The Turning Tide:

1

• The Turning Tide
• Civil Rights and Vietnam

2
The Turning Tide Civil Rights and Vietnam

• MAIN THEMES
• 1.     1. That American society of the 1950s was
  remarkably affluent and unified, despite the
  persistence of a far less privileged underclass
  and the commentary of a small group of critics.
• 4.      2. How the 1954 school desegregation
  decision marked the beginning of a civil rights
  revolution for black Americans.
• 5.      3.  How Eisenhower sustained the foreign
  policy of containment and how he added to it,
  even as he demonstrated an awareness of American
  limitations and resisted temptations to undertake
  greater international commitments.
• 4. The deadlock of the Kennedy years,
  how Lyndon Johnson managed to enact his Great
  Society programs, and the legacy of these
  programs.
• 2.      5. How the American Cold War played
  itself out in Cuba, the Dominican Republic, and
  Vietnam and eventually brought down many of the
  assumptions of post-World War II liberalism.

3

• Eisenhower Republicanism
• The Survival of the Welfare State
• Extension of Social Security
• Highway Programs

4

• Eisenhower, Dulles, and the Cold War
• M.A.D.
• France, America, and Vietnam
• Ho Chi Minh
• Ngo Dinh Diem
• Suez Crises, 1956
• Europe and the Soviet Union
• Hungarian Revolution, 1956

5

• The Baby Boom

6

• The Economic Miracle
• Capital and Labor

7

• Expanding the Liberal State

8

• Expanding the Liberal State
• John Kennedy
• Lyndon Johnson

Lyndon Johnson (Library of Congress)
9
CIVIL RIGHTS BEFORE LBJ

• - Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kans.
• 1955 - (Montgomery, Ala,) Bus boycott initiated
  after NAACP member Rosa Parks refuses to give up
  her seat at the front of the bus to a white
  passenger.
• 1957 - (Little Rock, Ark.) Nine black students
  are blocked from entering the school by Governor.
  President Eisenhower sends federal troops and
  the National Guard to intervene on behalf of the
  students.
• 1960 - (Greensboro, N.C.) Four black students
  from North Carolina Agricultural and Technical
  College begin a sit-in at a segregated
  Woolworth's lunch counter.
• 1961- Freedom riders, student volunteers on bus
  trips to test the implementation of new laws
  prohibiting segregation in interstate travel
  facilities.

10
CIVIL RIGHTS AND LBJ

• - (Washington, D.C.) About 250,000 people join
  the March on Washington. Reverend King delivers
  his famous "I Have a Dream" speech.
• 1964 - President Johnson signs the Civil Rights
  Act of 1964, making segregation in public
  facilities and discrimination in employment
  illegal.
• - Johnson sends military personnel to find
  bodies of three Mississippi civil-rights workers.
  
• 1965 - March to Montgomery in support of voting
  rights are stopped at the Pettus Bridge by a
  police blockade.
• - Congress passes the Voting Rights Act of 1965,
  making it easier for Southern blacks to register
  to vote.
• - (Los Angeles, Ca.) Watts Riot
• - (Memphis, Tenn.) Reverend King is shot
•   - President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act
  of 1968, prohibiting discrimination in the sale,
  rental, and financing of housing.

11
CIVIL RIGHTS AFTER LBJ
1971 - The Supreme Court, in Swann v.
Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board of Education,
upholds busing as a legitimate means for
achieving integration of public schools. 1972
- President Nixon' s initiates affirmative
action. 1988 - Overriding President Reagan's
veto, Congress passes the Civil Rights
Restoration Act, which expands the reach of
non-discrimination laws within private
institutions receiving federal funds.
12

• The Rise of the Civil Rights Movement
• Causes of the Civil Rights Movement
• Black Military Service
• Rise of Black Middle Class
• Cold War Ideology
• Black Labor Leadership

