Presentation Transcript

1. The Stormy Sixties

   The New Frontier to Great Society
2. 1960 election: Kennedy (D) vs. Nixon (R) Kennedy: appeals to youth and educated liberals Nixon: associated with Eisenhower and McCarthyism
3. First televised Presidential Debates Marks beginning of domination of television in American politics
4. Kennedy won but closest contest since 1884
5. John Fitzgerald Kennedy 1960-1963 JFK’sdomestic program Economic stimulus: increasedmilitaryspending and taxincentives Social programs: extended social security, slum clearance, fairhousing, urban and housingrenewal, emergency relief for farmers Extension of fairlabor standards
6. JFK’s Domestic Program Scholarships, studentloans and education assistance Welfare and aid to dependent children (ADC) Equalemployment and civil rights extensions in the workplace
7. JFK’s Domestic Program Clean air act (after reports of pollution in rivers, SilentSpringpublication re DDT) Recommendations for paidmaternityleave, equalhiring practices for women
8. A. JFK and the Moon Mercury Project (1959-1963) US got astronauts into space and brought them back Gemini Project (1965-1966) Longer orbits Spacewalks Apollo Mission (1963-1972) Landing men on the moon 12 Americans walked on the moon
9. B. JFK's New Frontier Surrounded himself with the "best and brightest" Robert Kennedy: Attorney General Robert McNamara: Secretary of Defense
10. C. JFK’s Assassination JFK’s death traumatic The nation in mourning
11. C. JFK’s Assassination Identity of his successor (Johnson) also traumatic: tainted the legitimacy of the presidency Presidency under JFK: power and prestige reached new heights more than central operational mechanism of nation More than the chief emblem of nationalism
12. C. JFK’s Assassination JFK assassination interpreted as a sign of something wrong in American society. Both a symptom and a result of some larger social crisis: National headlines New York Times Magazine: “What Sort of Nation are We?” The Washington Post: “beset by division and the spectacle of hatred, and shaken by pervasive guilt.” Senator Fullbright: “our national life, both past and present, has been marked by a baleful and incongruous strand of intolerance and violence.”
13. D. Kennedy: the man and the politician JFK very popular with intellectuals, liberal elite, Catholics, blacks, upper-middle-class, his administration known as Camelot JFK exemplified the centrist ideal of the foreign policy Establishment: rational, restrained, stylish, yet fundamentally cautious, resolutely anti-Communist, but temperate in his use of power = the imperial President
14. Lyndon Baine Johnson 1963-1969
15. Johnson: the man Was not part of the New England establishment (A Southernerfrom Texas)Was not Catholicnot sophisticatednot an intellectualnot young JFK waseverythingthat Johnson was not Johnson:
16. Johnson: the man Warren Commission under Johnson set up to investigate the assassination of JFK After assassination LBJ had to prove his legitimacy “Every President has to establish with the various sectors of this country what I call ‘the right to govern.’…For me, that presented special problems…since I had come to the Presidency not through the collective will of the people but in the wake of tragedy. I had no mandate from the voters.” Source: Johnson’s memoirs
17. Johnson: the man Passionately ambitious to be remembered as a great President Highly sensitive to whatothersthought of him Johnson: a man of contradictions: complex but able Southerner but understood the black revolution Southerner but also a Westerner Understood poverty because he had known it but also belonged to a rural oligarchy Proud, domineering, insecure, persuasive, egotistical, subtle, coarse, sentimental, vindictive, intelligent (but not intellectual)
18. Johnson: the politician Vowed to do everything that Kennedy would have done for the remainder of his term LBJ’s domestic policy inspired by JFK’s New Frontier
19. Johnson: the politician War on poverty and civil rights bills stemmed from JFK’s legacy and the assassination itself: “we have hate abroad in the world, hate internationally, hate domestically where a President is assassinated and then they take the law into their own hands and kill the assassin. That is not our system. We have to do something about that…the roots of hate are poverty and disease and illiteracy, and they are abroad in the land.”
20. LBJ’s Great Society War on Poverty: Michael Harrington, The Other America: Despite Economic growth, 40-50 million Americans poor The poverty cycle: 3 pronged attack: Stopping people becoming poor in the first place Rehabilitating those caught in the cycle Making life easier for those who could not be helped by rehabilitation to help themselves out of poverty
21. LBJ’s Great Society War on Poverty $3 billion in spending to address poverty Food Stamp Act 1964 Poverty in America decreased (especially among the elderly) Infant mortality decreased substantially Medicaid Federal aid to assist and subsidize medical care for senior citizens Medicare (entitlement for the elderly) Medicaid (health insurance for the poor)
22. Poverty rate fell from 22% in 1960 to 13% in 1969 Poverty amongst blacks fell by half
23. Johnson: the politician Involve the poor themselves in decisions about efforts to help them, through “community action” Economic Opportunity Act 1964 “Today, for the first time in all the history of the human race, a great nation is able to make, and is willing to make, a commitment to eradicate poverty.”
24. LBJ’s Great society LBJ won a landslide victory reelection in 1964 Had 2 to 1 majorities in both chambers of Congress "Great Society Congress" passed legislation comparable to that of FDR's New Deal
25. LBJ’s Great society Build Great Society by... Improving America's cities Improving America's rural areas (Appalachia) Improving America's education system Video: University of Michigan speech May 1964
26. 1964 Elections Map Johnson vs. GoldwaterLBJ won 61% popular vote91 % electoral votesouth moving away from Democratic Party
27. LBJ’s Great Society Major increase in funding to education Student Aid Head Start Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965) $1 billion in aid for public schools to buy supplies Immigration reform (repealed Immigration Act of 1924) allowing entry of many Asians and Hispanics into U.S.
28. LBJ’s Great Society 1964 Civil Rights Act Ended segregation in all public facilities Ended unfair employment practices: discrimination based on race, gender, age, etc… Most comprehensive piece of civil rights legislation Appointed Thurgood Marshall to Supreme Court (1st African American) After Civil Rights Act passed, protestors turned their attention to voting rights (political rights)
29. LBJ’s Great Society 1965 Voting Rights Act (after re-election) Reinforced 15th amendment Prohibited voting restrictions (standard in the South) Literacy tests/poll taxes Any restrictions had to be pre-cleared by a federal judge Gave federal government significant oversight of elections and election policies in many southern states
30. Federal Jurisdiction Voting Rights Act 1965
31. LBJ’s Great Society Video: The Great Society Johnson considered a Superhero by liberals A borderline socialist by conservative Republicans
32. Liberal Criticism of LBJ’s Great Society MLK’s oratory: “Beyond Vietnam: a time to break silence” "It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor - both black and white - through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam, and I watched this program broken and eviscerated, as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So, I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such."