A. THE NEW FRONTIER
1. The Election of 1960
• John F. Kennedy was a Roman Catholic—the first to be nominated since Al Smith's losing campaign in 1928.
• The 1960 election was the first to include televised debates. Audiences estimated at 60 million or more watched each of the four debates between JFK and Richard Nixon.
2. Camelot
• JFK was the youngest elected president in American history.
• JFK challenged Americans to boldly enter the "New Frontier" of the 1960s.
• Kennedy and his glamorous wife, Jacqueline, presided over an elegant White House that was soon nicknamed Camelot after the legendary court of King Arthur.
B. THE GREAT SOCIETY
1. Primary Goals
• Use the federal government to enhance social welfare.
• Use education and job training to help disadvantaged people overcome the cycle of poverty limiting their opportunities.
2. Legislative Achievements
• The Civil Rights Act of 1964
• The Voting Rights Act of 1965
• Medicare and Medicaid
• The War on Poverty
• Programs offering significant federal aid to education
3. Similarities Between the New Deal and the Great Society
• Both the New Deal and the Great Society used the government to enhance social welfare.
• Both the New Deal and the Great Society included all of the following:
Government-sponsored employment programs Government support for the arts Federal programs to encourage housing construction Federal legislation to help the elderly
4. Differences Between the New Deal and the Great Society
• Preschool education for disadvantaged children was an innovative Great Society program that was not an extension of a New Deal program.
• In contrast to the New Deal, the Great Society included federal legislation protecting the civil liberties of African Americans.
TEST TIP
It is very important to know the similarities and differences between the New Deal and the Great Society. Especially note that, unlike the New Deal, the Great Society included landmark laws that protected the civil liberties and voting rights of African Americans.
A. THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
1. Leadership of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
• In April 1963, Dr. King led a campaign against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama.
• Within a few days, Police Commissioner Eugene "Bull" Connor arrested Dr. King and other marchers. In his "Letter from Birmingham jail," Dr. King argued that citizens have "a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws." Dr. King believed that civil disobedience is justified in the face of unjust laws.
• Connor ordered his police to use attack dogs and high- pressure fire hoses to disperse civil rights marchers. Millions of horrified TV viewers watched what Dr. King called a "visual demonstration of sin."
• Outraged by the violence, President Kennedy called upon Congress to pass a comprehensive civil rights bill that would end legal discrimination on the basis of race.
• In August 1963, Dr. King led a massive March on Washington to support President Kennedy's bill. Appealing for racial harmony and social justice, Dr. King declared, "I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character."
• On July 2, 1964, President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. This landmark legislation prohibited discrimination because of race, religion, national origin, or gender. The act banned racial discrimination in private facilities such as restaurants and theaters that are open to the public.
2. The Sit-In Movement
• Students staged the first sit-ins in Greensboro, North Carolina, in 1960 to protest segregation in public facilities.
• The sit-ins provide an excellent example of nonviolent civil disobedience.
3. Black Power
• The Black Power movement of the late 1960s advocated that African Americans establish control of their political and economic life.
• The most important Black Power leaders were Malcolm X, chief spokesman of the Nation of Islam; Stokely Carmichael, head of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC); and Huey Newton, head of the Black Panthers.
B. THE WOMEN'S RIGHTS MOVEMENT
1. Betty Friedan
• Betty Friedan was the author of The Feminine Mystique and the first president of the National Organization for Women (NOW).
• NOW was founded in 1966 in order to challenge sex discrimination in the workplace.
• Here is a famous excerpt from The Feminine Mystique: "The problem lay buried, unspoken, for many years in the minds of American women. It was a strange stirring, a sense of dissatisfaction, a yearning that women suffered in the middle of the twentieth century in the United States. Each suburban wife struggled with it alone. As she made the beds, shopped for groceries, matched slipcover material, ate peanut butter sandwiches with her children, chauffeured Cub Scouts and Brownies, lay beside her husband at night—she was afraid to ask even of herself the silent question—'Is this all?'"
• It is important to note that this passage from The Feminine Mystique reflects the fact that during the 1960s, feminism tended to be a movement of middle-class women.
TEST TIP
Be sure that you can identify Betty Friedan. A significant number of APUSH questions are devoted to Friedan's role in the women's rights movement.
2. The Expansion of Women's Rights
All of the following contributed to the expansion of women's rights since 1963:
• The Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974
• The Supreme Court decision in Roe v. Wade
• Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964
• Affirmative action regulations
A. LATIN AMERICA
1. The Alliance for Progress
• The Alliance for Progress was initiated by President Kennedy in 1961. It aimed to establish economic cooperation between North America and South America.
• The Alliance for Progress was intended to counter the emerging Communist threat from Cuba.
2. The Bay of Pigs
• President Kennedy inherited from the Eisenhower administration a CIA-backed scheme to topple Fidel Castro from power by invading Cuba with anti-Communist exiles.
• When the invasion failed, Kennedy refused to rescue the insurgents, forcing them to surrender.
• Widely denounced as a fiasco, the Bay of Pigs defeat damaged U.S. credibility.
• The Bay of Pigs failure, along with continuing American covert efforts to assassinate Castro, pushed the Cuban dictator into a closer alliance with the Soviet Union.
• Soviet Premier Khrushchev responded by secretly sending nuclear missiles to Cuba.
3. The Cuban Missile Crisis
• The Cuban Missile Crisis was precipitated by the discovery of Soviet missile sites in Cuba.
• The Soviets withdrew their missiles from Cuba in exchange for a promise from the United States not to attack Fidel Castro.
• As part of the negotiations to end the Cuban Missile Crisis, President Kennedy promised to refrain from a military invasion of Cuba.
A. THE TONKIN GULF RESOLUTION, 1964
1. An Incident in the Gulf of Tonkin
• The United States alleged that North Vietnamese torpedo boats launched an unprovoked attack against U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin.
• The facts of what actually happened have never been fully explained.
2. The Resolution
• Congress responded to the unsubstantiated report of North Vietnamese aggression by passing the Tonkin Gulf Resolution overwhelmingly.
• The resolution authorized President Lyndon Johnson to "take all necessary measures to repel any armed attack against the forces of the United States and to prevent further aggression."
• The Tonkin Gulf Resolution gave President Johnson a "blank check" to escalate the war in Vietnam.
• Within a short time, President Johnson began to dramatically escalate the number of U.S. troops in Vietnam.
B. THE TET OFFENSIVE, 1968
1. What Happened?
• In late January 1968, the Viet Cong suddenly launched a series of attacks on 27 key South Vietnamese cities, including the capital, Saigon.
• The Viet Cong were eventually forced to retreat after suffering heavy losses.
2. Consequences
• The Tet Offensive undermined President Johnson's credibility.
• As a result of the Tet Offensive, public support for the war decreased and antiwar sentiment increased.
A. PROTESTING GROUPS
During the 1960s, the following groups protested various aspects of American society:
1. African Americans 2. American Indians
3. Women
4. Youth—The Woodstock music festival was a countercultural gathering.
5. Hispanic Americans
B. ISSUES
1. The Vietnam War
2. Exclusion of women from the mainstream of American life
3. Increasing bureaucratization and impersonality of American life
4. Marginal economic status of minorities
5. The materialism of American society