13

• The Other America
• The Other America
• The Inner Cities
• Rural Poverty

The entire invisible land of the other Americans
became a ghetto, a modern poor farm for the
rejects of society and the economy. Michael
Harrington
14

• Expanding the Liberal State
• The Assault on Poverty
• 1965 - Medicare
• 1966 - Medicaid
• Office of Economic Opportunity / War on Poverty
• Cities, Schools, and Immigration
• 1961 - Housing Act of 1961
• 1966 - Office of Housing and Urban Development
• 1965 - Elementary and Secondary Education Act
• 1965 - Immigration Act (no national quotas)

15

• Flexible Response and the Cold War
• Diversifying Foreign Policy

16

• Flexible Response and the Cold War
• Confrontations with the Soviet Union
• 1962 Bay of Pigs
• 1963 Cuban Missile Crises
• Johnson and the World

17

• The Traumas of 1968
• The King and Kennedy Assassinations
• Memphis, April 4, 1968
• Los Angeles, June 6, 1968
• Chicago Democratic Convention

18

• The Traumas of 1968
• The Conservative Response

19
VIETNAM BEFORE LBJ

• Ho Chi Minh returns to Vietnam
• and establishes the Viet Minh
• 1944-45 Famine in Tonkin and Annam
• causes between 1.5 and 2 million deaths.
• Japan surrenders and Ho Chi Minh
• declares Vietnam's the independence in Hanoi.
• 1954 French surrender at Dien Bien Phu.
• - Geneva Agreements adopted, Vietnam
• provisionally divided at the 17th parallel
• 1955- Direct U.S. aid to South Vietnam begins
  and
• U.S. advisers begin training South Vietnamese.
• - Republic of Vietnam established
• with Diem its first president.
• The National Front for the Liberation of South
  Vietnam (NLF)

20
The Massacre at My Lai
http//pathfinder.com/photo/essay/mylai/mylaihp.ht
m
21
VIETNAM AND LBJ

• 1964 - Gulf of Tonkin incident
• 1965 - Operation Rolling Thunder
• 1965 - Battle of Ia Drang
• 1968 - Tet offensive
• - -LBJ announced he will
• not seek re-election
• 1968 - My Lai Massacre
• 1968 - LBJ stops bombing campaign
• 1968 - Paris peace talks begin

22
VIETNAM AFTER LBJ

• - Four-party peace talks open in Paris.
• - U.S. troop strength in Vietnam
• peaks at 543,000.
• - Joint U.S. / ARVN invasion of Cambodia.
• - Operation Lam Son 719, South Vietnamese
• attack on Laos, ends in defeat.
• - March 30, 1972 People's Army of Vietnam
• (PAVN) offensive.
• - Christmas bombing of Hanoi.
• - So-called Paris peace agreement.
• - Last U.S. combat troops in Vietnam depart.
• - PAVN final offensive in the South begins.
• - Saigon surrenders.

