(Class 22) Camelot and Beyond

Question 1

Kennedy-Nixon Debates

Answer 1

• First election to have televised debates
• Kennedy cool and confident
• Nixon nervous and pale
• Kennedy won narrowly the election
• African-Americans helped contribute to his victory
• Johnson helped carry the south as he was supposed to do
• Kennedy at 43 youngest elected President

Question 2

“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”

Answer 2

• Kennedy called on Americans to serve the common good
• He projected idealism, energy, youth and glamour
• He had an attractive wife and children
• His brief time in office would be characterized as Camelot

Question 3

Civil Rights Act of 1964

Answer 3

• Strongest civil rights legislation since Reconstruction
• Made discrimination in employment, education and public accommodations illegal
• Took all of Johnson’s energy to get it through Congress
• Many republicans were even convinced by Johnson to vote for the measure

Question 4

The Great Society (Johnson Domestic Policy)

Answer 4

• Johnson’s domestic policy against poverty and racial injustice
• With large Democratic majorities in Congress Johnson was able to achieve tremendous domestic gains and reforms between 1965 and 1966
• Doubled funding for the war on poverty
• Improve nations slums
• Food stamp program
• Improvements in housing for the poor
• Welfare assistance tripled between 1960 and 1972
• Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 for K-12 education
• Higher Education Act of 1965 – expanded federal aid to colleges and universities

Question 5

Medicare and Medicaid

Answer 5

• Johnson had to contend with a powerful medical lobby opposing national health insurance
• Concentrated on the elderly
• Congress responded with MEDICARE – financed with Social Security funds
• MEDICAID – a separate program – supplemented state paid medical aid for the poor
• Today these two programs cover 87 million people – 30% of the population

Question 6

Voting Rights Act of 1965

Answer 6

• Prohibits racial discrimination in voting
• Banned literacy tests
• Used previously to disqualify black voters
• Authorized federal intervention to ensure access to voting
• Congress later amended the Act five times to expand its protections

Question 7

Loving vs Virginia

Answer 7

• Mildred and Richard Loving were jailed for a year by the state of Virginia for marrying each other
• June 12, 1967 - The court ruled that Virginia’s anti miscegenation statute violated both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment
• Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival

Question 8

Freedom Riders

Answer 8

• May 1961 Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) forms
• Organized Freedom Rides to implement court orders for integrated transportation
• 6 whites and 7 blacks
• Reached Alabama where bus was bombed and they were beaten
• Kennedy urged against it and dispatched federal marshals to restore order
• More than 400 blacks and whites participated in freedom rides

Question 9

March on Washington

Answer 9

• August 1963
• Demonstration for Jobs and Freedom
• King spoke from the Lincoln Memorial
• Gave his “I have a dream speech”
• Hidden resistance from the federal government followed as the FBI spied on King and other leaders to mitigate black protest

Question 10

Affirmative Action

Answer 10

• Johnson issued an executive order in 1965
• Required employers holding government contracts to take affirmative action to ensure equal opportunity
• He extended it to include women in 1967
• Affirmative action program was enacted to counter the effects of centuries of discrimination

Question 11

Students for a Democratic Society

Answer 11

• Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) formed in 1960
• Criticized the complacency of their elders
• Created a new left around goals of civil rights, peace and universal economic security
• Student protests and antiwar movement followed

Question 12

Equal Rights Amendments

Answer 12

• To the Constitution was proposed
• Congress passed ERA in 1972
• Outlawed differential treatment of men and women under all state and federal laws
• Women would finally have all the same rights as men in terms of employment, education, judicial and political rights
• But it never became law – never became an Amendment to the Constitution
• Phyllis Schlafly, lawyer, and other conservative women in the Republican party (antifeminists) felt the ERA would devalue the role of wife and mother
• Marched on state legislatures to block ratification and they were successful
• By 1982 (ten year time limit for ratification) only 35 states had ratified (needed 38) and the ERA died

Question 13

Roe vs Wade

Answer 13

• In 1973 Supreme Court ruled on Abortion
• Until then abortions were largely illegal in this country
• Landmark decision and one that continues to be hotly debated
• Constitution protects the right to abortion
• States cannot prohibit in early stages of pregnancy
• Abortion foes got Congress to prohibit Medicaid from covering abortions
• States were able to impose obstacles – i.e. in terms of late abortions

Question 14

Title IX

Answer 14

• Part of Education Amendments Act of 1972
• Banned sex discrimination in all aspects of education, such as admissions, athletics and hiring
• Has now been extended to protection on campus against sexual violence
• US military academies were open to women admission in 1976