America
&
Civil
Rights
American Life after WWII – 1940s
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GI Bill – 1944 act helping veterans make a
smooth entry into civilian life by providing $
for college or advanced job training, also
loans for buying homes, farms, or businesses
Baby boom – dramatic rise in birthrate after
WWII, generation of people born 1945-1964
Truman wins 1948 presidential election
Fair Deal – Truman’s program, fashioned
after New Deal, relatively unsuccessful (lots
of opposition, foreign affairs more important)
Television Age – 1950s

TV immediately impacts politics &
elections
 Checkers
Speech
 Political campaign commercials
 McCarthy – Army hearings
 Kennedy/Nixon debates

Television becomes major method of
advertising
 Sponsors,

then commercials
Popular culture
 Game
shows, sitcoms featuring family values,
stereotypes, comedies
Society Trends in 1950s

Movement to suburbs
 Levittown

Proliferation of automobile
 Interstate
system
Increasing birthrates/large families
 End of decade = beginning of rebellion of
young people

Timeline
The United States
1961 U.S. launches Bay of Pigs invasion.
1962 U.S. and USSR face off in Cuban missile
crisis.
John Glenn is first American to orbit the earth.
1964 Congress passes major tax cut, Economic
Opportunity Act, and Civil Rights Act.
1965 Edward White II takes first spacewalk by an
American.
1966 Supreme Court rules in Miranda that criminal
suspects must be read their rights before
questioning.
1967 Thurgood Marshall becomes first African–
American justice on the Supreme Court.
1968 Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy
are assassinated.
1960 Presidential Election

Kennedy – Democrat
 From
wealthy Massachusetts family
 Roman Catholic
 Strong anti-communist stance
 Younger, represents hope and change
associated with young people & new ideas

Nixon – Republican
 VP
under Eisenhower, tied to Ike’s policies
 Appears to be opposed to new ideas

Kennedy wins by 120,000 votes, out of 69
million cast
Kennedy’s Presidency
At 43, youngest elected American
president
 Cabinet consists of intellectuals (many
from Ivy League schools), referred to as
“the best and the brightest” available

 Younger

people dominate
Domestic issues/problems will be priority
Kennedy’s New Frontier
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Increase public spending
 Increase the minimum wage to $1.25/hour
 Provide money for retraining workers and for
public works projects where unemployment is
above 6%
Lower taxes
 Area Development Act – give tax benefits to
industries locating in depressed areas
 Trade Expansion Act of 1962 – lower tariffs
Space exploration
 Set aside $9 billion for space exploration
 Construct launching facilities and mission
control centers
The New Frontier
SUMMARIZING
What were some of the programs of the New Frontier?
civil rights
The New Frontier
tax cuts
moon program
Peace Corps
Alliance for
Progress


Peace Corps – program to
train and send volunteers
to poor nations to serve as
educators, healthcare
workers, agricultural
advisors, etc.
 Increased image of US
throughout world
Alliance for Progress in
Latin America focusing on
building schools, houses,
and sanitation facilities
 Goal was to counter the
influence of
communism in the
region
Kennedy Assassination

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
November 22, 1963
Dallas, Texas
Lee Harvey Oswald – shoots
from Texas School Book
Depository
November 24, 1963 – Jack
Ruby shot Oswald
Warren Commission
 Oswald

acted alone
Many other ideas
 Conspiracies
http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/route.htm
Johnson’s Great Society

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Domestic programs for country
Idol was FDR – had been an
administrator in a New Deal
agency for Texas
Believed in govt’s role in
improving people’s lives
Great concern for
poor/underprivileged
Focused on many of Kennedy’s
ideas
“the Great Society demands an
end to poverty and racial
injustice”

War on Poverty, VISTA, Job Corps,
Civil & Equal Rights, Medicaid,
Medicare, Environment
“You can kill a man, but you can’t kill an idea.”
Medgar Evers, civil rights activist
What do you know?
How would you define the term civil rights?
What civil rights are Americans entitled to?
How would the loss of one or more of these rights affect your life?
Timeline
The United States
1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision
orders desegregation of public schools.
1955 Montgomery bus boycott begins.
1957 School desegregation crisis occurs in
Little Rock, Arkansas.
1963 Martin Luther King, Jr., delivers “I Have a
Dream” speech at March on Washington.
Medgar Evers is assassinated.
1964 Congress passes Civil Rights Act.
1965 Civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery,
Alabama, begins.
Congress passes Voting Rights Act.
Malcolm X is assassinated.
1967 Race riots erupt in major U.S. cities.
1968 Martin Luther King, Jr., is assassinated.
Causes of the Civil Rights
Movement