23
THE SO-CALLED PEACE MOVEMENT
1962Jun 15 - Port Huron Statement of the
Students for a Democratic Society, 1962 1963
1964 1965 Mar 24 - SDS organizes first
Vietnam War teach-in at Univ. of Michigan 3000
show up Apr 17 - SDS leads first anti-Vietnam
war march in Washington. 25,000 attend Oct 16 -
100,000 anti-war protesters nationwide in 80
cities 1966 Mar 25 - Anti-Vietnam war protests
in NY bring out 25,000 on 5th Ave.  Other
protests in 7 US cities May 15 - Antiwar
demonstration in D.C., 10,000 attend
24
THE SO-CALLED PEACE MOVEMENT
1967 Apr 10 - Vietnam Week starts.  Draft card
burnings and anti-draft demonstrations Apr 15 -
Anti-Vietnam War protest. 400,000 march from
Central Park to UN. Oct 21-22 - Anti-war
protesters storm the Pentagon 35,000
Demonstrate, 647 arrested Dec - "Stop the Draft"
movement organized by 40 antiwar groups,
nationwide protests ensue. Dec 5 - 1000 antiwar
protesters try to close NYC induction center. 
585   1968 Apr 23 - SDS lead students take over
5 buildings at Colombia Univ for a week. 700
arrested Jun 14 - Dr. Benjamin Spock convicted
of conspiracy to abet draft evasion August 25-29
- Democratic Convention in Chicago  demonstration
10,000   1969 Feb 13 - 33 students arrested at
admin bldg sit-in at Univ of Mass. Feb 18 -
Students seize building and  boycott started at
Howard University Feb 24 - Students occupy Admin
bldg at Penn State Feb 27 - Police charge
student picket lines, club and arrest two Chicano
leaders at U.C. Berkeley Apr 9 - 300 Harvard
students led by SDS seize Univ Hall and evict
eight deans Apr 24 - U.S. B-52s launch biggest
attack on North Vietnam. Protests in 40 cities
Oct 8-11 - The Weatherman "Days of Rage" Oct 15
- Peace Day. 500,000 protesters nationwide. First
Vietnam Moratorium
25
THE SO-CALLED PEACE MOVEMENT
1970 Feb 19 - Explosions in 3 office buildings
in NY and in Calif Wash Maryland Mich,
possibly done by
the Weathermen Mar 6 - Three Weathermen blow
themselves up in Greenwich Village, NY May 4 -
Four College Students Killed by National Guard at
Kent State University, Ohio May 9 - 100,000
attend antiwar rally, Wash. D.C. May 14 - Police
kill two at Jackson State during violent student
demonstrations 1971Apr 19 - Over 1000  Veterans
demonstrate against the Vietnam  war in Wash
D.C., throwing their medals over the Capitol
fence Apr 24 - Over 350,000 Veterans march in
Wash D.C. and SF to protest war in Vietnam Apr
26 - 50,000 demonstrators in Washington D.C. set
up "Algonquin Peace City" May 3 - May Day
antiwar protest, Wash. D.C. 1972 Aug 23 - 1100
antiwar protest arrested outside Republican Nat'l
Convention 19731974 1975
26

• Debating the Past THE VIETNAM COMMITMENT

27

• OBJECTIVES
• A thorough study of Chapter 30 should enable you
  to understand
• The strengths and weaknesses of the economy in
  the 1950s and early 1960s.
• How new technologies and expanded mass
  communication were changing America.
• The problems faced by the "other America."
• The changes in the American lifestyle and culture
  in the 1950s.
• The impact of the Supreme Court's desegregation
  decision and the early civil rights movement.
• The characteristics of Dwight D. Eisenhower's
  middle-of-the-road domestic policy.
• The new elements of American foreign policy
  introduced by Secretary of State John Foster
  Dulles.
• The rationale for the initial United States
  involvement in Vietnam.
• The interests of the U.S. in the Middle East and
  the crises of the region.
• The sources of United States difficulties in
  Latin America.
• The reasons for new tensions with the Soviet
  Union toward the end of the Eisenhower
  administration.

28

• OBJECTIVES
• A thorough study of Chapter 31 should enable you
  to understand
• The new directions of domestic reform manifested
  by John Kennedy's New Frontier program.
• The new elements added to Kennedy's program by
  Lyndon Johnson's Great Society proposals.
• The reasons why the African-American civil rights
  movement became increasingly assertive in the
  1960s.
• The significance of Martin Luther King Jr. and
  Malcolm X to the civil rights movement.
• The new elements that Kennedy introduced in both
  the nation's defense strategy and its foreign
  policy.
• The background and sequence of events leading to
  the Cuban missile crisis.
• The reasons for U.S. involvement in the Vietnam
  War and why it was unsuccessful.
• The growing domestic opposition to the war in
  Vietnam and reasons why the 1968 Tet offensive
  had such a critical impact on American domestic
  politics.