Chapter 28

Theme: Organizing Peace

• In 1955 Montgomery's black community mobilized when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat and comply with segregation laws.
  
• Led by Martin Luther King, Jr., a Baptist minister, a boycott of busses was launched.
  
• A network of local activists organized car pools using private cars to get people to and from work.
  
• Leaders endured violence and legal harassment, but won a court ruling that the segregation ordinance was unconstitutional.
  

Civil Rights After World War II

• Rock The WWII experiences of African Americans laid the foundations for the subsequent struggle.
  
• A mass migration to the North brought political power to African Americans working through the Democratic Party.
  
• The NAACP grew in numbers and its Legal Defense Fund initiated a series of lawsuits to win key rights.
  
• Key ways the African Americans were breaking color barriers included:
  
  • Jackie Robinson's entrance into major league baseball
    
  • Ralph Bunche's winning a Nobel Peace prize
    
• A new generation of jazz musicians created be-bop.
  

Segregation & Brown vs. Board

• In the South, segregation and unequal rights were still the law of the land.
  
• Law and custom kept blacks as second-class citizens with no effective political rights. African Americans had learned to survive and not challenge the situation.
  
  • Brown v. Board of Education
    
• The NAACP initiated a series of court cases challenging the constitutionality of segregation. (trying to turn around Plessy vs. Ferguson.)
  
• Thurgood Marshall was a key lawyer for the NAACP and fought Brown vs. Board of Education for them.
  
• In Brown v. Board of Education, newly appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren led the court to declare that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.
  
• The court postponed ordering a clear timetable to implement the decision.
  
• Southern whites declared their intention to nullify the decision.
  

Crisis in Little (1^st of many school desegregations)

• In Little Rock, Arkansas, a judge ordered integration.
  
• The governor ordered the National Guard to keep African American children out of Central High. (Orvil Faubus)
  
• When the troops were withdrawn, a riot erupted forcing President Eisenhower to send in more troops to integrate the school.
  
  • (He & Eisenhower made a deal, Faubus backtracks on his deal, troops are withdrawn)
    

Martin Luther King and the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference)

• Martin Luther King, Jr. emerged from the bus boycott as a prominent national figure.
  
• A well-educated son of a Baptist minister, King taught his followers nonviolent resistance, modeled after the tactics of Mohandas Gandhi.
  
• The civil rights movement was deeply rooted in the traditions of the African American church.
  
• King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to promote nonviolent direct action to challenge segregation.
  

Sit-Ins

• African American college students, first in Greensboro, NC, began sitting in at segregated lunch counters.
  
• Nonviolent sit-ins were:
  
  • widely supported by the African American community
    
  • Accompanied by community-wide boycotts of businesses that would not integrate.
    

SNCC and the "Beloved Community"

• A new spirit of militancy was evident among young people.
  
• 120 African American activists created the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to promote nonviolent direct challenges to segregation. (SCLC & SNCC work together with MLK to make things happen)
  
• The young activists were found at the forefront of nearly every major civil rights battle.
  

The Election of 1960 and Civil Rights

• The race issue had moved to center stage by 1960.
  
• As Vice President, Nixon had strongly supported civil rights.
  
• But Kennedy pressured a judge to release Martin Luther King, Jr. from jail.
  
• African American voters provided Kennedy's margin of victory, though an unfriendly Congress insured that little legislation would come out.
  
• Attorney General Robert Kennedy used the Justice Department to force compliance with desegregation orders.
  

Freedom Rides

• The Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) sponsored a freedom ride of biracial teams to ride interstate buses in the South.
  
• The FBI and Justice Department knew of the plans but were absent when mobs firebombed a bus and severely beat the Freedom Riders.
  
• There was violence and no police protection at other stops.
  
• The Kennedy Administration was forced to mediate a safe conduct for the riders, though 300 people were arrested.
  
• A Justice Department petition led to new rules that effectively ended segregated interstate buses.
  

The Limits of Protest

• Where the federal government was not present, segregationists could triumph.
  
• In Albany, Georgia local authorities kept white mobs from running wild and kept police brutality down to a minimum.
  
• Martin Luther King, Jr. was twice arrested, but Albany remained segregated.
  
• When the federal government intervened, as it did in the University of Mississippi, integration could take place. (5,000 troops in the end.)
  

Birmingham

• In conjunction with the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), local activists in Birmingham, Alabama planned a large desegregation campaign.
  
• Demonstrators, including Martin Luther King, Jr., filled the city's jails.
  
• King drafted his Letter From a Birmingham Jail.
  
• A TV audience saw water cannons and snarling dogs break up a children's march.
  
• A settlement was negotiated that desegregated businesses. (though denounced by many southern whites) (Kennedy sent in 3,000 troops to break up the violence) (Spike Lee- 4 Little Girls)
  
• Birmingham changed the nature of the civil rights movement by bringing in black unemployed and working poor for the first time.
  

JFK and the March on Washington

• The shifting public consensus led President Kennedy to appeal for civil rights legislation.
  
• A. Philip Randolph's (Head of the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters) old idea of a march on Washington was revived.
  
• The march presented a unified call for change and held up the dream of universal freedom and brotherhood. (largest political assembly in American history
  

LBJ and the Civil Rights Act of 1964

• The assassination of John Kennedy threw a cloud over the movement as the new president, Lyndon Baines Johnson, had never been a good friend to civil rights.
  
