Kennedy’s “New Frontier” Spirit
A Charming President
• In 1960, Harvard graduate,
John F. Kennedy was
elected to president of the
United States—the
youngest man ever elected
to that office.
• Early on, JFK proposed the
Peace Corps, an army of
idealist and mostly
youthful volunteers to
bring American skills to
underdeveloped countries.
Camelot
• Kennedy’s picture perfect family led
Americans to romanticized about the Kennedy
era being similar to the Medieval kingdom of
Camelot
Kennedy’s Cabinet
• His brother,
Robert Kennedy,
as attorney
general.
• Business whiz
Robert S.
McNamara took
over the Defense
Department.
The New Frontier at Home
• [W]e stand today on the edge of a New
Frontier -— the frontier of the 1960's, the
frontier of unknown opportunities and perils,
the frontier of unfilled hopes and unfilled
threats. ... Beyond that frontier are uncharted
areas of science and space, unsolved problems
of peace and war, unconquered problems of
ignorance and prejudice, unanswered
questions of poverty and surplus.
• Kennedy’s social program was known as the
New Frontier, but conservative Democrats and
Republicans threatened to kill many of its
reforms.
• JFK did expand the House Rules Committee,
but his program didn’t expand quickly, as
medical and education bills remained stalled
in Congress.
• JFK also had to keep a lid on inflation and
maintain a good economy.
• However, almost immediately into his term,
steel management announced great price
increases, igniting the fury of the president,
but JFK also earned fiery attacks by big
business on the New Frontier.
• Kennedy’s tax-cut bill chose to stimulate the
economy through price-cutting.
• Kennedy also promoted a project to land
Americans on the moon, though apathetic
Americans often ridiculed this.
Rumblings in Europe
• JFK met Russian Premier Nikita Khrushchev
and was threatened, but didn’t back down.
• In August of the 1961, the Soviets began
building the Berlin Wall to separate East and
West Germany.
• Western Europe, though, was now prospering
after help from the super-successful Marshal
Plan.
• America had also encouraged a Common Market,
which later became the European Union (EU).
• The so-called Kennedy Round of tariff
negotiations eased trade between Europe and
the U.S.
• Unfortunately, French leader Charles de Gaulle
was one who was suspicious of the U.S., and he
rejected British application into the Common
Market.
Foreign Flare-Ups and “Flexible
Responses”
• There were many world problems at this time:
• The African Congo got its independence from
Belgium in 1960 and then erupted into
violence, but the United Nations sent a
peacekeeping force.
• Laos, freed of its French overlords in 1954,
was being threatened by Communism, but at
the Geneva conference of 1962, peace was
shakily imposed.
• Defense Secretary
McNamara pushed a
strategy of “flexible
response,” which
developed an array of
military options that
could match the
gravity of whatever
crises came to hand.
• One of these was the
Green Berets, the
Special Forces.
Cuban Confrontations
• Kennedy’s Alliance for Progress was dubbed
the Marshall Plan for Latin America, and it
aimed to close the rich-poor gap in Latin
American and thus stem Communism.
• However, too many Latin Americans felt that it
was too little too late.
Castro: Hero or Villain???
• Castro pledged to remove poverty,
inequality and dictatorship. He also
promised democracy to the Cuban
people
• He took over commercial farms and
replaced them with communal farms
worked by peasants
• 10% of the Cuban population left for the
USA and started a counter-revolutionary
movement to overthrow Castro
Bay of Pigs Fiasco
• March 1960, President Eisenhower gave the
CIA permission to secretly start training exiles
hoping that they would prompt a large scale
revolution when they returned to Cuba
• President Kennedy inherited this plan and
approved it despite doubts
• April 17, 1961: more than 1,300 Cuban exiles
landed on the southern coast at the Bay of
Pigs--It was doomed from the start
• The air strike failed to take out the Cuban air
force
• A small group who was supposed to distract
Castro’s forces never made it to shore
• When the main group landed, they
immediately faced 25,000 Cuban soldiers
reinforced with Soviet tanks and aircraft
• Most of the counter-revolutionaries were
imprisoned
• Kennedy was left looking embarrassed and
humiliated for the failure
• Kennedy paid a ransom of $53 million in food
and medical supplies in exchange for the
release of the imprisoned revolutionaries
Cuban Missile Crisis
• On October 14, 1962, photographs taken by
American planes revealed Soviet missile bases
(some with missiles that could reach the US
within minutes) on the island of Cuba
• On October 22, President Kennedy told the
American people about the existence of the
missiles and his plans to remove them (using
whatever force was necessary)
• For 6 days, the USA and USSR hovered on the
brink of nuclear war
• The US navy prepared a quarantine of Cuba to
prevent the Soviet ships carrying additional
missiles from coming within 500 miles of the
island
• 100,000 troops waited in Florida for an invasion
• Soviet ships stopped just short of the naval
blockade
• “We were eyeball to eyeball and the other
fellow just blinked” Sec. of State Dean Rusk
• Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles if
the US called off the invasion
• The US promised to remove missiles from
Turkey
• Both leaders were criticized for the event
• Hundreds of thousands of Cuban refugees
immigrated to the USA
Other Lines of Defense
• Both leaders realized the need to have
another safety feature in place before
deciding on nuclear war
• A hot line was created so the cold war leaders
could immediately communicate by phone if
another situation developed
• The nations also agreed to ban nuclear testing
in the atmosphere through the Limited Test
Ban Treaty
• In June, 1963, Kennedy spoke, urging better
feelings toward the Soviets and beginning the
modest policy of détente, or relaxed defense.
