SOCIAL SOCIAL REVOLUTION REVOLUTION 1950’s-1960’s 1950’s-1960’s
Jan 29, 2016
SOCIAL SOCIAL REVOLUTIONREVOLUTION
1950’s-1960’s1950’s-1960’s
POSTWAR AMERICAN SOCIETY
Eisenhower’s Domestic Policies (“Modern Republicanism”) fiscal conservatism and balanced budgets modest legislative record
extended Social Security benefits raised the minimum wage Highway Act of 1956
POSTWAR AMERICAN SOCIETY
Postwar Economic Boom expansion of consumer goods development of suburbs (Levittown)
two-car family rise of television
older manufacturing areas in the northeast declined
south and west begin to thrive
POSTWAR AMERICAN SOCIETY
Development of Suburban Americaautomobiles and cheap gasolineemergence of shopping centers and
mallsdominance of television in shaping
social norms
POSTWAR AMERICAN SOCIETY
Problems and criticism of suburbia and growth geographical separation of the extended family created narrow gender roles strain on public school systems criticism of middle class social values:
forced conformity, loss of individuality emptiness of consumerist society continued racial and ethnic discrimination
Beatniks (Allen Ginsburg, Jack Kerouac, etc.)
emergence of rock and roll (Elvis Presley)
LEAVE IT TO BEAVER
OZZIE AND HARRIET
BEATNIKS
ELVIS PRESLEY
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Causes: impact of World War II
war effort altered the roles of black Americans incentive to preserve gains during the war
Truman desegregates US military (1948) Brown v Board of Education of Topeka,
Kansas (1954) “separate but equal” educational facilities are
unconstitutional orders the desegregation of American public schools
“with all deliberate speed”
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Southern movement: destroy legal segregation (Jim Crow system) strategies and organizations:
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)
legal and political advocacy/lobbying Southern Christian Leadership Conference
(SCLC), Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Congress of Racial Equality (CORE
philosophy of nonviolence and civil disobedience
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Northern movement: 1964-1969—300 race riots in the US
June 1964 (Harlem, NY) August 1965 (Watts neighborhood in LA) July 1967 (Detroit, MI)
Black power movement attack institutionalized racism Nation of Islam (Malcolm X) Black Panthers
CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Conflict within the movement general agreement on goals arguments over strategies and tactics who should be leading the movement?
SCLC vs. SNCC disconnect between rural, black Southerners
and urban, black Northerners overt vs. institutional racism
ROY WILKINS
MEDGAR EVERS
THURGOOD MARSHALL
DR. MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
REV. RALPH DAVID ABERNATHY
ANDREW YOUNG
JAMES FORMAN (SNCC)
BOB MOSES (SNCC)
JOHN LEWIS
JAMES FARMER (CORE)
MALCOLM X
BOBBY SEALE AND HUEY NEWTON
ELDRIGE CLEAVER
CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUES
school integration (enforcement of Brown) Central High Crisis in Little Rock, Arkansas
(1957) enrollment of James Meredith into the University
of Mississippi (1962) desegregation of the University of Alabama
(1963)
GOV. ORVAL FAUBUS
CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL
LITTLE ROCK
GOV. ROSS BARNETT
JAMES MEREDITH
UNIVERSITY OF MISSISSIPPI
UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA
CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUES
desegregation of public facilities Montgomery Bus Boycott (Dec. 1955-November
1956) Greensboro Sit-ins (Feb. 1960) Freedom Rides (Spring 1961) Birmingham, AL (April 1963)
GREENSBORO BOYS
LUNCH COUNTER SIT-IN
FREEDOM RIDES (1961)
FREEDOM RIDES
FREEDOM RIDES
FREEDOM RIDES
BULL CONNOR
BIRMINGHAM
BIRMINGHAM
BIRMINGHAM
BIRMINGHAM
JFK TELEVISED CIVIL RIGHTS SPEECH
BOMBING OF 16TH STREET BAPTIST CHURCH (BIRMINGHAM)
BIRMINGHAM FOUR
CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUES
political and legal rights March on Washington (August 28, 1963)
civil rights legislation Freedom Summer (1964)
voting rights Selma, AL (January 1965)
voting rights
MARCH ON WASHINGTON
FREEDOM SUMMER
FREEDOM SUMMER
SHERIFF JIM CLARK
SELMA
SELMA
ACHIEVEMENTS OF THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Civil Rights Act of 1964 legally ends the legal segregation system in the
South
Voting Rights Act of 1965 outlaws literacy tests, poll taxes, and other
means for disenfranchising black voters allows federal authorities to intervene in unfair
elections
RISE OF THE BLACK POWER MOVEMENT
nonviolent tactics destroyed segregation in the South, but they failed to address the institutional racism throughout the nation
for many in the inner cities of the North and West, change was too slow and too inconsequential
BLACK POWER ORGANIZATIONS
Nation of Islam advocated racial separation and self defense defined blacks as God’s chosen people
Elijah Muhammed,Malcolm X, Louis Farakhan
Black Panthers (Oakland, CA) advocated self defense of black neighborhoods some advocated violence also promoted peaceful community activism
and set up schools Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, Eldrige Cleaver
ASSASSINATION OF DR. KING
THE COUNTERCULTURE
Ideology of the Counterculture rejection of the middle class, white suburban social and cultural
values of the 1940’s-1950’s
individual freedom individual liberation from the dominant majority
culture escape the dehumanizing pressures of “technocracy” explore human consciousness through art, music, drugs
experimentation, and sexual freedom
political break the power of social, economic, and political elites
end the Vietnam War pursuit of racial and economic justice pursue gender equality
ACTIVITIES OF THE COUNTERCULTURE
New Left—movement of radicalized college and university students
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) 1964—Free Speech Movement (Berkeley, CA) 1968-early 1970’s—antiwar protests
Oct. 1967—March on the Pentagon May 1970—Kent State
public perception was of chaos, disorder, and violence “Weathermen”—arson and bombings
FREE SPEECH MOVEMENT
FREE SPEECH MOVEMENT
ANTIWAR PROTEST
MARCH ON THE PENTAGON
MARCH ON THE PENTAGON
KENT STATE (1970)
KENT STATE
KENT STATE
KENT STATE
KENT STATE
“PEOPLE’S PARK”
THE WEATHERMEN
ACTIVITIES OF THE COUNTERCULTURE
Cultural Revolution reject white, middle class, suburban social values forms of rebellion:
long hair flamboyant clothing disdain for traditional speech drug use/experimentation (pot, LSD, etc.) sexual liberation and experimentation rock and roll music
summer 1969—Woodstock festival (400,000 people)
HIPPIE CULTURE
HIPPIE CULTURE
WOODSTOCK
WOODSTOCK
WOODSTOCK
WOODSTOCK
LYNDON JOHNSON’S GREAT SOCIETY
Goal was to eliminate inequality and racial injusticewar on poverty
Medicare healthcare for Americans 65 and older supplement Medicaid
federal education funding expansion of federal aid programs (welfare)
civil rights 1964 CR Act and 1965 VR Act focus on housing and employment discrimination