• LBJ used his skills as a political insider to push through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that put a virtual end to Jim Crow. ("Prohibited discrimination in places of…. On basis of race, color, religion, and national origin. Authorized Justice Department to desegregate schools, finically helped.)
  

Mississippi Freedom Summer

• In 1964 civil rights activists targeted Mississippi for a "freedom summer" that saw 900 volunteers come to open up this closed society.
  
  • Mississippi-forerunner of Mississippi Black Codes… Try to desegregate.
    
• Two white activists and a local black activist were quickly killed. (Movie- Mississippi Burning -> FBI was not there)
  
• Tensions developed between white volunteers and black movement veterans.
  
• The project riveted national attention on Mississippi.
  
• With an overwhelming Democratic victory in the 1964 elections, movement leaders pushed for federal legislation to protect the right to vote.
  

Malcom X and Black Consciousness (Malcolm was his first name & X was his slave last name- didn't know)

• Many younger civil rights activists were drawn to the vision of Malcolm X, who:
  
  • ridiculed integrationist goals
    
  • urged black audiences to take pride in their African heritage
    
  • break free from white domination
    
• He broke with the Nation of Islam (whites were not the dominated race- blacks were, whites came from black people), made a pilgrimage to Mecca, and returned to America with changed views.
  
• He sought common ground with the civil rights movement, but was murdered in 1965.
  
• Even in death, he continued to point to a new black consciousness.    (Black Power)
  

Selma

• In Selma, Alabama, whites had kept blacks off the voting lists and brutally responded to protests.
  
• A planned march to Montgomery ended when police beat marchers.
  
• Just when it appeared the Selma campaign would fade, a white gang attacked a group of Northern whites who had come to help out, one of whom died.
  
• President Johnson addressed the nation and thoroughly identified himself with the civil rights cause, declaring "we shall overcome."
  
• The march went forward.
  

The Voting Rights Act of 1965

• In August 1965 LBJ signed the Voting Rights Act that authorized federal supervision of voter registration in the South.
  

Mexican Americans

• "Operation Wetback"
  
• Mexican Americans formed groups to fight for their rights and used the courts to challenge discrimination.
  
• Legal and illegal Mexican migration increased dramatically during and after WWII. During the 1950s, efforts to round up undocumented immigrants led to a denial of basic civil rights and a distrust of Anglos.
  

Puerto Ricans

• Although Puerto Rican communities had been forming since the 1920s, the great migration came after WWII.
  
• Despite being citizens, Puerto Ricans faced both economic and cultural discrimination.
  
• In the 1960s and seventies, the decline in manufacturing jobs and urban decay severely hit them. (US acclaimed the Island in 1878- 1917- gained US citizenship.
  

Asian Americans & American Indian Peoples

• During the 1950s, Congress removed the old ban against Japanese immigration and naturalization.
  
• In 1965, a new immigration law increased opportunities for Asians to immigrate to the United States.
  
• As a result, the demographics of the Asian-American population drastically changed.
  
• During the 1950s, Congress passed a series of termination bills that ended tribal rights in return for cash payments and division of tribal assets.
  
• Indian activists challenged government policies leading to court decisions that reasserted the principle of tribal sovereignty.
  
• Reservation Indians remained trapped in poverty. (National Congress of American Indians)
  
• Indians who had left the reservation lost much of their tribal identities.
  
• Urban Indian groups arose and focused on civil instead of tribal rights.

Study Questions

(28-1) Origins of the Movement

The migration of African Americans to northern cities led to increased economic and political opportunities. Voting power and legal action by the NAACP led to increased civil rights. In the South, segregation prevailed. After World War II, the NAACP legal strategy culminated in the victory in Brown v. Board of Education that ended segregation in the schools. A crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas forced President Eisenhower to use National Guard troops to integrate the schools there.

1. During the 1940s, the African American population in the U.S.
   
   1. lost most of the employment gains made during wartime.
      
   2. largely returned to farming in the South.
      
   3. doubled in northern cities due to reduced racial discrimination in housing and employment.
      
   4. stopped pressing for civil rights.
      
2. African Americans found they had as little political power in the North as in the South, once they migrated to cities and factory towns during World War II
   
   1. False
      
   2. True
      
3. All of the following were steps President Truman took that shifted most black voters into the Democratic Party except:
   
   1. He desegregated the armed forces by executive order
      
   2. He met with Thurgood Marshall and praised the NAACP
      
   3. Truman publicly endorsed the report To Secure These Rights
      
   4. Appointment of a Presidential Committee on Civil Rights that made ambitious recommendations.
      
4. By the end of World War II, the South was home to fewer than half of all African Americans.
   
   1. True
      
   2. False
      
5. A combination of legal and violent acts kept all but the most determined blacks from voting in the late 1940s, who represented this proportion of the eligible African American adults:
   
   1. ten percent.
      
   2. five percent.
      
   3. fifteen percent.
      
   4. one percent.
      
6. During the 1930s NAACP attorneys launched a frontal assault on the "separate but equal" doctrine enshrined in the Plessy Supreme Court decision.
   
   1. True
      
   2. False
      
7. The strategy civil rights attorneys used in the 1939 case Missouri v. ex.rel. Gaines to reduce official segregation was
   
   1. demanding separate but equal facilities that would be too expensive to maintain.
      
   2. claiming that segregation infringed on the educational rights of white students.
      
   3. making a frontal assault on the Plessy separate-but-equal rule.
      
