US HIST 106: Affluence and Anxiety

Question 1

Golden Age
of Capitalism

Answer 1

• 60% enjoyed a middle
  class lifestyle.
• 1950 poverty rate = 30%,
  1960 = 22%
• 19% population growth
  during 1950s.
• By 1964 – 76.4m baby
  boomers (40%
  population)
• Flight to suburbs.

Question 2

Economic growth

Answer 2

• Construction soared, factories produced consumer goods
• Government spending stimulated the economy
• Boom in residential construction -“Levittowns” allowed for massive home building
• Personal savings were high due to WWII
• Foreign aid programs furthered economic growth

Question 3

Society

Answer 3

• Religion the primary
  identifying feature of
  Americans.
• Population growth
  caused school shortages.
• Launch of “Sputnik” in
  1957 led to investment
  in science education.
• TV watching replaced
  radio.

Question 4

Counterculture

Answer 4

• Fightback against consumerism
  and cultural norms.
• Beatniks sought beatitude
• Jack Kerouac’s “On the Road”
  bemoaned bankruptcy of popular
  culture.

Question 5

Civil Rights

Answer 5

• Truman established
  Presidential Commission on
  Civil Rights but thwarted in
  Congress due to states’
  rights movement.
• Used executive power to
  integrate armed forces.

Question 6

Brown Vs. Board of Education

Answer 6

• 40% of children attended segregated schools
• Thurgood Marshall argued separate but equal was harmful to children’s self esteem
• 1954- Oliver Brown challenged school segregation in Topeka, Kansas
• Chief justice Earl Warren and all other justices agreed separate but equal was a violation of the 14th amendment.
• Called for desegregation” with deliberate speed”

Question 7

Section One
of 14th
Amendment

Answer 7

• Every person born in a state was made a
  citizen of that state and a citizen of the
  U.S.A.
• No state could deprive citizens of any
  privileges that other citizens had.
• No state could deny its citizens of life,
  liberty or property without due process
  of law.
• No state could deny to any person within
  its jurisdiction the equal protection of
  the laws.* (Equal Protection Clause)

Question 8

Plessy vs. Ferguson 1896

Answer 8

• The purpose of the 14th Amendment, the Court said, was “to
  enforce the absolute equality of the two races before the law….
  Laws … requiring their separation … do not necessarily imply
  the inferiority of either race.”
• The argument against segregation laws was false because of the
  “assumption that the enforced separation of the two races
  stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority. If this be so,
  it is … solely because the colored race chooses to put that
  construction upon it.”

Question 9

Justice John Marshall
Harlan

Answer 9

• “The white race deems itself to be the dominant race,” but the
  Constitution recognizes “no superior, dominant, ruling class of
  citizens.”
• “Our Constitution is color-blind…. In respect of civil rights all
  citizens are equal before the law.” The Court’s majority opinion,
  he pointed out, gave power to the states “to place in a
  condition of legal inferiority a large body of American citizens.”

Question 10

Little Rock Highschool

Answer 10

• 1957- Nine black students enrolled in Central high school to test the South Carolina ruling
• Opposed by local white groups and Government Orval Faubus
• National guard prevented students from entering
• Federal judge Richard Davis launched legal proceedings against Faubus
• Sept. 24- Eisenhower called in federal troops

Question 11

Montgomery
Bus Boycott

Answer 11

• 1955- African Americans still required to
  sit separately on public transportation.
• Dec 1st – Rosa Parks refused to yield her
  seat. Subsequently arrested and fined.
• Boycott called – 40,000 participated.
• Dec 5th – Montgomery Improvement
  Association formed.
• June 5th ,1956 – Montgomery federal
  court ruled violation of 14th Amendment.
  (Upheld by Supreme Court in December

Question 12

Civil Rights

Answer 12

• Feb 1960- Greensboro,
  North Carolina – Sit in at
  a Woolworth’s lunch
  counter.
• April 1960 – Student
  Nonviolent Coordinating
  Committee pushed for
  equality.

Question 13

SNCC Statement of
Purpose

Answer 13

• We affirm the philosophical or religious ideal of nonviolence as the foundation of our purpose, the
  presupposition of our faith, and the manner of our action. Nonviolence as it grows from Judaic-Christian
  tradition seeks a social order of justice permeated by love. Integration of human endeavor represents
  the crucial first step toward such a society.
• Through nonviolence, courage displaces fear; love transforms hate. Acceptance dissipates prejudice;
  hope ends despair. Peace dominates war; faith reconciles doubt. Mutual regard cancels enmity. Justice
  for all overthrows injustice. The redemptive community supersedes systems of gross social immorality.
• Love is the central motif of nonviolence. Love is the force by which God binds man to Himself and man to
  man. Such love goes to the extreme; it remains loving and forgiving even in the midst of hostility. It
  matches the capacity of evil to inflict suffering with an even more enduring capacity to absorb evil, all
  the while persisting in love.
• By appealing to conscience and standing on the moral nature of human existence, nonviolence nurtures
  the atmosphere in which reconciliation and justice become actual possibilities.