American History II: Note Set #32: Eisenhower’s Domestic Policies
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Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower (1890 – 1969), 34th President (1953-61), Republican
“Dynamic Conservatism”
 Eisenhower was conservative with government spending while still supporting dynamic programs designed to help the poor
 Eisenhower cut military spending by building more nuclear weapons ( “more bang for the buck”)
 Eisenhower even extended many of FDR’s New Deal programs to help the disadvantaged
The Warren Court
 Eisenhower appointed Earl Warren as Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court in 1953
 Warren remained Chief Justice until his retirement in 1969
 The Warren Court handed down some of the most important decisions of the 20th Century
Eisenhower & Civil Rights
 Brown v Board of Education of Topeka, KS (1954)
 The U.S. Supreme Court overturned the Plessy v. Ferguson (1896) decision, rejecting the idea that racially segregated
schools could offer equal services
 The Court ordered the desegregation of all public schools “with all deliberate speed”
 Thurgood Marshall (1908 – 1993)
 His success in arguing the Brown v Board of Education case vaulted Marshall to the forefront of civil rights
lawyers
 Marshall had been Chief Counsel for the NAACP since the 1940s, until being appointed as a federal judge in
1961, and in 1967 became the first African-American on the U.S. Supreme Court
 The Southern Manifesto
 The Brown decision angered many white Southerners and in 1956, over 100 Southern members of Congress signed
the “Southern Manifesto” declaring the Court’s decision to be an “abuse of judicial power” and pledging to support
segregation through every legal avenue available
 The Montgomery Bus Boycott
 In Birmingham, Alabama, civil rights activist Rosa Parks (1913-2005) refused to give up her bus seat to a white
passenger on Dec. 1, 1955
 Parks was arrested for violating the city's segregation laws which required that blacks surrender their seats if
necessary to accommodate white passengers
 In response to Parks’ arrest, black leaders, led by a young minister named Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968)
organized a non-violent boycott of Birmingham's bus system
 Over 75% of the bus system’s riders were black, so the boycott seriously damaged revenues
 The boycott lasted for over a year, until Parks’ case was resolved when the Supreme Court declared the Birmingham
segregation law unconstitutional
 The success of the boycott brought Dr. King and his “civil disobedience” to national fame
 The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)
 Civil rights organization created in 1957 and composed of mainly Southern African-American ministers which worked
to end segregation and to encourage blacks to register to vote
 First president was Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
 Eisenhower’s Reaction
 President Eisenhower supported civil rights, but believed that racism and segregation would have to end gradually,
stating “I don’t believe you can change the hearts of men with laws or [court] decisions”
 Still, once the Supreme Court ordered schools desegregated, Eisenhower felt obligated as President to enforce that
decision
 The Little Rock Nine (Sept. 1957)
 Arkansas Gov. Orval Faubus ordered the National Guard to block 9 black students from enrolling at the all-white Little
Rock Central High School and encouraged white mobs to intimidate the students
 Eisenhower ordered the US Army to protect the black students , sending 1000 soldiers to encircle the school and
allow the students to register; the soldiers stayed for the rest of the school year
 The Civil Rights Act of 1957
 Congress acted to protect black’s right to vote by creating a civil rights division within the Department of Justice and
by creating the US Commission on Civil Rights to investigate and prosecute allegations of voting violations
 The Greensboro Sit-in (Feb. 1960)
 4 students at NC A&T University in Greensboro, NC, sat down at the racially segregated lunch counter at Woolworth’s
and demanded service, refusing to leave when they were denied; over the next few days, the number of students
involved grew and the sit-ins spread throughout the state, gaining national attention
 By summer, Woolworth’s relented and desegregated their lunch counters
 Jesse Jackson (1941 – Present)
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Student at NC A&T who was inspired by the sit-ins and went on to become a major, if often controversial,
civil rights leader and later ran for President in the 1980s
 Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
 Executive director of the SCLC, Ella Baker, held a convention at Shaw University in April 1960 to help students
organize themselves into the SNCC, a student-led civil rights organization dedicated to continuing the successes of
non-violent protest and to encouraging rural Southern blacks to register to vote
 In 1964, 3 SNCC members were murdered in Mississippi while attempting to register black voters, drawing national
attention to the group's efforts
1950's Popular Culture
 Television (TV)
 Television had been introduced just before WWII; by 1957, over 40 million televisions were in use
 TV quickly became Americans’ primary means of receiving information, whether it was the news, the latest fads and
fashions, or what new products were available for purchase
 Popular TV programs of the 1950's included I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, Gunsmoke, live sporting events, game
shows, and variety shows
 Movies
 Facing the stiff competition from television, Hollywood was forced to adapt
 3-D movies were introduced in 1952
 Cinemascope (a special projection system which required a large, curved screen) was created to make the moviegoing experience “grander” than watching TV
 Rock-n-roll
 Bill Haley and the Comets are usually credited with having the first #1 rock hit with “Rock Around the Clock” in 1955
 Rock-n-roll originated as a fusion of African-American based Rhythm & Blues with jazz and country music influences
 The sound caught on with teens, but was widely considered “immoral” and too sexual by the older generation
 Elvis Presley (1935 – 1977): “The King of Rock and Roll”
 Had his first major hit record, “Heartbreak Hotel,” and film “Love Me Tender” in 1956
 Recorded over 100 Top 40 hits in his 20 year career
 The Beat Generation
 Group of writers who criticized the meaningless conformity of American life in the 1950s and encouraged young
people to experience new artistic forms, and engage in experimentation with drugs and sex
 Needless to say, they were considered shocking and obscene to mainstream American society
 Allen Ginsberg (1926 – 1997)
 Poet; most famous work is Howl
 Shocked readers with his depictions of homosexual acts and drug use
 Ginsberg was essentially everything that mainstream America was not – a bisexual, communist Buddhist
who endorsed the use of LSD and marijuana
 Jack Kerouac (1922 – 1969)
 Wrote on a wide variety of topics, often spontaneously deciding what his next topic would be
 A writer of many personal contradictions – he was Catholic and anti-communist, but freely used marijuana
and supported homosexuals and other marginalized minorities
 Most famous work is the novel On the Road
 Died from complications from alcoholism
Eisenhower's Final Years
 Alaska & Hawaii
 In 1959, Eisenhower oversaw the admission of Alaska and Hawaii as the 49th and 50th states in the Union
 The Military-Industrial Complex
 In Eisenhower’s Farewell Address, he warned against unchecked military spending, stating “we must guard against
the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex”
 Essentially, Eisenhower was warning that defense contractors were becoming too friendly with the military high
command, creating a conflict of interest where their profits were more important than what was in the best interests
of the nation
 The Election of 1960
 Republicans nominated Eisenhower’s Vice-President, Richard Nixon
 Democrats nominated Massachusetts Senator John F. Kennedy
 The election featured the first televised presidential debates and it was the first time television was used as a serious
campaign tool
 Kennedy won in a tight election, in some ways due to his better manipulation of television