   4. attacking segregation as a violation of religious freedom.
      
8. The lead attorney who argued for integrated schools in the Brown v. Board of Education case was
   
   1. Thurgood Marshall.
      
   2. Clarence Darrow.
      
   3. Earl Warren.
      
   4. Kenneth B. Clark.
      
9. The victory in Brown v. Board of Education was limited by a second Supreme Court ruling
   
   1. accepting the idea of "interposition" as a legal argument.
      
   2. schools would have ten years to implement an integration plan.
      
   3. giving responsibility for implementation to local school boards.
      
   4. that monitoring would be decided by the local community.
      
10. In 1957, President Eisenhower sent troops to integrate a high school in
    
    1. Little Rock, Arkansas.
       
    2. Oxford, Mississippi.
       
    3. Selma, Alabama.
       
    4. Atlanta, Georgia.
       

Answers: C, B, B, B, A, B, A, A, C, A

Chapter 28

Theme: Organizing Peace

• In 1955 Montgomery's black community mobilized when Rosa Parks refused to give up her bus seat and comply with segregation laws.
  
• Led by Martin Luther King, Jr., a Baptist minister, a boycott of busses was launched.
  
• A network of local activists organized car pools using private cars to get people to and from work.
  
• Leaders endured violence and legal harassment, but won a court ruling that the segregation ordinance was unconstitutional.
  

Civil Rights After World War II

• Rock The WWII experiences of African Americans laid the foundations for the subsequent struggle.
  
• A mass migration to the North brought political power to African Americans working through the Democratic Party.
  
• The NAACP grew in numbers and its Legal Defense Fund initiated a series of lawsuits to win key rights.
  
• Key ways the African Americans were breaking color barriers included:
  
  • Jackie Robinson's entrance into major league baseball
    
  • Ralph Bunche's winning a Nobel Peace prize
    
• A new generation of jazz musicians created be-bop.
  

Segregation & Brown vs. Board

• In the South, segregation and unequal rights were still the law of the land.
  
• Law and custom kept blacks as second-class citizens with no effective political rights. African Americans had learned to survive and not challenge the situation.
  
  • Brown v. Board of Education
    
• The NAACP initiated a series of court cases challenging the constitutionality of segregation. (trying to turn around Plessy vs. Ferguson.)
  
• Thurgood Marshall was a key lawyer for the NAACP and fought Brown vs. Board of Education for them.
  
• In Brown v. Board of Education, newly appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren led the court to declare that separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.
  
• The court postponed ordering a clear timetable to implement the decision.
  
• Southern whites declared their intention to nullify the decision.
  

Crisis in Little (1^st of many school desegregations)

• In Little Rock, Arkansas, a judge ordered integration.
  
• The governor ordered the National Guard to keep African American children out of Central High. (Orvil Faubus)
  
• When the troops were withdrawn, a riot erupted forcing President Eisenhower to send in more troops to integrate the school.
  
  • (He & Eisenhower made a deal, Faubus backtracks on his deal, troops are withdrawn)
    

Martin Luther King and the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference)

• Martin Luther King, Jr. emerged from the bus boycott as a prominent national figure.
  
• A well-educated son of a Baptist minister, King taught his followers nonviolent resistance, modeled after the tactics of Mohandas Gandhi.
  
• The civil rights movement was deeply rooted in the traditions of the African American church.
  
• King founded the Southern Christian Leadership Conference to promote nonviolent direct action to challenge segregation.
  

Sit-Ins

• African American college students, first in Greensboro, NC, began sitting in at segregated lunch counters.
  
• Nonviolent sit-ins were:
  
  • widely supported by the African American community
    
  • accompanied by community-wide boycotts of businesses that would not integrate.
    

SNCC and the "Beloved Community"

• A new spirit of militancy was evident among young people.
  
• 120 African American activists created the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to promote nonviolent direct challenges to segregation. (SCLC & SNCC work together with MLK to make things happen)
  
• The young activists were found at the forefront of nearly every major civil rights battle.

Chapter 27

Theme: Backdoor Fear

• Memphis was a rapidly growing segregated city with whites and blacks of various classes.
  
• Elvis Presley listened to both "white" and "black" music.
  
• Sam Phillips, a white producer, recognized that Elvis could sing with the emotional intensity and power of black performers.
  
• Elvis blended black styles of music with white styles to help create a new style of music.
  
• Rock n' roll united teenagers and gave them the feeling that it was their music (and misunderstood by adults).
  

The Eisenhower Presidency

• President Dwight D. Eisenhower inspired confidence and adopted a middle-of-the-road style.
  
• He ran the government in a businesslike, cooperative manner, pursuing policies that helped private companies and allowing practices that harmed on the environment. (GM)
  
  
  • 1953- Submerged Lands Act- land we were drilling, handed out to private corporations.
    
• He also rejected calls from conservatives to dismantle the welfare state.
  
• Although his presidency included two brief recessions, he presided over an extensive increase in real wages. (more money in your pockets.)
  

Subsidizing Prosperity & Suburbia

• The federal government helped subsidize this prosperity by providing loans for homes and assisting the growth of suburbs. (government provide low cost mortages to people, would pay 10% or less on downpayment of loans taken from the government, over 30 years, would pay back to the government.)
  