The Struggle for Civil Rights
• While Kennedy had campaigned a lot to
appeal to Black voters, when it came time to
help them, he was hesitant and seemingly
unwilling, taking much time to act.
• In the 1960s, groups of Freedom Riders
fanned out to try to end segregation, but
White mobs often reacted violently towards
them.
• Slowly but surely, Kennedy urged civil rights
along, encouraging the establishment of the
SNCC, a Voter Education Project to register the
South’s Blacks.
• WWII veteran, 29 year-old James Meredith
tried to enroll at the University of Mississippi,
but White students didn’t let him, so Kennedy
had to send some 400 federal marshals and
3000 troops to ensure that Meredith could
enroll in his first class.
Battle in Birmingham
• Martin Luther King Jr. was asked to go to
Birmingham to test the non violence strategy
in a city that was notorious for its total
segregation and violence
• King and other members of the SCLC were
arrested on April 12th, 1963
• While imprisoned, King wrote the “Letter from
a Birmingham Jail”
• King tried to explain why the African
Americans were pushing for equality
“…Perhaps it is easy for those who have never felt the stinging
darts of segregation to say, "Wait." But when you have seen vicious
mobs lynch your mothers and fathers at will and drown your sisters
and brothers at whim; when you have seen hate filled policemen
curse, kick and even kill your black brothers and sisters; when you
see the vast majority of your twenty million Negro brothers
smothering in an airtight cage of poverty in the midst of an affluent
society;…when you have to concoct an answer for a five year old
son who is asking: "Daddy, why do white people treat colored
people so mean?..."
Children’s Civil Rights Crusade
• Over a thousand children in Birmingham
demonstrated for equality on April 20th
• The police commissioner arrested 959 of them
• The entire American public watched in horror
as the Black protesters were treated with such
contempt, since the actions were shown on
national TV.
• Later, on June 11, 1963, JFK made a speech
urging immediate action towards this “moral
issue” in a passionate plea.
Freedom Riders
• Members of CORE decided to set out on a 2
bus trip to test the Supreme Court decision
that made segregated seats and bus terminals
illegal
• They hoped that if they encountered violent
reactions, the Kennedy administration would
have to enforce the law
• They endured violent beatings in Birmingham,
Alabama
• The 2nd bus continued to Anniston, Alabama
where a mob pierced the tires of the bus and
followed it out of town.
• When the bus had to stop because of the flat
tires, a fire bomb was thrown at the windows
• As the people escaped the burning bus, the
mob beat them
• TV media covered the violence the Freedom
riders experienced and proved the
desegregation law was not being followed
• President Kennedy eventually sent federal
marshals to escort the riders to Jackson,
Mississippi
• President Kennedy realized that a new civil
rights act was needed
• Kennedy demanded Congress pass a new
law that would ban segregation in all
public facilities and give the US Attorney
General the power to file school
desegregation suits
March on Washington
• Labor leader, A. Philip Randolph and SCLC
member Bayard Rustin organized a massive
civil rights demonstration to show support for
the Civil Rights Bill being debated by Congress
• On August 28, 1963, more than 250,000
people marched to the Lincoln Memorial
• Dr. King gave his famous, “I Have A Dream”
speech asking Americans to live in peace and
harmony
• Racial peace and harmony did not happen,
however
• In September 1963, a bomb exploded in a
Birmingham church, killing four Black girls
who had just finished their church lesson.
