Week 13. Cold War and the Civil Rights Movement

Postwar America

The Atomic Bomb
1940 Roosevelt set up the Manhattan Project directed by Robert Oppenheimer at Los Alamos, NM
Hiroshima was chosen as a port and war industries city and military headquaters
President Harry Truman (Roosevelt died in 1945) believed the bomb should be used to avoid U.S. invasion of Japan
Truman and U.S. scientists underestimated the destructive power of the bomb
Enola Gay deployed the bomb over Hiroshima on August 3
80,000 people killed right away, 140,000 by the end of the year because of radiation
Nagasaki bombed soon after
led to end of war in Japan but began the Cold War nuclear arms race

Postwar World
divided between the spheres of influence of the Soviet Union (Eastern Europe) and the United States
1945 - United Nations established
Security Council (permanent members - US, USSR, Britain, France, and China)
1947 - National Security Act established National Security Council and the Central Intelligence Agency
Ambassador in Moscow George Kennan suggests a strategy of "containment" of Soviet power
Truman Doctrine -- U.S. should provide aid to countries to resist communist insurrections (Greece)
Marshall Plan - U.S. will help reconstruct Europe, Russians resisted
West Germany and West Berlin under U.S. control, East Germany under Russian control
1949 - North Atlantic Treaty Organization - military alliance of U.S. and Western European countries against USSR
1948 - new state of Israel, recognized by U.S.
1949 - Mao Tse-tung established communist government in China
1949 - Russians have the atomic bomb
1950-1953 - Korean war divides the country

Red Scare and McCarthyism
since 1938 the House Un-American Activities Committee looked for subversives in government
1947 HUAC subpoenaed 19 Hollywood actors, producers and writers to prove that Communist party dominated the film industry
Hollywood Ten refused to testify whether they were members of the Communist party, were sentenced to a year in prison and blacklisted
Alger Hiss, State Department official, convicted of perjury--lying about his espionage for the Soviets
Julius and Ethel Rosenberg convicted of espionage in wartime and executed in 1953
Richard Nixon was an active anti-Communist and a congressman and then Senator
Joseph McCarthy, Republican Senator from Wisconsin started a witch hunt butnever uncovered a single Communist agent in government

Civil Rights in the 1940s
1946 National Emergency Committee Against Mob Violence - info about lynchings
Committee on Civil Rights to investigate violence
Fair Employment Practices Committee
1946 Truman ended segregation in the armed forces
Jackie Robinson - the first black player in the major league (Brooklyn Dodgers)
Fair Deal - continuations of New Deal policies (social security, ruran electrification)

Little Richard, "Tutti Frutti"
Richard Penniman ("Little Richard") famous in the 1950s
"Tutti Frutti" was a hit song covered by white rock 'n' roll musician Pat Boone
an example of crossover in postwar music
local radio experienced resurgence particularly in the South
independent black radio stations WDIA in Memphis, WOKJ in Jackson, and WXLW in St. Louis broadcast rhythm and blues music
more white young people could listen to black music

Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas
NAACP continued to fight to abolish desegregation in the 1950s
President Dwight Eisenhower (Republican, 1953-1961) supported civil rights in theory but believed that states rather than federal government should change laws, which made most 1950s decisions in favor of civil rights ineffective
in 1950s challenges to state laws mandating segregation in state schools in Kansas, Delaware, South Carolina, Virginia, and the District of Columbia
Brown v. Board of Ed. is the first and most famous - 1952 in the Supreme Court - declared segregation in public schools unconstitutional - main argument sociological and psychological: even if facilities are equal still students would feel inferior
but Eisenhower refused to enforce the decision - in the end of 1956 still no black child attended school with whites

Montgomery Bus Boycott
an example of an individual advancing the case of civil rights
Rosa Parks, a black seamstress, refused to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1955 and was arrested
community leaders organized boycott of the bus system, pastor Martin Luther King led the protest
1957 King organized the Southern Christian Leadership Conference
King advocated non-violent protest (similar to Ghandi)
in contrast with Malcom X who advocated active resistance

Civil Rights Acts
proposed by Eisenhower, protected African-Americans' right to vote
1957 Civil Rights Act - established the Civil Rights Commission and a Civil Rights Division in the Justice Department - could seek injunctions if local authorities interfered with blacks' right to vote
by 1959 not one black Southerner was added to the voting rolls
1960 Civil Rigths Act - federal court referees to register blacks where there was a pattern of discrimination

Little Rock
in 1957 9 black students entered Little Rock's Central High School
Arkansas governor Orval Faubus called out the National Guard to prevent students from attending
but withdrew the Guard on court order
white mob prevented students from attending
Eisenhower ordered a thousand paratroopers to protect the students and placed the National Guard on federal service
the following year Faubus closed the school to prevent integration, it reopened in 1959 after federal courts struck down the order
in Virginia state and federal courts struck down state laws that refused funds to integrated schools