• One of the first planned communities was built by William Levitt and encompassed 17,000 homes, without a single African American resident. (50's- economic divide between blacks & whites- "other side of the track")
  
• The federal government:
  
  
  • paid for veterans' college education (GI Bill)
    
  • built an interstate highway system
    
  • following the Russian launch of a satellite (Sputnick-1957)spent millions on education. (worried we were not producing enough scientist- National Education Defense Act)
    
• Suburban life:
  
  
  • strengthened the domestic ideal
    
  • provided a model of the efficient, patient suburban wife for television
    
• Suburban growth corresponded with an increase in church attendance.
  
• (People also wanted the 2^nd vehicle.)
  
• Popular religious figures stressed the importance of fitting in.
  
• California came to embody postwar suburban life, with the cars connecting its components. (art-deco, everything drive-through)
  

AFL-CIO

• In the mid-1950s, trade unions reached a peak of membership and influence, especially in the Democratic Party.
  
• The merger of the AFL (American Federation of Labor) and the CIO (Congress of Industrial Organizations) marked the zenith of the unions.
  
• Total membership numbers declined after 1955 but new inroads were made in the public sector.
  

Conformists

• Critics found the suburbs as dull and conformist—points that obscured the real class and ethnic differences found in many suburbs. (People were expanding out from the city- cookie cutter culture society- "Donna Reid")
  
• David Reisman said that Americans had become overly conforming, less individualistic, and more peer-oriented.
  
• C. Wright Mills wrote how people sold not only their time and energy but their personalities.
  

Higher Education & Healthcare

• The postwar baby boom was paralleled by a tremendous expansion of higher education, assisted by extensive federal aid. (Federal Aid- GI Bill, National Education Defense Act)
  
• Colleges accepted the values of corporate culture with 20 percent of all graduates majoring in business.
  
• Students tried to conform to the corporate values.
  
• Immunization begun during the war continued after peace. (FDR had Polio)
  
• New medicines, like antibiotics, and new vaccines against diseases like polio allowed many Americans to live healthier lives.
  
• (Gone were the days of home doctors, hospitals expanding, more expensive)
  
• Doctor shortages, however, meant that poor and elderly Americans and those in rural areas lacked access to these improvements.
  
• Truman & Eisenhower had plans for national healthcare, but AMA disapproved.
  
  

The Youth Market

• The word "teenager" became common in the American language after WWII.
  
• Young people's numbers grew and their purchasing power increased.
  
• The marketplace, schools, mass media reinforced the notion of teenagers as a special community.
  
• "Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll"
  
• Structural changes in the media transformed radio into a music-dominated medium.
  
• In addition, small independent record labels promoted black rhythm-and-blues artists, many of whom "crossed over" to white audiences.
  
• Established record companies offered toned-down white "cover" versions that frequently outsold the originals.
  
• Alan Freed, a white Cleveland disc jockey promoted black artists and set the stage for the first major white performer who could play rock-'n'-roll, Elvis Presley.
  
• Black singer-guitarist Chuck Berry was probably the most influential artist after Elvis.
  
  

Almost Grown

• Rock-'n'-roll united teenagers by giving them a feeling that it was their music and that it focused on the trials and tribulations of teenage life.
  
• Ironically teenagers were torn between their identification with youth culture and the desire to become adults as quickly as possible.
  
• Many adult observers saw rock-'n'-roll as unleashing youthful passions in a dangerous way.
  
• Rock 'n' roll was closely linked to juvenile delinquency.
  
• Popular films like The Wild One and Rebel Without a Cause showed the different reactions of youth and adults to the growing generation gap.
  
  

Television

• Television's development as a mass medium was eased by the prior existence of radio.
  
• The high cost of TV changed advertising as sponsors left production to others.
  
• Early TV replicated radio formats including situation comedies set among urban ethnic families.
  
• By the late 1950s, situation comedies featured idealized, white suburban families. (The Honeymooners, I Love Lucy, Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best)
  
• As revenues declined (big middle class families were moving out of the cities, urban poor not going to theater), movie studios sold off old films and began to produce Westerns and cop shows for TV.
  
• Television also created overnight fads and sensations. (Milton Burrow Show- 1^st great American TV show- interviewed stars) (White situational comedies- Father Knows Best- mom cooking dinner, dad comes home, son does something wrong, dad gives wisdom)
  
• Prime-time shows made no references to contemporary political issues and avoided being tainted with Communist influence. (escapism)
  
• Television did bring important congressional hearings before mass audiences and by 1952, slick ads began to shape presidential campaigns. (Lyndon Johnson- Daisy Girl, famous daisy- http://www.adjab.com/2006/06/12/lyndon-johnsons-flower-girl-ad/)
  

Culture Critics

• The new mass culture prompted a growing chorus of critics.
  
• Intellectual critics bemoaned the great "Middlebrow Culture" that was driving out high culture.
  
• The "Beats" articulated some of the sharpest dissents from conformity, celebrating spontaneity, jazz, open sexuality, drug use, and American outcasts.
  
• The "Beats" foreshadowed the mass youth rebellion of the 1960s.
  

The "New Look" in Foreign Affairs

• Eisenhower favored a reliance on American nuclear superiority in favor of more expensive conventional forces.
  
• Secretary of State John Foster Dulles called for a policy of rollback to reverse communist gains.
  
• This "new look" for American foreign policy was in conflict with Eisenhower's cautious approach.
  
• The Changing Cold War
  
• Ike refused to intervene to aid anti-Communist uprisings in East Berlin and Hungary. After Stalin died, new Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev raised hopes for a warming of relations.
  