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Developments during World War II challenge
segregation
African-Americans demand end to de jure
segregation (law)
African-American churches promote non-violent
protests
African-Americans protest de facto segregation
(custom)
Television brings protests into homes
Effects of the Civil Rights
Movement



Constitutional and legal changes end de jure
segregation
 Civil Rights Acts of 1964 & 1968
 Voting Rights Act of 1965
Government promotes affirmative-action
programs
Economic, educational, and political
opportunities increase for African-Americans
Definitions

Discrimination
 the
process by which two stimuli differing in some aspect are
responded to differently
 the quality or power of finely distinguishing categorically
rather than individually

Prejudice
 injury
or damage resulting from some judgment or action of
another in disregard of one’s rights; detrimental to one’s
legal rights or claims
 preconceived judgment or opinion
 an opinion or leaning adverse to anything without just
grounds or before sufficient knowledge
 an irrational attitude of hostility directed against an
individual, a group, a race, or their supposed characteristics
Civil Rights Organizations
NAACP – 1909;
fought to secure
African-Americans
legal rights & end
racial violence
 Congress of Racial
Equality (CORE) –
1942; organization
dedicated to
nonviolent protest

Civil Rights Organizations
Southern Christian Leadership Conference
(SCLC) – 1957; organization formed to
coordinate and organize protest activities
occurring throughout US; committed to mass
nonviolent action
 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC) – 1960; student
organization to coordinate
sit-ins and other nonviolent
protests

Steps Toward Equal Rights
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Emancipation Proclamation
(1863)
13th Amendment (1865)
Civil Rights Act (1866)
14th Amendment (1868)
15th Amendment (1870)
Civil Rights Act (1875)
NAACP is founded (1909)
Brown v. Board (1954)
SCLC is founded (1957)
Civil Rights Act (1964)
Voting Rights Act (1965)
Civil Rights Act (1968)

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
Define/explain.
Why is it considered a
step towards equal
rights?
Was it successful?
Why/why not?
How does it affect us
today?
Readings

Read “Race Hatred Personified” & “We Were Just
Ordinary People” and answer the following questions.
 Write
down 5 words/phrases that apply to both
selections.
 Why were people so afraid of change?
 Why were they willing to resort to violence?
 Do these attitudes still exist in American society?
 Have we progressed?
 Have we regressed?

Native American Civil Rights
Issues
 Highest
unemployment rates in country
 Average income < half of white income
 Poor health/high disease rates
 Lower life expectancy
 Higher infant mortality

Termination Policy – 1950s US govt policy
to end N.A. status as govt wards, remove
from isolated reservations and integrate
into society
 200,000
N.A. relocated to cities, no resources to
support their adjustment to new life
 Policy = failure

Native American Civil Rights
1961 Document of Indian Purpose – condemns
termination, declares N.A. intent to control own
lives and Indian policy (aka self-determination)
 Supported
by LBJ
 Establishes National Council on Indian Opportunity to
help achieve this

Alcatraz Occupation 1969
 Abandoned
federal prison, N.A. claimed Treaty of Fort
Laramie (1868) gave them right to reclaim surplus
federal territory
 Lasts 18 months, forcefully removed in end
 Prompts return of other lands in NM, WA, ME, & CT due
to publicity
Native American Civil Rights

American Indian Movement – organization
calling for renewal of traditional cultures,
economic independence, better education for
N.A. children
 Driving
force of N.A. civil rights
 Not always committed to nonviolent action

Wounded Knee Stand-off
 Site
of last major Indian War conflict (massacre)
 AIM members take control of Sioux reservation, want
tribal govt investigated for misconduct
 71 day stand-off with federal agents
Native American Civil Rights

Gains for N.A.
 Higher
standards of living
 Greater economic opportunities (tourism, N.A.
owned businesses)
 Enhanced education, healthcare, voting rights, &
religious freedom
 Greater self-pride
 Improved appreciation for N.A. culture
Latino Rights Movement
Latinos also seek social justice – fair
distribution of advantages & disadvantages in
society
 First effort = farm fields of CA

 workers
get low wages, tough conditions
 CA farm workers go on strike in 1965
 joined by National Farm Workers Association, led
by Cesar Chavez
 take demands by protesting at grocery stores
nationwide
 strike is successful, Chavez is national figure