US History
Core 100, Goal 11
Recovery, Prosperity, and Turmoil (1945-1980) –
The learner will trace economic, political, and social
developments and assess their significance for the
lives of Americans during this time period.
 Senator
Joseph R. McCarthy
 McCarthy suggested that some members
of Congress were “Communist inclined”
 His tactic of damaging reputations with
vague and unfounded charges became
known as McCarthyism

Witch Hunt
 Rise
in 1950 and fall in 1954 w/ Army
Hearings
 1954
 Supreme
Court ruled unanimously
 Declared segregation in public schools
unconstitutional
 Integration of schools
 Overturned Plessy v. Ferguson

9 African American
students desegregated
the schools
 President Eisenhower
sends the federal
troops to protect the
students
 Federal vs. State
conflict
 Rosa
Parks was arrested for refusing to
give up her seat on a bus to a white
person is Montgomery, Alabama
 Led to a bus boycott by African Americans
(lasted over a year)
 MLK led the boycott
 1960,
Greensboro, NC at Woolworth’s
lunch counter
 4 students at NC A&T sat at the counter.
They were refused service but remained at
the counter
 Led to national sit-in movement
 Group
of African Americans that were
protesting the segregation of interstate bus
travel
 Angry mobs attacked the buses in the
south
 Successful after Federal protection

Aug. 28, 1963: 200,000
people peacefully gather in
Washington, D.C. near the
Lincoln Memorial
 Wanted Congress to pass
the Civil Rights Act
 Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “I
have a dream” Speech
 Emotional Peak of Civil
Rights Movement
 Major
lead of the Civil
Rights Movement
 Inspired by Henry David
Thoreau’s Civil
Disobedience
 Non violence
 Assassinated
 Symbol
of the Black
Power Movement
 Advocated Black
Nationalism
 Conflicted w/ MLK’s
philosophy
 Assassinated

Meaning varied:
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Believed that African
Americans should control
their own social, political,
and economic direction of
their struggle
Pride, racial
distinctiveness,
Led to the formation of
the Black Panthers
 Stokely Carmichael:
converted to this
movement
 Civil
Rights Act of 1964: racial
discrimination illegal in most public places
 Voting Rights Act of 1965: racial
discrimination illegal in voting practices
 Title IX: sexual discrimination illegal in
federally funded schools
 Americans with Disabilities Act: (ADA
1990):
 CORE:
Congress Of Racial Equality
 SCLC: Southern Christian Leadership
Conference
 SNCC: Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee
**Wanted to register voters and push for
racial equality**
 Earl
Warren: Chief Justice of major civil
rights decisions

Increased individual rights
 Thurgood
Marshall: NAACP Lawyer,
Brown v. Board of Education, first African
American SC justice
 James Meredith: desegregated University
of Mississippi,
NO POLL TAXES!!
Presidential Secession
 Space
Race between the USSR and the
US during the Cold War
 Sputnik was a Soviet satellite and the
first in space
 Soviets had beaten the US again
 NASA created
 More attention on math and science in
schools
 Sputnik
 NASA
 Man
on the Moon
 Neil Armstrong
Causes
Containment
Domino Theory: don’t
want S. Vietnam to fall
to Communism
Gulf of Tonkin
Resolution
Ho Chi Minh becomes
leader of North
Vietnam and sets up
Communist
government
Course
1st TV War
½ million U.S. troops
Operation Rolling
Thunder
Napalm and Agent
Orange
Ho Chi Minh Trail
Consequences
Vietnam falls to
Communism
Divided U.S.
War ends Great
Society
War Powers Act
Tet Offensive
26th Amendment
My Lai Incident
Cynicism of
Government
Vietnamization
Protests in U.S. (Kent
State)
Pentagon Papers (NY
Times v. US)
 Aug
7, 1964
 Authorized the president to “take all
necessary measures to repel any armed
attack against the forced on the United
States and to prevent further aggression.”
 Congress handed their war powers to
the president (Lyndon B. Johnson)
 Spring
of 1968, platoon of Americans
under command of Lieutenant William
Calley massacred unarmed South
Vietnamese civilians in the village of My
Lai
 Most were old men, women, and children
 Public outrage in ‘69
 College
students led protests
 Kent State

4 kids were killed
 DNC:
(Democratic National Convention)
1968 in Chicago
 Police Riot
 Avoided draft, burned draft cards, draft
dodgers
 1973
 Reestablish
limits on presidential war
making powers
 Reaction to the Vietnam War
 President must inform Congress of any
commitment of troops aboard within 48 hrs
and to withdraw them in 60 – 90 days
without Congressional approval
 “War
on Poverty”
 Medicare: health care for the elderly
 Medicaid: health care for the poor
 HUD: Housing and Urban Development
 Head Start
 VISTA
 Mexican
American
 Civil rights activist
 founded: National
Farmer Workers
Association
 The
Feminine Mystique was a book
written by Betty Friedan in 1963
 Best-selling book
 Influenced the Women’s Rights Movement
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NOW: National Organization for Women
Women’s Liberation Movement
Gloria Steinem
Phyllis Schlafly
Equal Rights Amendment (ERA): FAILURE
Roe v. Wade (1973): Abortion rights
Sandra Day O’Connor: first woman on the
Supreme Court Justice
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Elvis
TV
Radio
Conformity
Levittowns / Suburbs
Beatniks
Advertising
Women’s Roles: homemakers
BABY BOOMERS
National Highway Act (interstates)
 Beatles
(British Invasion)
 Bob Dylan
 SDS: Students for a Democratic Society
 Woodstock
 Haight-Ashbury
 Counterculture
 House
of Un American Activities (HUAC)
 Julius and Ethel Rosenberg
 “Duck and Cover”
 Fallout shelters
 Hollywood Blacklist
 Alger Hiss
 Taft-Hartley Act: hurt unions
 Détente:
relaxation of tensions b/t US and
2 biggest Communist countries (Soviet
Union and China)
 China: Nixon becomes the first president
to visit Communist China
 SALT I and II: Strategic Arms Limitation
Treaty

Plan to limit nuclear arms
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Biggest scandal in US history
Illegal activities that occurred during the 1972
presidential campaign to help Richard Nixon win
reelection
About 40 people pleaded guilty or were
convicted by juries of crimes
Resulted in Nixon’s resignation from office in
1974
Causes a distrust of the government
U.S. v. Nixon: cannot claim executive privilege
when breaking a law