• Following some steps toward a more peaceful coexistence, the thaw quickly froze when the Soviets shot down an American spy plane. (picture in book, Khrushchev in Iowa eating) (Frances Geary Powers- in US-U2 spy plane, shot down by USSR)
  

Covert Action and Intervention

• Eisenhower favored covert action.
  
• The CIA sponsored paramilitary operations in the Third World when newly emerging nations sought to recover resources from foreign investors. (nobody knew what the CIA did.)
  
• American interventions in Iran overthrew the government and helped secure oil concessions.
  
• Support for Israel was challenged when Ike rejected European appeals to help seize and return the Suez Canal to Britain. (waited things out)
  
• In just one of several actions, the CIA-sponsored coup overthrew the government of Jacobo Arbenz Guzman in Guatemala. (He was protecting American interest with Covert operations, in denial this is going on.) (Providing France with military money too- Archamedes Patty, lead 15 guys to Vietnam)
  

Vietnam

• The United States provided France with massive military aid in its struggle to hold on to Vietnam.
  
• Ike rejected the use of American ground troops, but believed that if Vietnam fell the rest of Southeast Asia would fall like dominoes.
  
• Vietnam was temporarily divided at the 17th parallel.
  

Ike's Warning

• A growing public anxiety over nuclear weapons led to small but well-publicized protests.
  
• Ike expressed his own doubts when he warned the nation of the growing "military industrial complex."

John F. Kennedy and New Frontier Liberalism

• JFK was a young man from a wealthy Irish-Catholic family who became a Senator from Massachusetts. (Irish-Catholic)
  
• After winning the Democratic nomination, Kennedy won a narrow victory over Republican vice-president Richard Nixon. (Nixon hated Kennedy) (Slick ads & presidential debates, 1^st debate JFK & Nixon)
  
• His inauguration brought out a bevy of intellectuals who heard him inspire a sense of sacrifice among young Americans.
  
• JFK supported efforts to improve employment equality for women.
  
• He used fiscal policy to stimulate the economy.
  
• JFK committed the country to expanding its manned space program. (NASA)
  
• JFK's greatest achievement may have been strengthening the executive branch of government.
  
  

Kennedy and the Cold War

• In his three years as president, JFK's foreign policy shifted from containment to easing tensions.
  
• He expanded both nuclear and conventional weapons and created the Green Berets who fought unsuccessfully to stop Communist movements in Laos and Vietnam.
  
• JFK supported the Alliance for Progress, ostensibly a Marshall Plan for Latin America.
  

The Cuban Revolution and the Bay of Pigs

• The Cuban Revolution brought Fidel Castro to power in 1959.
  
• Ike cut off aid when Castro began a land reform program and later the United States severed diplomatic relations. (socialist types of economic policy)
  
• JFK implemented Ike's plan for a CIA-backed invasion by Cuban exiles. (Bay of Pigs)
  
• The plan failed, leading Castro to ask Khrushchev for help.
  

The Missile Crisis

• The Soviets began shipping missiles to Cuba.
  
• JFK rejected calls for an immediate attack but ordered a blockade on Cuba.
  
• The Soviets backed down and withdrew the missiles and JFK pledged not to invade Cuba.
  
• Kennedy tried to improve cooperation with the Soviets.
  

Assassination

• The November 22, 1963 assassination of Kennedy made him a martyr and raised questions about what he would have achieved, had he lived. (Every presidents have faults… affairs w. Marlyin Monroe- ect., Matyr- god like hero, save country from the commies, very liberal ideas.
  
• (Jackie married Aristotle Anoysis- famous shipping method for protection)
  
  
• America in 1963 still enjoyed the postwar economic boom, but Kennedy's election had symbolized the changing of generations.
  
  
• Family- cookie cutter homes, small communities- suburbs
• Advertisement is an advertisement for advertisements. "Women have buying power." – sell your products to woman. McCall's magazine.
  

Chapter 26

Theme: Backdoor Fear

• American Communities
  
• University of Washington, Seattle
  
• In 1948
  philosophy professor Melvin Rader was falsely accused of being a Communist conspirator.
  
• During the cold war era, the federal government was providing substantial support for higher education through the GI Bill.
  
• The student population at the University of Washington grew rapidly and a strong sense of community among the students grew, led by older, former soldiers.
  
• The Cold War put a damper on this community.
  
• Wild charges of communist subversion led several states to require state employees to take loyalty oaths.
  
• In this repressed atmosphere, faculty were dismissed, students dropped out of school, and the free speech was restrained on the campuses.
  

 

Global Insecurities at War's End

• During WWII, the United States and Soviet Union had temporarily put aside their differences in a common fight.
  
• Divergent interests made a continued alliance unlikely.
  
• Fears of the return of depression led the United States to take a much more active international stance.
  
  • (FDR set up the International Monetary Fund (IMF) & World Bank)
    
• The Soviet Union interpreted the aggressive American economic moves as a threat.
  
• FDR's realism allowed him to recognize that some kinds of spheres of influence were inevitable for the winning powers.
  
  • Stalin (picture)
    
  • Truman (picture)
    

 

Dividing Europe

• The Soviet Union lay in virtual economic ruins and had established military dominance over much of Eastern Europe, partially as a buffer zone.
  
• German had been temporarily divided into 4 occupation zones, but its long-term fate was unresolved.
  
• USSR had created a buffer zone with its bordering Western countries.
  
• The West grew increasingly restive over the Soviets' spheres of influence.
  
