassination

4 Civil Rights Kennedy s s successes in the area of advancing civil rights were modest in scope, yet he did make groundbreaking efforts considering the times Events in the South compelled Kennedy to propose strong civil rights legislation before Congress

5 LB Johnson As sitting Vice President, Johnson assumed the presidency after Kennedy s s 1963 assassination in Dallas An ambitious and effective politician, Johnson was successful in the areas of social reform His sweeping plan of social welfare, The Great Society,, was adopted primarily due to Johnson s s mastery of the legislative process

6 The Great Society was a set of domestic programs proposed or enacted on the initiative of Lyndon B. Johnson ( ). Two main goals of the Great Society social reforms: the elimination of poverty and racial injustice. In addition, several major initiatives in the areas of education, health, urban problems, transportation, consumer protection, and the environment were launched during this period. The Great Society was loosely based on the New Deal domestic agenda instituted by Roosevelt and initially drew from J. F. K. s programs.

7 The Great Society Under Attack Although working as planned for a few years, many of the Great Society s s goals were too ambitious or prepared in haste with massive sums of money seemingly disappearing with little results The American involvement with the Vietnam War dealt the Great Society a crippling blow

8 Escalation in Vietnam Kennedy s s commitment to the theory of containment led him to escalate the war in Vietnam with thousands of additional troops Kennedy s s reluctance to withdraw in the face of a losing war plagued LBJ as well and he continued the program of expansion to over half a million troops by 1968

9 Theory of containment Made up of two propositions: First, the communist bloc was monolithic and thus presented a menace without breaks or fissures. Second, just as that monolith was unbroken, so too must the Western line of containment permit no breach in the spread of communism

10 Student Activism As Americans began to protest their lengthy involvement in the Vietnam War, college students emerged as the strongest voice Some 300,000 people marched in protest in New York City, 1967; 100,000 tried to close the Pentagon In 1968, 221 major demonstrations were staged at more than 100 institutions of higher learning

11 Assassinations Aside from the death of John Kennedy in 1963, an assassin took the lives of Kennedy s brother (and U.S. Attorney General) Robert Kennedy in 1968 The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King lost his life to an assassin s s bullet on April 4, 1968 These deaths fed the sense of disillusionment expressed by the counterculture of the late sixties and early seventies

12 Segregation Racial Violence Jim Crow laws Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) Separate but equal doctrine Lyndon B. Johnson signs Civil Rights Act of historychannel.com/broadband/.com/broadband/clipviclipvi ew/index. /index.jsp?id=v2t17

13 Educational Segregation in the US prior to Brown Map

14 Brown v. Board of Education Equality written into laws: All men are created equal Fourteenth Amendment: nor shall any State deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws Yet, in 1896, the Plessy v. Ferguson decision held that separate accommodations for white and colored railway passengers was no a denial of the equal protections of the laws. The decision legitimated the separate but equal doctrine. Brown v. Board of Education (1954) based its decision on the belief that education is perhaps the most important social function of state and local governments Segregation of children on the basis of race deprives children of equal educational opportunities Segregation generates a feeling of inferiority that may affect their hearts and minds in a way unlikely ever to be undone Concluded that in the field of public education the doctrine of separate but equal has no place. Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal