Today’s Lecture
• Origins
• Election of 1960
– JFK and the ‘New
Frontier’
– Assassination, Legacy
and Representation
• The Student
Movement
– SDS/ Free Speech
Movement
– Anti-War Movement
– The Counterculture
• The Women’s
Movement
• Lyndon B Johnson
– 1964 Election
– The Great Society
• The End of
Liberalism
Seeds of the 1960s
• Affluence
– Suburbia and
conformity
– Political conservatism
• Baby Boom
– Teenage culture
• Rock and Roll; disposable income; fashion; cars (mobility)
– Expansion of higher education
• Cultural rebels
– Ginsberg, Kerouac, Pollock, Parker
1960 Election
• JFK had a traditional route to the presidency
– House (1946-52), Senate (1952-60) Oval Office (1960 – 63)
• Lyndon Baines Johnson as VP to balance ticket
• Eisenhower VP Richard M. Nixon ran on Rep. ticket
• Campaign
– ‘New Frontier’ vs ‘middle
way’
– TV debates
– African American vote
• Kennedy won by 118,000
votes
– Cries of corruption
The ‘New Frontier’
• Surrounded himself with
liberal intellectuals
• Young, ‘vibrant’ family
man;
•
‘new generation’
Policies that succeeded
• Housing Act
• Clean Air Act
• Increased minimum wage and
social security
• Military spending
• Tax cuts & economic growth
• Space – Apollo project
Policies that failed
•
•
•
•
Medicare
Inc. spending on Education
Department of Urban Affairs
Civil Rights
Dallas:
11/22/63
• Open top car – President
Kennedy shot by Lee Harvey
Oswald from the window of the Texas Schoolbook
Depository – Johnson sworn in on Air Force One
• Oswald a known Communist
sympathiser
- Shot two days later by
Jack Ruby
• A ‘Thousand-Day
Presidency’
JFK’s Legacy
"Today Kennedy dead has infinitely
more force than Kennedy living. . .
Part of the phenomenon is
attributable to the race's need for
heroes. . . But mostly the legend is
the deliberate creation of the
Kennedy family and its clients”
– Vidal (1967)
Representation
“History is a permanent debate… The representation of
American Presidents is particularly dependent on the climate
in which historians hand down their judgements”
– Arthur M. Schlesinger Jr
• Immediately after death: Hero of Camelot
– Death of the ‘promise’ as well as the man
• Shadow of Vietnam and Watergate: Revisionism
– Charming but superficial; reckless war monger, playboy
president, corrupt son and a danger to the nation
• Post-Cold War era: Post-Revisionism
– Liberal Cold Warrior, hampered by history
The Student Movement
• Origins
– Backlash to 1950s conformity/McCarthyism
– Civil Rights Movement
– The Beat Movement
• Students for a Democratic
Society (SDS)
– Port Huron Statement (1962)
“Any new left in America must be, in large
measure, a left with real intellectual skills,
committed to deliberativeness, honesty,
reflection as working tools. The university
commits the political life to be an adjunct
to the academic one”.
Free Speech Movement
• Berkeley Campus, 1964-65
• Mario Savio
– Worked for SNCC Freedom Summer
• “Don’t trust anyone over 30”
• Dec 1964 Occupy Sproul Hall
- Joan Baez
• Spreads to other campuses
• Traditionalist viewpoint
- Clark Kerr, ‘The Uses of the
University’ (1963)
- Higher grades than non-protesters
Anti-war Movement
• Antiwar movement bigger than the
New Left
- Singular aim: End the war above all else
• Could not agree on how to do it
- Non-violent Anti-war protests:
o
March 1965: Anti-war ‘teach-in’; April
1965: SDS March on Washington
o October 1965 First International Days of Protest’
- Growth of Black Power spurred radicalisation:
o Democratic National Convention: Chicago,
Aug 1968
o Confrontation between police and
protesters
Counterculture
• New York; San Francisco;
Communes; Cults
- Anti-war/ anti-nuclear/ peace
- ‘Hippies’/ ‘drop-outs’/ ‘draft
dodgers’/ ‘flower children’
- Environmentalism
- Sexual liberation
• Experimentation with Drugs
– Timothy Leary/ Acid Tests/ LSD
• Summer of Love (1967)
• 1969: Woodstock
- Charles Manson murders;
Altamont Free Concert
The Women’s Movement
• 1963
• The Feminine Mystique; PCSW
Report; Equal Pay Act
• Civil Rights Act (1964)
-
Title VII - Equal Employment
Opportunities Commission
• 1966: National Organization for Women (NOW)
Causes and Methodology:
•
Equality
-
•
•
De facto and de jure
The ‘Personal is Political’; Sisterhood;
The Body; employment; safety
Legislative rights; Consciousness raising
White middle-class women’s movement
Lyndon B. Johnson
• Political insider
• Won a Senate Seat in
1948 (defeated in
1941)
• 1951 Senate Majority
Whip
• 1953 Senate Minority
Leader
– Youngest ever
• 1955 Senate Majority Leader
- Most powerful majority leader of 20th Century
Johnson Campaign Ad, 1964
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDTBnsqxZ3k
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDTBnsqxZ3k
1964
Election
• LBJ vs Barry Goldwater
• Won 61% pop. vote
• Last great Democratic win;
pushed the Rep.’s to the right
The Great Society
• ‘The woman I really loved’
• Historical debate over
success
– Johnson’s luck v.
judgement
– The program’s success
Policies
Health and Education:
• Passed over 60 education bills
• ESEA (Apr 1965)/ HEA (Nov 1965)
• Medicare/ Medicaid Amendment,
(July 1965)
– Healthcare for the poor and elderly
Civil Rights:
• Civil Rights Act (July 1964)/ Voting
Rights Act (Aug 1965)
• Est. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission
Poverty and Welfare:
• Dept. of Transport and Dept. of Housing and Urban Development
• Public Broadcasting Network (PBS)
• National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities (NEH/ NEA)
The End of the
‘Liberal Hour’
• Cost of Vietnam
– Arrogance abroad –
thought US ideals
superior and should be
extended
• Weakening economy
– People turned against
reform programmes
– LBJ decided not to run
for re-election in 1968
• Radicalisation
Splintering and Decline
• Black Power movement
- Rejected white support
• Women’s Movement
- Radical Feminism;
Redstockings
• New Left/
Counterculture/ Anti-war
• Decline of SDS
• Weathermen
• Violence; extremism
• Rise of the Right
• Election of Nixon (1968)
1968 Election
• George Wallace won 13%
– Ultraconservative candidate
• Social turmoil boosted
Nixon’s campaign
– ‘Silent Majority’
– “Schools are for education,
not integration”
• Narrowest election victory since 1916
•
•
Pop Vote: Nixon: 31,770,237; Humphrey: 31,270,533;
Wallace: 9,906,141
Conservative, religious Sunbelt voters key to victory
• Shift to new bloc of Republican voters
Kent State Massacre
4th May 1970
• Protest against Nixon
bombing Cambodia
- Extension of the war
• Nixon deployed the National
Guard
• 4 students shot dead
‘Four Dead in Ohio…’
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming/ We're finally on our
own. This summer I hear the drumming/ Four dead
in Ohio. Gotta get down to it/ Soldiers are gunning us
down/ Should have been done long ago. What if you
knew her and/ Found her dead on the ground/ How
can you run when you know? Gotta get down to it/
Soldiers are gunning us down/ Should have been
done long ago. What if you knew her and/ Found her
dead on the ground/ How can you run when you
know? Tin soldiers and Nixon coming/ We're finally
on our own. This summer I hear the drumming/ Four
dead in Ohio.
Next week….
Conservatism