• UN formed in 1945; many hoped that a stronger United Nations would be the source for collective security that the League of Nations could not provide.
  
• Although the UN in its early years operated along lines of the Cold War, it proved effective at providing humanitarian relief. (Eleanor Roosevelt, one of 1^st dignitaries that went over to give aid.)
  
  • UN recognized 50 nations (5 permanently on the Security Council- US, GB, USSR, France, Nationalist China)
    
• Western nations allied with US and held the balance of power.
  

 

The Truman Doctrine

• While FDR favored diplomacy and compromise, Truman was committed to a get-tough policy with the Soviets.
  
  • Winston Churchill made a mention of the "iron curtain" (splitting off Russia from everyone else.)
    
• When civil war threatened the governments in Turkey and Greece, the United States warned of a communist coup and provided $400 million to defeat the rebels.
  
• The Truman Doctrine committed the United States to a policy of trying to contain Communism.
  

The Marshall Plan, Berlin Crisis, & NATO

• The Marshall Plan provided $13 billion to rebuild Europe.
  
  • (Introduced by George C. Marshal at comencment speech at Harvard.)
    
• The plan had the long-term impact of revitalizing the European capitalist economy and driving a further wedge between the West and Soviet Union.
  
• The gap widened when the western zones of Germany merged.
  
• When the Soviets cut off land access to West Berlin, the United States airlifted supplies to the city. (Berlin Airlift)
  
• The United States also created an alliance of anti-Soviet nations, NATO, and the Soviets responded with the Warsaw Pact.
  
• The East/West split seemed permanent.
  
• The American policy of containing Communism (Truman Doctrine) rested on the ability to stop its expansion by military means.
  
• After the Soviets developed nuclear weapons, both sides amassed lethal stockpiles. The U.S. and Soviets could not come up with a plan to control them. Within a few years both sides had a stockpile of hydrogen bombs.
  
  • (An H-Bomb would essentially take out the entire Western coast of the US.)
    
  • The rise of the bomb shelter.
    
  • (Picture- Berlin Airlift)
    
  • 
    

 

"To Err is Truman"

• The early years of the Truman presidency were plagued by protests by Americans tired of war-time sacrifices.
  
• An inability to bring troops home quickly or end rationing really hurt Truman's popularity. Inflation spread and strikes paralyzed the nation.
  
• Congress blocked Truman's plans for reconversion.
  
• In 1946, Republicans gained control of Congress and started to undo the New Deal. Over Truman's veto, Republicans passed the Taft-Hartley bill that curtailed the power of labor. (Also ratified the 2 term limit amendment.)
  

 

The 1948 Election

• Going into the 1948 election the liberal community was divided.
  
• Liberals feuded with Truman over how to extend the New Deal and the extent of the Soviet threat.
  
• Henry Wallace challenged Truman by running on the Progressive ticket, a campaign effectively quashed by red-baiting.
  
  • Red-baiting- accusing Wallace of being a Communist
    
• Truman repositioned himself to the left by warning voters that Republicans would make the United States "an economic colony of Wall Street."
  
• He also offered a liberal legislative package that Congress defeated.
  
• The Democrats split again over civil rights when segregationists ran Strom Thurmond (racist) for president.
  
• Truman managed to hold on to the New Deal coalition and won re-election.
  

 

The Fair Deal

• In 1949 he proposed a package of reforms, the Fair Deal.
  
• Truman said that everyone had a right to expect from our government a "fair deal."
  
• Truman won some gains in public housing, minimum wage and Social Security increases, but little else.
  
• Truman helped to define Cold War liberalism as promoting economic growth through expanded foreign trade and federal expenditures, chiefly defense.
  

 

The National Security Act of 1947

• A climate of fear developed after the war that the United States was the target of or had already fallen prey to subversive influences. (Pg. 791)
  
• The Cold War triggered a massive reordering of governmental power.
  
• Established under the National Security Act of 1947, the Defense Department became a huge and powerful bureaucracy. (Donald Rumsfeld- today)
  
• The Department of Defense and the National Science Foundation pursued scientific research, especially related to physics.
  
• New agencies like the CIA fed off the fear of communism.
  

 

The Loyalty-Security Program

• Allegedly to combat subversive influences, Truman promoted a loyalty program.
  
• The Attorney General published a list of potentially subversive organizations. (churches, groups, etc.)(McCarthy?)
  
• Many groups disbanded and prior membership in them destroyed individuals' careers. A wide range of restrictions on alleged subversives passed Congress.
  

 

The Red Scare in Hollywood

• The House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) launched investigations into Communist influence in Hollywood.
  
• A parade of friendly witnesses denounced Communists. (writers being accussed)
  
• Many people gave names of suspect former friends so that they themselves would be cleared and able to work again. (survive)
  
• A few witnesses (many blacklisted later) attacked HUAC and a handful went to prison for contempt of Congress.
  

 

Spy Cases

• Public anxieties were heightened when former State Department advisor Alger Hiss was accused of being a Communist spy. ("Pumpkin Papers")
  
• Richard Nixon pursued the charges. ("Tricky Dick")
  
• Hiss went to jail for perjury.
  
• Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were executed despite worldwide protests. (Executed- killed, by the government for being communist- accused March 1951, killed June 1953)
  

 

McCarthyism

• Sen. Joseph McCarthy caused a sensation when he charged that 200 Communists worked for the State Department.
  
