The Confident Years 1953 1964

Chapter 28 THE CONFIDENT YEARS 1953 – 1964

Learning Objectives:

28.1 How did the “Decade of Affluence” alter social and religious life in America?

28.2 What impact did Dwight Eisenhower’s foreign policy have on U.S. relations with the Soviet Union?

28.3 What was John F. Kennedy’s approach to dealing with the Soviet Union?

28.4 What was the significance of Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka?

28.5 How did Lyndon B. Johnson continue the domestic agenda inherited from the Kennedy administration? In what ways did he depart from it?

Chapter Outline: Preparatory resources addressing key topics related to this chapter:  Watch the MyHistoryLab Video Series: Key Topics in U.S. History o The Affluent Society: 1953 – 1960 o The Suburban Ideal o The Age of Ike o The Civil Rights Movement  Read Personal Journeys Online o Diane Nash, Interview in Mathew Allman, The New Negro, 1961. The civil rights sit-in movement in Nashville in 1960. o Suzette Miller, in Staughton Lynd, Nonviolence in America, 1966. Grassroots civil rights efforts in Mississippi in 1961.

I. A Decade of Affluence A. What’s Good for General Motors 1. Eisenhower and the Politics of the Middle 2. The New Prosperity B. Reshaping Urban America C. Comfort on Credit D. The New Fifties Family 1. The Impact of Television 2. Stay-at-Home Moms and Working Women E. Inventing Teenagers  Read the Document: Ladies’ Home Journal, “Young Mother” (1956) F. Turning to Religion G. The Gospel of Prosperity  Read the Document: Richard M. Nixon and Nikita S. Khrushchev, The Kitchen Debate (1959)

139 Copyright © 2014, 2011, 2009 by Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved. H. The Underside of Affluence II. Facing Off with the Soviet Union A. Why We Liked Ike B. A Balance of Terror C. The American Approach to the Cold War D. U.S. Alliances and the Third World E. Containment in Action F. Global Standoff III. John F. Kennedy and the Cold War A. The Kennedy Mystique B. Kennedy’s Mistakes C. Getting into Vietnam D. Missile Crisis: A Line Drawn in the Waves E. Science and Foreign Affairs IV. Righteousness Like a Mighty Stream: The Struggle for Civil Rights A. Getting to the Supreme Court  Read the Document: Jo Ann Gibson Robinson, Bus Boycott (1955) B. Deliberate Speed  Watch the Video: African American Women and the Struggle for Civil Rights C. Public Accommodations  Use MyHistoryLab Explorer to answer, How Did Conditions for African Americans Begin to Change in the mid-1900s? D. The March on Washington, 1963  Watch the Video: Justice for All: Civil Protest and Civil Rights E. Religious Belief and Civil Rights V. “Let Us Continue” A. Dallas, 1963 B. War on Poverty C. Civil Rights, 1964–1965 D. War, Peace, and the Landslide of 1964  Analyze From Then to Now: Medical Research on Polio and AIDS VI. Conclusion

Chapter Summary: Chapter 28 examines the broad impact of the Cold War on U.S. history, in areas ranging from military strategy to race relations. Topics considered in this chapter include the social history of the affluent 1950s; the continuation of Cold War policy; the mystique and mistakes of the John F. Kennedy administration; the birth of the modern American civil rights movement; and Lyndon B. Johnson’s rise to the presidency.

28.1 A Decade of Affluence In the decade after the Korean War, Americans enjoyed widespread prosperity symbolized by suburban houses and new cars pouring off Detroit assembly lines. While social commentators struggled to understand the success story, corporations courted Americans as consumers through television and popular music, franchised businesses, and shopping malls.

28.2 Facing Off with the Soviet Union

140 Copyright © 2014, 2011, 2009 by Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved. The Cold War, with its shadow of possible nuclear annihilation, largely controlled the ways in which the United States related to the world. American leaders judged foreign policy decisions and the actions of other nations for their effects on the balance of power between the United States and the Soviet Union.

28.3 John F. Kennedy and the Cold War The Cold War reached its most dangerous point in the early 1960s with U.S.-Soviet confrontations over Berlin and Cuba, escaping nuclear war by the narrowest of margins.

