The Sixties Flashcards
Sit-in
Tactic adopted by young civil rights activists, beginning in 1960, of demanding service at lunch counters or public accommodations and refusing to leave if denied access; marked the beginning of the most militant phase of the civil rights struggle.
Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)
Organization founded in 1960 to coordinate civil rights sit-ins and other forms of
grassroots protest.
Freedom Rides
Bus journeys challenging racial segregation in the South in 1961.
March on Washington
Civil rights demonstration on August 28, 1963, where the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial.
Bay of Pigs Invasion
U.S. mission in which the CIA, hoping to inspire a revolt against Fidel Castro,
sent 1,500 Cuban exiles to invade their homeland on April 17, 1961; the mission
was a spectacular failure.
Cuban Missile Crisis
Tense confrontation caused when the United States discovered Soviet offensive missile sites in Cuba in October 1962; the U.S.-Soviet confrontation was the Cold War’s closest brush with nuclear war.
Civil Rights Act (1964)
Law that outlawed discrimination in public accommodations and employment.
Voting rights Act
Law passed in the wake of Martin Luther King Jr.’s Selma-to-Montgomery March
in 1965; it authorized federal protection of the right to vote and permitted federal
enforcement of minority voting rights in individual counties, mostly in the South.
Hart-Celler Act
1965 law that eliminated the national origins quota system for immigration established by laws in 1921 and 1924; led to radical change in the origins of immigrants to the United States, with Asians and Latin Americans outnumbering Europeans.
Great Society
Term coined by President Lyndon B. Johnson in his 1965 State of the Union
address, in which he proposed legislation to address problems of voting rights,
poverty, diseases, education, immigration, and the environment.
War on poverty
Plan announced by President Lyndon B. Johnson in his 1964 State of the Union address; under the Economic Opportunity Bill signed later that year, Head Start, VISTA, and the Jobs Corps were created, and programs were created for students, farmers, and businesses in efforts to eliminate poverty.
Black Power
Post-1966 rallying cry of a more militant civil rights movement.
New Left
Radical youth protest movement of the 1960s, named by leader Tom Hayden to
distinguish it from the Old (Marxist-Leninist) Left of the 1930s.
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
Major organization of the New Left, founded at the University of Michigan in 1960 by Tom Hayden and Al Haber.
Port Huron Statement
○ A manifesto by Students for a Democratic Society that criticized institutions
ranging from political parties to corporations, unions, and the military-industrial
complex, while offering a new vision of social change.
Gulf of Tonkin Resolution
Legislation passed by Congress in 1964 in reaction to supposedly unprovoked attacks on American warships off the coast of North Vietnam; it gave the president unlimited authority to defend U.S. forces and members of SEATO.
Counterculture
“Hippie” youth culture of the 1960s, which rejected the values of the dominant
culture in favor of illicit drugs, communes, free sex, and rock music.
The Femimnine Mystique
○ The book widely credited with sparking second-wave feminism in the United States. Author Betty Friedan focused on college-educated women, arguing that they would find fulfillment by engaging in paid labor outside the home.
National Organization for Women
Organization founded in 1966 by writer Betty Friedan and other feminists; it
pushed for abortion rights, nondiscrimination in the workplace, and other forms of
equality for women.
Stonewall Inn
○ A gathering place for New York’s gay community, the site of the 1969 police raids and resulting riots that launched the modern gay rights movement.
Height-Ashburn District
○ San Francisco
○ Center of counterculture
American Indian Movement (AIM)
Movement founded in 1963 by Native Americans who were fed up with the poor conditions on Indian reservations and the federal government’s unwillingness to help. In 1973, the American Indian Movement led 200 Sioux in the occupation of Wounded Knee. After a ten-week standoff with the federal authorities, the government agreed to reexamine Indian treaty rights and the occupation ended.
○ Led to Self-Determination Act
Silent Spring
○ A 1962 book by biologist Rachel Carson about the destructive impact of the
widely used insecticide DDT that launched the modern environmentalist
movement.
Environmental Protection Agency
Created by Nixon
Clean Air Act
1963
Warren Court
Gideon V. Wainwright
■ State must provide attorney if a person cannot afford it
○ Engel V. Vitale
■ School prayer unconstitutional
■ 1st amendment separation of church and state
○ Baker V. Carr
■ Regular redrawing of legislative districts to better reflect population ○ Griswold v. Connecticut
■ Supreme Court decision that, in overturning Connecticut law prohibiting the use of contraceptives, established a constitutional right to privacy.
Loving V Virginia
Interracial marriages OK
Roe v. Wade
1973 U.S. Supreme Court decision requiring states to permit first-trimester
abortions.
Tet Offensive
Surprise attack by the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese during the Vietnamese New Year of 1968; turned American public opinion strongly against the war in Vietnam.