Non-violent protests
sit-ins - 1960 four black college students demanded service at a "whites only" lunch counter in Greensboro, NC
1960 Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) - black and white students working with M.L. King
within one year over 3,600 white and black activists spend time in jail
1961 the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) organizes "freedom rides" on black and white people on buses - violent resistance in the South
1963 M.L. King organizes demonstrations in Birmingham, AL, writes "Letter from Birmingham Jail" - encourages federal intervention
Lyndon Johnson passes 1964 Civil Rights Act - outlaws racial discrimination in public accomodations
bans job discrimination by race, religion, national origin, sex
1968 M.L. King assassinated

Black nationalism
1965 riot in Watts, area of LA
"Black Power" movement - reaction to black urban poverty
Malcolm X - Black Muslim, then left the muslim movement and spoke in favor of interracial cooperation but was killed in Harlem in 1965
1966 Black Panthers - Huey Newton and Eldridge Cleaver - wore berets and carried guns

Other Protest Movements
feminism - 1963 Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique
the New Left - 1960 Students for Democratic Society
counterculture - fashion

Postwar Society and Culture
By 1947 U.S. took care of half of the world’s manufacturing: 57 percent of steel; 47 percent of the electricity; and 62 percent of the oil
strike wave of 1946 and Taft-Hartley Act of 1946 made militant union action difficult, allowed states to ban the unions
Baby boom - Birth rate 25% increase during the war and stayed steady throughout the 1950s
GI Bill – Servicemen Readjustment Act of 1944 - helped veterans to pay for college education and own a house.
William Levitt – constructed family quarters on a navy base - $6,990 identical suburban houses began to sell in March 1949 – 1400 houses were sold in the first 3 hours (no women or blacks were allowed to sign a mortgage)
In 1956, for the first time in U.S. history, white-collar workers outnumbered blue-collar workers
In 1950, 31 percent of all women were employed; 20 million of these joined the workforce during and after world war II; women’s wages fell to 53 percent of men’s
but cultural attitudes maintained that women’s place was in the home
John F. Kennedy (1961-1963) won presidential elections in part because Richard Nixon agreed to TV debates but Kennedy looked better on TV

Vietnam War
September 1945 Communist leader Ho Chi Minh proclaimed a Democratic Republic of Vietnam, opposed French control
U.S. (Eisenhower) provided financial aid to French war effort in Vietnam
1954 North Vietnam (Ho Chi Minh) and South Vietnam (Ngo Dinh Diem, with U.S. aid)
1957 Viet Cong guerilla forces attach South Vietnamese government
Ho Chi Minh Trail through eastern Laos provided arms to Viet Cong
John F. Kennedy (1961-1963) continued to aid South Vietnam but refused to provide military assistance
Lyndon Johnson (1963-1969) started "escalation" of U.S. involvement
Tonkin Gulf Resolution in Congress - claimed that two U.S. destroyers were attached by N. Vietnamese
operation "Rolling Thunder" - bombings of North Vietnam
by 1966 - 385,000 U.S. troops in Vietnam
continued the policy of "containment" of Communism
but public support for the war quickly eroded - mass antiwar demonstrations in New York and Pentagon in 1967
U.S. could not win war of attrition because N. Vietnamese were more committed
1968 the Tet (Vietnamese New Year) offensive in response to N. Vietnamese assaults
successful U.S. media and the public demanded U.S. withdrawal
May 1968 negotiations with N. Vietnam begin in Paris
Lyndon Johnson refused to seek another term because of the outcry
Richard Nixon (1969-1974) begain to withdraw U.S. troops in 1969
1969 news of My Lai massacre - Army Lieutenant William Calley ordered the murder of 200 Vietnamese civilians in My Lai village in 1968
March 1969 U.S. planes bomb Cambodian Communist sanctuaries that aided Vietnam communists- over 100,000 tons of bombs dropped, 4 times of bombings over Japan during World War II
Congress found out about Cambodia only in 1970
wave of campus protests to Cambodian bombings
Kent State University, Ohio - ROTC building was burned to the ground, Ohio National Guard was called to quell rioting and opened fire, killing 4 bystanders
1971 New York Times publishes the Pentagon Papers - revealed that presidents have been lying to Congress and the American people about the extent of the war from the beginning
Nixon tried to block publication arguing that it would endanger national security, but the Supreme Court voted 6 to 3 to allow it; the next day newspapers across the country began to publish the Papers
1973 settlement - U.S. troops leave Vietname
1975 North Vietnamese occupy Saigon
the war cost U.S. 58,000 deaths and ended respect for the military