Stepping into the Vietnam Quagmire
• The American-backed Diem government had
shakily and corruptly ruled Vietnam since
1954, but it was threatened by the Communist
Viet Cong movement led by Ho Chi Minh.
• JFK slowly sent more and more U.S. troops to
Vietnam to “maintain order,” but they usually
fought and died, despite the fact that it was
“Vietnam’s war.”
Nationalist Movement in Vietnam
• Opposition to French control of Vietnam grew
in strength in the 1930’s and 1940’s
• Ho Chi Minh organized the Indochinese
Communist Party and established the
Vietminh—their goal was to form an
independent nation
• Nationalism seemed like a real possibility after
WWII when the Japanese occupation of the
region ended
•After the failure of
containment in China
and Korea, the USA
was even more
determined to stop the
spread of communism
Domino Theory
• President Eisenhower compared the situation
in SE Asia to a row of dominoes. If one nation
fell to communism, the rest would quickly
follow
Geneva Accords 1954
• The Vietminh, Southern Vietnamese nationalists,
the USA, and several other nations met to settle a
peace agreement
• Vietnam was divided at the 17th parallel
• Communists had control of N. Vietnam and the
capital, Hanoi
• Nationalists had control of S. Vietnam and the
city of Saigon
• An election in 1956 was supposed to unite the
nation
• Ho Chi Minh gained the
support of the
Vietnamese peasants
• His war experience
fighting against the
Japanese and French
made him a national
hero
• Ngo Dinh Diem, the leader of South Vietnam
feared the 1956 election would be a victory for
communism and refused to participate
• President Eisenhower promised Diem military aid
if he created a stable government in the South
• Diem went back on his part of the bargain and
allowed a corrupt government that suppressed
opposition, did little to help the peasants, and
alienated the Buddhist population
• The Vietcong, a communist group in South
Vietnam, formed in response to the corrupt
Diem government
• The National Liberation Front (NLF) part of the
Vietcong assassinated thousands of South
Vietnamese government officials
• Ho Chi Minh supported the Vietcong with
weapons (guerilla tactics)
• President Kennedy had to prove that the
Democrats were not soft on communism, so
he authorized increased financial aid to the
Diem government and by 1963, 16,000 US
military personnel were in Vietnam to train S.
Vietnamese troops
• To counter the growing Vietcong threat, the
Diem government started moving all villagers
to protected areas
• Instead this strategy increased resentment
Increased Opposition From Within
• To counter the growing Vietcong threat, the
Diem government started moving all villagers
to protected areas on the Strategic Hamlet
Program
• Diem also increased his attacks on the
Buddhists who had demonstrations against his
government
• Hundreds of clerics were imprisoned or killed
and the Buddhist temples were destroyed
•Americans saw
footage of
Buddhist monks
and nuns burning
themselves to
death in protest
Eliminating Diem
• It became clear that if S. Vietnam was to remain
stable, the Diem government could not continue
• On November 1, 1963, the US military supported
a military coup to end the Diem regime
• Diem was assassinated (against Kennedy’s
wishes)
• A few weeks later President Kennedy was also
assassinated
The Killing of Kennedy
• On November 22, 1963, while riding down a
street in Dallas, Texas, JFK was shot and killed,
allegedly by Lee Harvey Oswald, who was himself
shot by self-proclaimed avenger Jack Ruby
• There continues to be controversy and scandal
and conspiracy over the assassination.
• Lyndon B. Johnson became the new president of
the United States as only the fourth president to
succeed an assassinated president.
The LBJ Brand on the Presidency
• Lyndon Johnson had
been a senator in the
1940s and 50s
• His idol was Franklin D.
Roosevelt
• He could manipulate
Congress very well
(through his in-your-face
“Johnson treatment”)
The Great Society
• Goals: Combat poverty and inequality,
increase education and opportunities for all
Americans
• Reflected its New Deal inspirations.
• Public support for the program was aroused
by Michael Harrington’s The Other America,
which revealed that over 20% of American
suffered in poverty
Johnson Battles Goldwater in 1964
• In 1964, LBJ was opposed by Republican
Arizona senator Barry Goldwater
• Goldwater attacked the federal income tax,
the Social Security system, the Tennessee
Valley Authority, civil rights legislation, the
nuclear test-ban treaty, and the Great Society.