• His lack of evidence did not stop him from striking a chord with many Americans. (Homosexuals- easily swayed, Communist)
  
• He played into fears that Communism was a demonic force and that eastern elites had successfully manipulated the public.
  
• McCarthyism attacked Jews, blacks, women's organizations, and homosexuals. Effective use of the media made McCarthyism seem credible.
  
• McCarthy's crusade was destroyed when he went on national TV and appeared deranged, making wild charges of Communist infiltration of the army.
  
  • ("Good Night & Good Luck"- Media fight McCarthy had with Edward R. Murrow)
    

 

An Anxious Mood

• After World War II, millions of Americans achieved middle-class status.
  
• But prosperity did not dispel American anxiety over nuclear war and economic depression. (People moving out of cities, nuclear attack- small suburbs growing)
  
• Movies and plays reflected cold war anxieties and alienation as well as anti-communism.
  
  • ("The Best Years of Our Lives"-"Flags of Our Fathers"-"Body Snatchers"-"Death of a Salesman"-"Catcher in the Rye")
    
• The move to the suburbs, high levels of consumption, and even the rush towards marriage and parenthood illustrated these fears. (Baby boom)
  
• The baby boom and high consumer spending changed the middle-class family.
  
• To sustain support of larger families and high rates of consumer spending, a growing number of married, middle-class women sought employment.
  
• Commentators bemoaned the destruction of the traditional family that they linked to the threat of Communism. (Benjamin Spock- "let's be a nice family"- psychotherapy)
  
• High-profile experts weighed in with popular books and articles about the dangers of women who abandoned their housewife roles.
  

The conservative trend was also evident in declining numbers of woman college graduates.

Chapter 25- WWII

The Coming of the War

• Militaristic authoritarian regimes that had emerged in Japan, Italy & Germany threatened peace throughout the world.
• Japan took over Manchuria and then invaded China. (1937- Nanking, killed over 300,000 Chinese)
• Italy made Ethiopia a colony. (Bentito Muslinia)
• German aggression against Caechoslovakia threatened to force Britain & France into the war. (Adolf Hitler)
  

Isolation

• By the mid-1930's, many Americans had concluded that entry into WWI and an active foreign role for the United States had been a serious mistake.
• College students protested the war.
• Congress passed the Neutrality Acts to limit the sale of munitions to warring countries
• Prominent Americans urged a policy of "America First" to promote non-intervention FDR promoted military preparedness, despite little national support.
  

FDR Readies for War

• FDR had a hard time getting ready at home.
• The combined German-Soviet invasion of Poland plunged Europe into war.
  
  
  • Blitzkrieg Western Europe 1940
• German blitzkrieg techniques quickly led to takeovers of Denmark, Norway, and later Belgium & France.
• As the Nazi air force pounded Britain, FDR pushed for increased military expenditures.
• Since 1940 was an election year, FDR said he would 'keep the boys' out of war. After winning his 3^rd term, FDR expanded American involvement.
• FDR met with British Prime Minister Winston Churchill & drafter the Atlantic Charter- a statement of war aims.
  

Pearl Harbor

• Japan joined with Italy and Germany in 1940.
• The Japanese threatened to seize Europe's Asian colonies after taking Indochina.
• FDR cut off trade with Japan, including oil supplies.
• Japan attacked the base in Pearl Harbor Dec. 7^th, 1941. (A day that will live in infamy…)
• The United States declared war; declarations against Germany & Italy followed.
  

Mobilizing for War

• Congress and FDR created laws and new agencies to promote mobilization.
• President given power in the War Powers Act (reorganize Federal Government, create new agencies, abridging civil agencies, seize property owned by foreigners, create contracts w/o federal biding)
• The Office of War Information controlled war news and promoted morale at home.
• War bonds were used to promote support as well as raise funds.
• As mobilization proceeded, New Deal agencies vanished. (didn't need any more > now have the jobs)
• War Productions Board transformed civilian firms civilian firms to operate for war purposes and industry was prepped for all-out production
• An unprecedented economic boom pulled the country out of the depression.
• The largest firms, especially those in the West and South, received large shares of wartime contracts.
• The war increased farm profits, but thousands of small farms disappeared.
  

New Workers

• The demand for labor brought Mexicans,
  Indians, African Americans, and women into the industrial labor force.
• The entry of these new female workers broke down many stereotypes. (Changing gender roles at home)
• Many woman wanted to keep working past the war but plans were already in place to give their jobs to returning war veterans.
• Workers' wages went up (50%), but not as fast as profits or prices.
• Prior to American entry, militant unions had led a number of strikes.
• Once the United States entered the
  war, the major unions:
  
  
  • agreed to no-strike pledges
  • increased their membership and won new benefits
• African American union membership doubled.
• Some illegal strikes did break out, leading to federal antistrike legislation.
  

The Home Front

• The war spurred marriage rates.
• Shortages of housing and retail goods added to the difficulties families encountered. (Ration Cards)
• With one-parent households increasing, childcare issues arose. Some day-care assistance was available, though it scarcely met people's needs.
• The rise in unsupervised youths created problems with juvenile crime. The availability of jobs led to higher high school dropout rates.
• Public health improved greatly during the war. (Technology is advancing- increased earnings lead to dental care) (Lowest death rates in the country.)
  

