The Turbulent 60s

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The Turbulent 60s
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The 1960s were in many ways both the best and
worst of times. On the one hand, the postwar
economic prosperity peaked in the 1960s. At the
same time, racial strife, a controversial war in
Vietnam, and student radicalism started to tear
the country apart.
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The 60s included all of the following
Civil Rights Movement From MLK to Black Power
The Brink of nuclear disaster in the Cuban
Missile Crisis
Assassination of JFK, MLK, Malcolm X, RFK
Vietnam Conflict, Civil Unrest the Woodstock
Generation
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In the election of 1960, Nixon ran against
Kennedy. TV played a huge role in the campaign
the first televised debates reflected the youth
and vitality of Kennedy and the pale and uneasy
Nixon.
Kennedys religion became an issue, but in one of
the closest elections ever, Kennedy defeated
Nixon by a little over 100, 000 votes. Nixon
claimed the election had been stolen by
Democratic political machines in Texas Illinois.
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At 43, Kennedy was the youngest man ever to be
elected president. In his first inaugural
address, he spoke of a torch being passed to a
new generation and promised to lead the county
in a New Frontier.
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New Frontier Programs Kennedy called for aid to
education, federal support of health care, urban
renewal and civil rights,
Many of JFKs programs stalled in Congress
however, many were part of LBJs Great Society
Programs.
The economy flourished under JFK, mostly because
of defense spending.
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Foreign Policy Peace Corps established in 1961
young American volunteers would give aid in
developing countries.
Bay of Pigs, 1961 failed attempt for CIA plot to
overthrow Castro by anti-Castro Cubans, who were
caught on the beach and forced to surrender.
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Berlin Wall built 1961 Soviet and US tanks face
off in Berlin, but JFK made no attempt to stop
the wall from being built.
Cuban Missile Crisis Soviets were building
underground silos for nuclear weapons in Cuba.
JFK set up a naval blockade of Cuba nuclear war
was threatened, but Khrushchev backed down and
removed the missiles from Cuba in exchange for
JFK pledge not to invade Cuba. In 1963, the US
USSR 100 nations signed the Nuclear Test Ban
Treaty to end testing in the atmosphere.
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JFK was assassinated in Dallas on November 22,
1963.
JFK served for about 1000 days his
administration would be idealized and remembered
as Camelot.
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LBJ believed that problems of housing, income,
employment, and health were ultimately a federal
responsibility, and he used the weight of the
presidency and his formidable political skills to
enact the most impressive array of reform
legislation since the days of Franklin Roosevelt.
He envisioned a society without poverty or
discrimination, in which all Americans enjoyed
equal educational and job opportunities. He
called his vision the "Great Society."
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A major feature of Johnson's Great Society was
the "War on Poverty." The federal government
raised the minimum wage and enacted programs to
train poorer Americans for new and better jobs,
including the 1964 Manpower Development and
Training Act and the Economic Opportunity Act,
which established such programs as the Job Corps
and the Neighborhood Youth Corps. To assure
adequate housing, in 1966 Congress adopted the
Model Cities Act to attack urban blight, set up a
cabinet-level Department of Housing and Urban
Development, and began a program of rent
supplements.
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To promote education, Congress passed the Higher
Education Act in 1965 to provide student loans
and scholarships, the Elementary and Secondary
Schools Act of 1965 to pay for textbooks, and the
Educational Opportunity Act of 1968 to help the
poor finance college educations. To address the
nation's health needs, the Child Health
Improvement and Protection Act of 1968 provided
for prenatal and postnatal care, the Medicaid Act
of 1968 paid for the medical expenses of the
poor, and Medicare, established in 1965, extended
medical insurance to older Americans under the
Social Security system.
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Johnson also prodded Congress to pass a broad
spectrum of civil rights laws, ranging from the
Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights
Act of 1965 to the 1968 Fair Housing Act barring
discrimination in the sale or rental of housing.
In 1965, LBJ issued an executive order requiring
government contractors to ensure that job
applicants and employees were not discriminated
against. It required all contractors to prepare
an "affirmative action plan" to achieve these
goals.
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Johnson broke many other color barriers. In 1966,
he named the first black cabinet member and
appointed the first black woman to the federal
bench. In 1967, he appointed Thurgood Marshall to
become the first black American to serve on the
Supreme Court. The first Southerner to reside in
the White House in half a century, Johnson showed
a stronger commitment to improving the position
of black Americans than any previous president.
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In 1960, 40 million Americans (20 percent of the
population) were classified as poor. By 1969,
their number had fallen to 24 million (12 percent
of the population). Johnson also pledged to
qualify the poor for new and better jobs, to
extend health insurance to the poor and elderly
to cover hospital and doctor costs, and to
provide better housing for low-income families.
Here, too, Johnson could say he had delivered.
Infant mortality among the poor, which had barely
declined between 1950 and 1965, fell by one-third
in the decade after 1965 as a result of expanded
federal medical and nutritional programs. Before
1965, 20 percent of the poor had never seen a
doctor by 1970, the figure had been cut to 8
percent. The proportion of families living in
houses lacking indoor plumbing also declined
steeply, from 20 percent in 1960 to 11 percent a
decade later.
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Gulf of Tokin Resolution, 1964 Congress gives
LBJ unlimited discretion to fight the war in
Vietnam.
2. 7 million Americans served in Vietnam and
58,000 died. The attempt to contain communism to
prevent the domino effect ultimately failed. The
US pulled out in 1972, and the South fell to
communism in 1975.
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1968 The Tet Offensive in Vietnam turned public
sentiment against the war Martin Luther King and
RFK were assassinated LBJ says, I shall not
seek, nor shall I accept. . . Democratic
national convention turned into chaos in
Chicago Nixon was elected over Wallace and
Humphrey
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