• LBJ won in a land slide victory
The Great Society Congress
• Johnson’s win was also coupled by sweeping
Democratic wins that enabled him to pass his
Great Society programs.
• Congress doubled the appropriation on the
Office of Economic Opportunity to $2 billion
and granted more than $1 billion to refurbish
Appalachia, which had been stagnating.
• Johnson also created the
Department of
Transportation
• The Department of
Housing and Urban
Development (HUD),
headed by Robert C.
Weaver, the first Black
cabinet secretary in the
United States’ history.
Great Society Helps America
• LBJ also wanted aid to education, medical care for
the elderly and indigent, immigration reform, and
a new voting rights bill.
• Johnson gave money to students, not schools,
thus avoiding the separation of church and state
by not technically giving money to Christian
schools.
• In 1965, new programs called Medicare and
Medicaid were installed which have certain rights
to the elderly in terms of medicine and health
maintenance.
• The Immigration and
Nationality Act of 1965
abolished the “national
origin” quota and
doubled the number of
immigrants allowed to
enter the U.S. annually,
to 290,000.
• An antipoverty program
called Project Head
Start improved the
performance of the
underprivileged in
education.
Steps forward for the Civil Rights
Movement
• As a president, LBJ went from conservative to
liberal, helping pass a Civil Rights Act of 1964,
which banned all racial discrimination in most
private facilities open to the public, including
theaters, hospitals, and restaurants.
• Also created was the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission (EEOC), which was
aimed at eliminating discriminatory hiring.
Securing the Right to Vote
• Johnson’s Voting Rights Act of 1965 attacked
racial discrimination at the polls.
• The 24th Amendment eliminated poll taxes
• During the “freedom summer” of 1964, both
Blacks and White students joined to combat
discrimination and racism and encourage
black voters to register.
• However, in June of 1964, a Black and two
White civil rights workers were found
murdered, and 21 White Mississippians were
arrested for the murders, but the all-White
jury refused to convict the suspects.
March from Selma
• Dr. King and the SCLC organized a 50 mile
protest march from Selma, Alabama to the
capital of Montgomery
• March 7, 1965 became known as Bloody
Sunday after marchers were brutally beaten
by police
• On March 21, a new march was organized, this
time with the protection of federal troops
The Voting Rights Act of 1965
• LBJ pushed Congress to pass this law which
eliminated literacy tests
• Federal examiners could enroll voters that had
been denied by the local officials
• African American voters in the south
increased by 50%
Black Power
• 1965 began a time of violent Black protests
(the Watts riots of LA)
• Black leaders such as Malcolm X started
mocking Martin Luther King, Jr.
• Malcolm X was inspired by the Nation of Islam
and its founder, Elijah Muhammed, urged
action now, even if it required violence
• The Black Panther
openly brandished
weapons in Oakland,
California.
• Trinidad-born Stokely
Carmichael led the
Student Non-Violent
Coordinating
Committee urged an
abandonment of
peaceful
demonstrations.
• Black power became a rallying cry by Blacks
seeking more rights, but just as they were
getting them, more riots broke out, and
nervous Whites threatened with retaliation.
• Tragically, on April 4, 1968, Martin Luther
King, Jr. was assassinated.
• Quietly, though, thousands of Blacks
registered to vote and went into integrated
classrooms, and they slowly built themselves
into a political power group.
The Six Day War
• Israel stunned the
world by defeating
Egypt (and its Soviet
backers) and gaining
new territory in the
Sinai Peninsula, the
Golan Heights, the Gaza
Strip, and the West
Bank of the Jordan
River, including
Jerusalem.
The Cultural Upheaval of the 1960s
• In the 60s, the youth of America
experimented with sex, drugs,
and defiance.
• They protested a lot against
conventional wisdom and beliefs.
• Such poets like Allen Ginsberg
and novelists like Jack Kerouac
voiced these opinions.
• Movies like Rebel without a Cause
also showed this belief.
• At the UC Berkeley, in 1964, a so-called Free
Speech Movement began.
• Kids tried drugs, “did their own thing” in new
institutions, and rejected patriotism.
• In 1948, Indiana University “sexologist” Dr.
Alfred Kinsey had published Sexual Behavior in
the Human Male, and had followed that book
five years later with a female version
• His findings about the incidence of premarital
sex and adultery were very controversial.