28.4 Righteousness Like a Mighty Stream: The Struggle for Civil Rights Building on the work of earlier decades, the civil rights movement of 1953-1964 transformed race relations in the realms of education, public accommodations, and political rights. At the same time, it left unsolved problems of racial equity in both the South and North.

28.5 “Let Us Continue” Lyndon Johnson used his immense political skills to advance the cause of economic opportunity for all Americans. The programs of the Great Society left a permanent and positive mark on American society in fields such as health care, employment, and civil rights.

Key Terms: 28.1 o Federal Highway Act of 1956 Measure that provided federal funding to build a nationwide system of interstate and defense highways. 28.2 o massive retaliation Popular name for the military doctrine adopted in the 1950s, whereby the United States promised to respond to any attack on itself or its allies with massive force, including nuclear weapons. o National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Federal agency created in 1958 to manage American space flights and exploration. o Southeast Asia Treaty Organization (SEATO) Mutual defense alliance signed in 1954 by the United States, Britain, France, Thailand, Pakistan, the Philippines, Australia, and New Zealand. 28.3 o New Frontier John F. Kennedy’s domestic and foreign policy initiatives, designed to reinvigorate a sense of national purpose and energy. o Bay of Pigs Site in Cuba of an unsuccessful landing by 1,400 anti-Castro Cuban refugees in April 1961. o Berlin Wall Wall erected by East Germany in 1961 that isolated West Berlin from the surrounding areas in Communist-controlled East Berlin and East Germany. o Viet Cong Communist rebels in South Vietnam who fought the pro-American government established in South Vietnam in 1954. o Alliance for Progress Program of economic aid to Latin America during the Kennedy administration. o Limited Test Ban Treaty Treaty signed by the United States, Britain, and the Soviet Union outlawing nuclear testing in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water. 28.4 o Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka Supreme Court decision in 1954 that declared that “separate but equal” schools for children of different races violated the Constitution.

141 Copyright © 2014, 2011, 2009 by Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved. o Southern Manifesto A document signed by 101 members of Congress from southern states in 1956 that argued that the Supreme Court’s decision in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka itself contradicted the Constitution. o Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) Black civil rights organization founded in 1957 by Martin Luther King Jr. and other clergy. o Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) Black civil rights organization founded in 1960 and drawing heavily on younger activists and college students. o Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) Civil rights group formed in 1942 and committed to nonviolent civil disobedience. 28.5 o War on Poverty Set of programs introduced by Lyndon Johnson between 1963 and 1966 designed to break the cycle of poverty by providing funds for job training, community development, nutrition, and supplementary education. o Office of Economic Opportunity (OEO) Federal agency that coordinated many programs of the War on Poverty between 1964 and 1975. o Civil Rights Act of 1964 Federal legislation that outlawed discrimination in public accommodations and employment on the basis of race, skin color, sex, religion, or national origin. o Freedom Summer Voter-registration effort in rural Mississippi organized by black and white civil rights workers in 1964. o Voting Rights Act Legislation in 1965 that overturned a variety of practices by which states systematically denied voter registration to minorities. o Gulf of Tonkin Resolution Request to Congress from President Lyndon Johnson in response to North Vietnamese torpedo boat attacks in which he sought authorization for “all necessary measures” to protect American forces and stop further aggression. o Great Society Theme of Lyndon Johnson’s administration, focusing on poverty, education, and civil rights. o Medicare Basic medical insurance program for the elderly, financed through the federal government, created in 1965. o Medicaid Supplementary medical insurance for the poor, financed through the federal government; program created in 1965.

Topics for Essays, Classroom Discussion, or Classroom Lecture: 1. Prepare a lecture on the emergence of a youth culture during the 1950s. One option is to focus on trends in popular music, particularly rock-and-roll. Connect the origins of rock-and-roll to the southern musical traditions of rhythm and blues, country, and gospel. Examine why early rock-and-roll was referred to as “race music” and why the white community responded with white “cover records.” Supplement the lecture with recordings of early rock-and-roll performers such as Little Richard and Chuck Berry, as well as examples of cover records by performers like Pat Boone. How does Elvis Presley fit into the picture? Presley recorded cover records, but was he distinct from Pat Boone? How so?

