Unit 7 – 1969-2001
The New Politics of Identity

Civil Rights Movement led to
“identity” movements among other
minorities
 “Identity Politics”
 Emphasize cultural differences and
significance in recognizing these

Primarily among 3 distinct groups:
 African Americans
 Native Americans
 Latinos
African Americans Redefine the Movement
Many rejected the early Civil
Rights mantra that “we are all the
same”
 Found faith in a distinct African
American culture

 Created black studies departments at
colleges
 Kwanzaa (1966)
○ Celebration of African cultural
heritage
Mexican American Activism

Many lived in poverty
 1974: only 21% of Mexican American
men graduate high school

Cesar Chavez
 Head of the United Farm Workers
(UFW)
 Fought for better wages for migrant
laborers

La Raza
 Youths proclaimed their own heritage,
formed La Raza Unida
○ Political organization working to get
Mexican Americans elected to
representative parties
Native American Activism
“Red Power” Movement
 American Indian Movement (radical)

 Occupied Bureau of Indian Affair in 1972
and Wounded Knee in 1973

National Congress of American
Indians (moderate)
 Worked for legislation; Congress
returned millions of acres of land to
N.A.’s

Native Americans still live in worse
conditions than most Americans
Women’s Movement

The Feminine Mystique (1963)
 Women were plagued by “the problem with no name”
 Signaled the beginning of a new women’s movement

Accomplishments
 Awareness of issues dealing with women’s health and
rights, rape crisis centers, access to birth control
 Roe v.Wade (1973)
 Passage of ERA by Congress (was not ratified, 1982)

Opposition
 Came from women who argued that feminists were
trying to destroy traditional gender role, family unit
 Phyllis Schlafly
End in Vietnam

Nixon runs on platform: “peace with honor”
 “Vietnamization” – build-up of S. Vietnamese forces to fight
the war

Bombing/Invasion of Cambodia
 Anti-war protests surged across the nation

Pentagon Papers – published by NY Times in June 1971
 Showed that administration officials (LBJ and Nixon) had
repeatedly lied to the American public
January 27, 1973 – cease-fire agreement between U.S.
and North Vietnamese
 April 29, 1975 – Saigon overrun by North Vietnamese
troops

Nixon’s Foreign Policy

Recognized that American power
was waning
 Nixon Doctrine – economic aid to
countries, but no longer military aid
○ Essentially an end to containment,
and the Truman Doc. (1947)

Détente – relaxation of tensions
between U.S. and Soviets
 Both nations were struggling to fight
the Cold War economically
 Détente made sense to both
Nixon’s Foreign Policy

Opening of China
 America recognized Communist China (1979)
 Nixon visited in 1972
○ Perhaps his greatest achievement was the Opening of China

Middle East
 Deteriorating relations between the Israelis and the
Palestinians after the Six Day War (1967)
 Yom Kippur War (1973)
○ OPEC embargoed oil to U.S. and Israel’s allies
○ Led to oil crisis in America
Economic Crisis

Stagflation = high unemployment and high inflation
 Causes?
○ Vietnam War and Great Society increased spending
○ Trade deficits (1971 first time in history for U.S.)

Energy Crisis of 1973
 Oil shot up 350% (OPEC cut off oil)

Attempts to fix the economy
 Went off the gold standard (Nixon), curbed federal spending
and urged the Fed to tighten credit (Ford), Stimulate the
economy (Carter)
○ None worked
Economic Crisis

Impact?
 America began to “deindustrialize” in the 1970s
○ Became a service economy
 Outsourcing
 More married women joined the workforce
 Migration to the Sunbelt
○ Government had invested heavily in the region, defense jobs
 Lower taxes (37 cut property tax, 28 cut income tax)
 Consumer debt skyrocketed
Era of Cultural Transformation

Environmentalism
 Natural disasters
○ Cuyahoga River Fire (1970), Three
Mile Island (1979), Love Canal (1980)
 EPA created in 1970
Family roles and the acceptance of
sexuality were becoming more
liberal
 Racial diversity

 Seen as a good thing, instead of
something to overcome (think C.R.
movement of the 1950s)
Watergate and Beyond
Domestic Agenda

In many ways, very liberal
 Affirmative action, expanded
National Endowment for Humanities
and Arts, supported the ERA, signed
major environmental legislation, etc.

Also conservative
 State’s rights, federal revenue sharing
with states

Used Agnew to paint democrats as
supporters of hippies, crime, and
drugs
Paranoia

Saw enemies everywhere
 Made a list of enemies hundreds of
names long

The Plumbers
 Secret group authorized by the
Charles Colson, one of the
“Watergate Seven”; originally
in charge of the White House
Plumbers
president to engage in illegal
activities
 Example: broke into the
psychiatrist’s office treating Daniel
Ellsberg (released the Pentagon
Papers) to find information to
discredit him
 Worked to get Nixon reelected in
1972
Watergate

Plumbers bugged the DNC office
in Watergate Hotel in 1972
 Caught by police
Nixon did not know of the break-in
before it happened…
 …but once he learned of it, he
tried to cover it up

 Had CIA stop the FBI’s investigation

This was obstruction of justice – an
impeachable offense
“Who Would Think of Doing Such a Thing?”
- Washington Post, June 20, 1972
Watergate

The tapes
 Nixon recorded every conversation he
had in the Oval Office
○ …for his memoirs
 Congress fought to get them released

October 1973 – Spiro Agnew
resigns
 Accepted brides while governor of
Maryland

House began impeachment
proceedings; tapes were eventually
released (edited)
 Nixon constantly cursed, used racist
slurs
 Shocked the nation

He resigned the presidency on
August 9, 1974
Ford and Carter

Gerald Ford (1974-1977)
 Took over when Nixon resigned
 Immediately pardoned Nixon
○ Approval ratings plummeted
○ Accomplished little due to a
Democratic Congress which was
willing to flex its muscles

Jimmy Carter (D – 1977-1980)
 Peanut farmer, sold himself as an
honest outsider to Washington
○ By most accounts he was; also refused
much of the deal-making necessary to
pass legislation
Carter’s Foreign Policy

Carter’s Administration would be dominated by foreign
events
 Gave Panama Canal back to Panama (1977; 2000)
 Camp David Accords (HUGE accomplishment; peace between
Egypt, an Arab nation, and Israel)

Ultimately his administration was shaped by foreign failures
 Cold War deepened for a time
 Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan
 Iranian Hostage Crisis

He lost in 1980 to Ronald Reagan, in large part due to his
mixed success with foreign policy