Post War America 1945-1960’s

1. Post War America 1945-1960’s Domestic Policy and Popular Culture for the 1950’s and early 1960’s.

2. 1930-1945 1945-1960

3. Truman • Election of 1948 – Dewey (R) vs. Truman (D) Truman wins! • Two third party candidates – Strom Thurmond (Dixiecrats) and Henry Wallace (Progressive) • Truman’s Fair Deal – • Increased minimum wage and social security benefits and attempts Civil Rights legislation. • Successfully desegregated the military by 1948 with Executive order 9981.

4. Domestic Programs • Election of 1952 – Eisenhower (R) vs. Stevenson (D) Eisenhower wins! • Eisenhower promises a smaller role for the federal government. • He ended and limited some government programs but extended others. • The election of 1956 will be a repeat of the election of 1952.

5. JFK and “The New Frontier” • Election of 1960 – JFK(D) vs. Nixon (R) – Kennedy wins! • The New Frontier – a campaign of social programs focusing on education, health insurance and urban development. • Kennedy also asked for more funds for space exploration – it was his challenge to be the first to put a man on the moon. He never saw his goal realized. “Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.”

6. LBJ and “The Great Society” • An attempt to eliminate poverty. Johnson declared a “War on Poverty” • Medicare and Medicaid, Head Start were just a few of the programs. The greatest legacy of the Great Society are the questions it still leaves us to struggle with. How can the federal government help disadvantaged citizens? How much help can a society provide with out weakening the private sector? How much help can people receive without losing motivation to fight hardships on their own?

7. The American Civil Rights Movement

11. Montreal Royals Jackie Robinson poses on April 18,1946. Robinson is playing in the Negro Leagues in 1946.

12. Jackie Robinson, first Negro to ever be admitted into the major leagues, photographed right after he signed his contract with the Brooklyn Dodgers at the Dodgers office, April 10, 1947

13. Super star Wille Mays!

14. Some kid named Aaron played in Milwaukee!.

15. Good enough to headline in Las Vegas but not good Enough to stay in the hotels! A trailer outback was Good enough for Blacks in the 1950’s and 1960’s!

17. The Warren Court orders desegregation of schools in the 1950’s And supports continued Civil Rights changes in the 1960’s!

18. The refusal of the public school to admit Brown, then nine years old in 1951, because she was black led to the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas. In 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court overruled the "separate but equal" clause and mandated that schools nationwide must be desegregated.

19. The Brown victory ends segregation in Public Schools. Thurgood Marshall the Attorney for Linda Brown becomes the first African American Supreme Court Justice.

20. Mrs. Rosa Parks is fingerprinted by Dep. Sherriff D.H. Lackey in Montgomery, Ala., after refusing to give up her seat on a bus for a white passenger on Dec. 1, 1955. Parks' refusal to give up her seat led to a boycott of buses by blacks in Dec. 1955, a tactic organized by the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King

21. We Shall over come

22. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., center, the first defendant called to trial in the racial bus boycott, held a press conference on March 19, 1956 on the steps of the Montgomery County courthouse where he and 92 others are on trial. They are charged with the violation of the anti-boycott law. King's wife, Coretta is byhis side.

23. Arrested in the 1950’s! Awarded the Medal of Freedom in the 1990’s

24. Empty busses in Montgomery! Hit them where it hurts!

25. A bombed out bus, it seems some locals in the “South” were unhappy! Integration and Civil Rights Protest were violently opposed by some!! Looking for a Movie Review: Mississippi Burning is good choice.

26. A new bus load of "freedom riders," including four white college professors and three Negro students, arrives in Montgomery, AL, May 24, 1961, under guard of police and National Guard. Center, with glasses, is Rev. William S. Coffin, Jr. At left, partly hidden, is Dr. David E. Swift, and behind him, wearing glasses, is Dr. John D. Maguire.

27. White robed Ku Klux Klansmen, hooded but unmasked, are shown parading in single file in front of Rich's, Atlanta's largest department store. Klan leaflets passed out to shoppers called for action now to maintain segregation.

31. National Guard Brig. Gen. Henry Graham, center, informs Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace that the guard was under federal control as the two met at the door of Foster Auditorium at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Ala., June 11, 1963. Wallace, who had vowed to prevent integration of the campus, gave way to federal troops.

32. Students at West End High yell, wave flags and a picture of Gov. George Wallace as they demonstrate at Birmingham, Ala., following admittance of two black students, September 10, 1963.

34. Rev. Ralph Abernathy, left, and Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. lead a column of demonstrators as they attempt to march on Birmingham, Ala., city hall April 12, 1963. Police intercepted the group short of their goal.

35. The Rev. Martin Luther King, left, of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, and Malcolm X, heading a new group known as Muslim Mosque, Inc., flash their biggest smiles for photographers March 26, 1964 at the Capitol.

36. Marchers stream across the Alabama River in this March 21, 1965 photo on the first of a five day, 50 mile march to the state capitol at Montgomery. Rep. John Lewis, D-Ga., who as a young civil rights leader was clubbed by police, won House approval on Tuesday May 14, 1996 of a bill designating the march route from Selma, Ala. to Montgomery a national historic trail.

39. 50%of Americans don’t vote!

40. School Desegregation begins following the Brown Decision It’s not voluntary in places like Little Rock Arkansas

41. America begins a rapid period of social and political change in the 1950’s and 1960’s

42. A shoe store in the Watts area of Los Angeles, CA, collapses in flames as the city's wave of violence moves into it's fourth day, August 14, 1965.

43. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., right, is seen addressing a public gathering in the riot-torn area of Los Angeles on Aug. 18, 1965. Dr. King opposed Violent protests Like the Watts Riots of 1965!

44. Two youths, with lampshades from a looted store, run down a street in the Watts section of Los Angeles in this August 13, 1965, file photo taken during the Watts Riots. The six days of violence left 34 dead and resulted in $40 million of property damage.

46. King founded the Southern Christian Conference in 1957, advocating nonviolent action against America's racial inequality. Awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. The Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. acknowledges the crowd at the Lincoln Memorialfor his "I Have a Dream" speech during the March on Washington, D.C., on Aug. 28, 1963. The march was organized to support proposed Civil rights legislation.

47. 100 years after the Civil War! • Despite his difficulties fighting the war in Vietnam President Johnson(LBJ) pushed to pass two key civil rights laws • 1. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 - which made segregation illegal in all public places and made it easier to prosecute those in violation of the law. • 2. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 – outlawed literacy tests and poll taxes and gave federal authorities the right to register voters.

48. Watts, New York, Newark, Washington DC, Chicago, Detroit, Milwaukee, LA, Boston, Philadelphia all saw riots in the 1960’s!

49. A National Guardsman stands at the ready at an intersection during the summer riots of 1967. A terrible new slogan had replaced the South's "We shall overcome." It was "Burn, baby, burn." And frustration and despair erupted from the sidewalks of the northern cities where blacks saw little change following the Voting Rights Act of 1965.

50. 1968 a Pivotal Year in US History: Assassinations of Martin Luther King in April and Robert Kennedy in June. In Vietnam the Tet Offensive has changed American attitudes toward the “WAR”!