• The Manhattan Society, founded in LA in 1951,
pioneered gay rights.
• Students for a Democratic Society, once
against war, later spawned an underground
terrorist group called the Weathermen.
• "Weather Underground Organization" (WUO).
• The bombing attacks mostly targeted
government buildings, along with several
banks.
• Most were preceded by evacuation warnings,
along with messages identifying the issue the
attack was intended to protest.
For the bombing of the US capitol, on March 1, 1971, they
issued a communiqué saying it was "in protest of the U.S.
invasion of Laos."
For the January 29, 1975 bombing of the Us state
Department building, they stated it was "in response to
escalation in Vietnam.
Counter Culture Movement
• The upheavals of the 1960s can largely be
attributed to the three P’s: the youthful
population bulge, the protest against racism and
the Vietnam War, and the apparent permanence
of prosperity, but as the 1970s rolled around, this
prosperity gave way to stagnation.
• However, the “counterculture” of the youths of
the 1960s did significantly weaken existing
values, ideas, and beliefs.
Johnson Takes Over American
Involvement in Vietnam
• President Kennedy had indicated that he was
going to withdraw US forces and let the
Vietnamese fight for themselves
• When JFK died, President Johnson became
more determined to keep communism from
taking over Vietnam and escalated American
involvement in the conflict
The Maddox situation
• The USS Maddox reported enemy fire while
positioned off the coast of N. Vietnam in the
Gulf of Tonkin (Aug, 1964)
• This alleged attack prompted Pres. Johnson to
launch bombing raids on N. Vietnam
• The American people did not know that the
US had been conducting secret raids and the
USS Maddox was in the Gulf to collect
information
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
• Johnson asked Congress for
the power to take “all
necessary measures to repel
any armed attack against the
forces of the US and to
prevent further aggression.”
• It was not a formal declaration
of war against the N.
Vietnamese, but it did give
Pres. Johnson broad military
powers in Vietnam
The Vietnam War Becomes
Americanized
• Johnson had prepared this request months
before the Maddox incident, he had been
waiting for the right opportunity to push it
through Congress
• With his new powers, Operation Rolling
Thunder started bombing N. Vietnam in
February 1965
• An additional 50,000 American troops were
sent to battle the Vietcong
• Many Americans supported military
involvement in 1965 as an effort to confront
communism and stop it
• The fate of Vietnam was perceived to be
important to determine the future of the rest
of the world
• By 1967, 500,000 American troops, led by
General Westmoreland, were supporting the
Army of the Republic of Vietnam
Fighting the Enemy
• Superior American weapons and training had
little success against the Vietcong guerilla
tactics
• Gen. Westmoreland adopted a war of attrition
strategy to wear down the enemy’s morale (it
didn’t work)
• The US saw it as a military struggle, the
Vietcong saw it as a battle for their existence
Battling for hearts and minds
• Plan to win over the rural peasant populations
so the Vietcong would not have a place to
hide
• The military use of napalm and Agent Orange
destroyed much of the villages and farmland
• The search and destroy missions to root out
Vietcong sympathizers displaced villagers and
increased resentment
Vietnam Topples Johnson
• Johnson was personally suffering at the American
casualties, as he wept as he signed condolence
letters and even prayed with Catholic monks in a
nearby church at night, secretly
The Tet Offensive
• The Vietcong launched surprise attacks in
1968 during the cease fire for Tet, the New
Year holidays
• Using coffins, for the funerals of war victims,
the Vietcong smuggled in weapons and
attacked over 100 towns in the South
• The US embassy in Saigon was attacked and 5
Americans were killed
• The offensive continued for over a month and
resulted in 32,000 Vietcong casualties compared
to the American/ARVN forces of 3,000 (a military
victory??)
• The American people had been told the enemy
had been close to defeat, but the Vietcong had
just carried out massive attacks in the South
• The Johnson administration seemed to have
questionable creditability and American opinion
of the war shifted against it
"WE ARE MIRED IN STALEMATE"
BROADCAST, FEBRUARY 27, 1968
College Students Organize Protests
• Students for a Democratic Society organized
several war protest rallies in the national
capitol
• President Johnson changed the draft
deferment so only students with good
academic standings were exempt—this
prompted more campus protests
Why did the Youth Get Involved?