2. Examine the status of American women in the 1950s. How was the condition of middle- class American women in the 1950s significantly different from that of earlier decades in the twentieth century? To what extent was the status of women in the 1950s defined by World War II? How did television and journalism impact the American middle-class woman’s self-image? How does the status of women in the 1950s and 1960s lay the groundwork for a women’s liberation movement?

142 Copyright © 2014, 2011, 2009 by Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved. 3. Examine the political ideology of Lyndon Johnson. Focus on the political paradox of a southern politician who eventually played a pivotal role in realizing a liberal reform agenda— including the most significant civil rights legislation since Reconstruction and one of the most ambitious programs addressing economic inequity in America since the New Deal. What factors in Johnson’s political background prepared him for this role? To what extent did interest in and loyalty to the Democratic Party define his role? Ask students to comment on Johnson’s significance to southern politics and to national politics.

4. As mentioned in Chapter 27, some historians have characterized the 1950s as a decade of conservatism, consensus, and conformity. Yet the 1950s preceded the 1960s, which is characterized as one of the most radical and turbulent decades in modern American history. Have students discuss the 1950s as the breeding ground for the sixties. Consider some of the following issues: a. The 1960s counterculture. Have students consider the baby boom and the emergence of the American teenager as predictors of this sixties phenomenon. Did the emergence of rock-and-roll, the Beat generation, and 1950s affluence play a role in the emergence of a counterculture? Did the conservatism, consensus, and conformity of the 1950s play a role? b. The Vietnam War. Connect the American involvement in Vietnam to post-World War II foreign policy. Were there indications in the 1950s that Americans might feel some ambivalence about military intervention in Vietnam? Why would the strongest protest come from youth? c. The civil rights movement. Connect the civil rights movement to the African American role in World War II. Remind students that some of the major events of the movement, including the Brown decision and the Montgomery bus boycott, occurred as early as the mid-fifties.

5. The civil rights movement is often referred to as the Second Reconstruction. Hold a discussion in which students consider the following: a. To what extent was the federal agenda in the civil rights movement similar to the federal agenda in the Civil War? To what extent was the southern agenda during the civil rights movement similar to the southern agenda in the Civil War? Consider the national attention to federal authority and racial justice in both cases and the southern commitment to states’ rights and racial control in both cases. b. Connect the civil rights movement to other historical conflicts regarding states’ rights. Take students back not only to the Civil War but also to the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions and the Nullification Crisis. Review the meanings of nullification and interposition. What examples of these principles are seen in the events of the civil rights movement? c. Have students consider the issue of civil disobedience. Review the recurring theme in American history of Americans’ willingness to break the law for a higher good. What similarities exist between the role of African Americans in the civil rights movement and the earlier roles of patriots in the American Revolution or abolitionists who defied the Fugitive Slave Law? d. Compare and contrast the strides made in civil rights during Reconstruction and during the civil rights movement. Why was the civil rights movement needed when the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments were in the Constitution? Were the civil rights laws passed during the 1960s as vulnerable to violation as the Reconstruction laws?

143 Copyright © 2014, 2011, 2009 by Pearson Education, Inc., Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458. All rights reserved. 6. Have students compare and contrast 1950s and 1960s Cold War foreign policy with late nineteenth-century imperialism. Consider specifically issues related to the need for expanding economic markets, the fear of powers that were considered threatening, the need to expand American global military presence, and the lingering social problems connected with racism. Is there an element of moral diplomacy as well? How important was it in determining policy?

Enrichment Projects:

1. Choose one of the lesser figures in the civil rights movement and write a paper evaluating that person’s role and unique contribution to the movement. Some individuals to consider include Fannie Lou Hamer, Anne Moody, and Mose Wright.

2. Have students assess the impact of 1950s television situation comedies on contemporary American society. Divide the class into several groups and have each group choose one television program to study. The members of the group should watch three to five episodes of the program and consider the following questions: a. What does the American family look like in this program? Have students consider such issues as race, ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and level of education. b. How are women portrayed in the program? What is the message being sent to American women of the 1950s regarding their appropriate role in society? c. How are children portrayed in the program? What message does this send to American parents about child-rearing and the expectations placed on children? d. Place the program in its historical context. Is there any indication in the program of the real issues facing Americans during the 1950s? e. Do the images in these programs (many of which still draw large audiences in syndication or in DVD sales and rentals) impact the self-image of Americans today?