The Internment of Japanese Americans & Race Relations at Home

• In 1942, over 112,000 Japanese were removed from their homes in the West to relocation centers, often enduring harsh living conditions.
• The Supreme Court upheld the policy (challenged with Koretmatsu vs US, 1941), though in 1988 the U.S. Congress voted reparations and public apologies.
• (Pg. 756- "action will be taken.")
• African American activists launched a "Double V" campaign calling for victory overseas and equal rights at home.
• FDR responded to a threatened march on Washington by banning racial discrimination in defense industries.
• New civil rights organizations emerged while older ones grew. (NAACP increased from 50,000 in 1940 to 250,000 in 1946?)
• Over 1 million blacks left the South to take jobs in war industries. (Langston Hughes poem pg. 758)
  
• *Flipside ("US History")
  
• They often encountered violent resistance from local whites.
  

Zoot-Suit Riots

• Whites' bitter resentment against Mexican Americans exploded in 1943.
• The zoot-suit riots erupted when whites concluded that Mexican youths that wore the flamboyant clothes were unpatriotic. (West Coast- LA.)
• Most Mexican Americans served in the military or worked in war industries.
• Popular culture seemed to bridge the racial divisions. (Southerners were bringing their music up North, & African Americans- mixing different sounds together- "the tie that binds.")
• Southerners moving to northern cities brought musical styles and changed the sound of popular culture.
• Popular entertainment, whether in film or comic books, emphasized the wartime spirit, as did fashion. (Superman) (Everything you see was being regulated by the Office of War Information)
  

Men and Women in Uniform

• Even before formally entering the war, the government had begun a draft.
• The officer corps, except for General Eisenhower, tended to be professional, conservative, and autocratic.
• Junior officers were trained in special military schools and developed close ties with their troops. {Saving Private Ryan- maintaining ties well past the war}
• For the first time, the War Department created women's divisions of the major services.
  
  
  • WAC
  • WAVES
  • Marine Corps Women's Reserve
• Most women stayed in the country and performed clerical or health-related duties. Some flew planes and others went into combat with the troops. (1,000 woman participated)
  

African Americans in the Military

• Despite suspicions of the military's racism, 1 million African Americans served in the armed forces. (Henry Stinson- army can't be a sociological laboratory, pg. 761. Blood separated by white & black blood.)
• These soldiers encountered segregation at every point.
• Many racial or ethnic minorities (along with homosexuals) also served and often found their experience made them feel more included in American society.
• In Europe, American troops met a mixed welcome, in part dictated by their actions.
  

The Medical Corps and POW's

• The risk of injury was much higher than that of getting killed in battle. (Only 1 in 50 would die in a battle.)
• Battle fatigue was a huge problem. (Battles could last up to 200 days.)
• The army depended on a wide variety of medical personnel to care for sick and wounded soldiers. {Flags of Our Fathers} (85% of emergency surgeries on battlefront survived- medical technology had vastly improved.)
• The true heroes of the battlefront were the medics attached to each infantry battalion.
• Nurses during the war were given military rank.
• POWs held in German camps were treated much better than those held by the Japanese. (Japanese POWs were treated ruthlessly. Treatment was worse than death.) (Russians held in German camps were starved and murdered in the German camps- Americans were just "bored.")
• This treatment, along with racism, led Americans to treat Japanese POWs more harshly than those captured in the European theater.
  
• (What John McCain went through)
  

The World at War

• During the first year of American involvement, FDR called the war news "all bad."
• The burden of fighting the Nazis fell to the Soviets who blocked the German advance on Moscow.
• The Soviets broke the siege of Stalingrad in February 1943 and began to push the Germans back. (Russians lost more men in Stalingrad than America lost during the whole war.)
• Although the Soviets appealed for the Allies to open up a "second front" in Western Europe, they instead attacked North Africa and Italy. (Towards the end of the war- the Soviets were pleading for a second front.)
• Churchill and FDR met in Casablanca and agreed to seek an unconditional German surrender. (Stalin did not want this- felt that if we kept pushing, it would keep angering the Germans)
• American and British planes poured bombs on German cities that:
  
• weakened their economy
• undermined civilian morale
• crippled the German air force
• (Flying Fortress V-17, great for day- but at night, not good)
  

The Allied Invasion of Europe

• The Allied invasion forced Italy out of the war, though German troops stalled Allied advances. {Life is Beautiful}
• Uprisings against Nazi rule tied up German power.
• By early 1944, Allied units were preparing for the D-Day assault on France.
• Paris was taken on August 25, 1944. France and other occupied countries fell as Allied units overran the Germans. (D-Day invasion- June 6, 1944)
• The Battle of the Bulge temporarily halted the Allied advance. (By Christmas 1944- the Germans were moved back to their own territory.)
• On May 8, 1945, Germany surrendered. (Hitler also committed suicide.)
  

The War in Asia and the Pacific

• In the Pacific theater Allied forces stopped Japanese advances by June 1942.
• Naval battles and island hopping brought United States forces closer to the Japanese home islands. (3.5 million people died.)
• Victories in the Philippines, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa enabled the Allies to bomb Japanese cities. (US lost more guys in Okinawa than Normandy.) {Grave with the Fireflies}
• Britain and the United States pressed for rapid surrender to prevent the Soviets from taking any Japanese-held territories.
• The US saw a very bloody result were we to involve ourselves in that conflict.
  

The Holocaust

• The horror of the Nazi's systematic extermination of Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals, and other "inferior" races was slow to enter American consciousness. (We were very weary after coming out of WWII about these holocaust camps- FDR started doing backtracking to help the refugees)