• The conflict in Vietnam was a civil war and the
US had no right to be there
• Some claimed the government of S. Vietnam
(that the US was supporting) was corrupt and
no better than communism
• The US could not police the entire war—
redirecting our focus away from other
important areas
• War was morally wrong
Anti-War movement Grows
• Singers, songwriters, poets, found inspiration
in the anti-war movement
• 500,000 protestors gathered in NYC and
burned their draft cards
• Men fled to Canada to escape the draft;
others who stayed were arrested
• An October 1967 protest march near the
Pentagon resulted in confrontation with
military police (1500 injured, 700 arrested)
Monitoring War Protests at Home
• Johnson also ordered the CIA to spy on
domestic antiwar activists, and he encouraged
the FBI to use its counterintelligence program
(“Cointelpro”) against the peace movement.
• More and more, America was trapped in the
awful Vietnam War, and it couldn’t get out,
thus feeding more and more hatred and
resentment to the American public.
A Nation Divided
• Doves—US should withdraw
from the war
• Hawks—American should use
more military force to win the
war
• After the Tet Offensive,
American opinion shifted
towards a more equal balance
of the 2 perspectives
• March 31, 1968—Johnson addressed the
nation and stated that the American policy in
Vietnam would drastically change
• The US would negotiate to end the war
• Escalation would end, bombings would ease,
and South Vietnam would assume a larger
role in the war (Vietnamization)
• De-escalation
The Upcoming 1968 Election
• Johnson also saw a challenge for the
Democratic ticket from Eugene McCarthy and
Robert Kennedy, and the nation, as well as the
Democratic Party, was starting to be split by
Vietnam.
• On March 31, 1968, Johnson declared that he
would stop sending in troops to Vietnam
• He also stated he would not run for reelection in 1968, shocking America.
The Presidential Sweepstakes of 1968
• On June 5, 1968, Robert Kennedy was shot
fatally, and the Democratic ticket went to
Hubert Humphrey, Johnson’s “heir.”
• The Republicans responded with Richard
Nixon, paired with Spiro Agnew
• There was also a third-party candidate:
George C. Wallace, former governor of
Alabama, a racist who wanted to bomb the
Vietnamese to death
The 1968 Democratic National
Convention in Chicago
• 10,000 of anti-war protestors arrived at the
convention and met police resistance
• The riot was televised and caused the political
party itself to become divided over the
war/platform
• Chaos both outside and inside the convention
hall
• The turmoil in the Democratic party helped
Nixon win the presidency
Victory for Nixon
• A minority president,
he owed his
presidency to
protests over the
war, the unfair draft,
crime, and rioting.
• His conservative
platform would alter
the course for
America
The Feminist Movement
• In the 1960’s, women began to voice their
concerns and use the power of the ballot to
draw attention to the social and economic
inequality that women faced in the workforce
• Women were paid less then men, although
they performed the same job. They were also
seldom promoted to managerial positions
National Organization for Women
• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was
also a victory for women. It
created the Equal Employment
Opportunity Commission
• Some women did not feel it
adequately addressed women’s
grievances
• NOW was established in 1966 to
peruse women’s goals of
economic and social equality
• NOW pushed for a ban on gender
discrimination in the hiring process
• Gloria Steinem also became a political activist
and supporter of the women’s liberation
movement
Women’s
Strike for
Equality in
NYC 1970
• The women’s liberation movement also
supported the Equal Rights Amendment (1972) to
the Constitution which would guarantee men and
women’s equal rights and protections under the
law
• A conservative group, The New Right, strongly
opposed this proposed amendment
• As a result, not enough states ratified the ERA
and it did not become part of the US Constitution
Legacy of the Women’s
Liberation Movement
• Women’s traditional roles were redefined
• Women’s attitudes about marriage and family
changed
• More career opportunities opened up for
women
• There was still some opposition to promoting
women to top executive/leadership
positions—known as “The Glass Ceiling”
Helping the Farm Worker
Cesar Chavez
• Latin American immigrants
worked in the fruit and
vegetable fields of California for
little pay
• Cesar Chavez believed that if the
farm workers unionized, they
would have bargaining power
• The United Farm Workers
Organization Committee was
formed in 1966
• Using non violence, Chavez encouraged
supermarkets and shoppers to boycott
California grapes when the owners of the
fields refused to recognize the union
• He also went on a 3 week hunger strike and
lost 35 pounds
• The boycott and the strike worked and the
UFWOC and the growers negotiated for higher
wages and benefits