Post-War America Flashcards
All 50 cards in this deck
What happened at Greensboro, North Carolina, on 1 February 1960?
Four Black college students sat at a whites-only Woolworth's lunch counter and refused to leave when they were refused service. The sit-ins spread to over 50 cities and SNCC was founded in April 1960.
Why did the Freedom Riders ride interstate buses into the South in 1961?
To test the Supreme Court ruling that segregation on interstate buses and in bus terminals was illegal, by travelling in mixed-race groups.
What was King's Birmingham campaign (April–May 1963)?
Marches and sit-ins against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. Police chief Bull Connor's use of dogs and fire hoses on peaceful protesters was televised worldwide.
What was the March on Washington (28 August 1963)?
A peaceful, multi-racial march of about 250,000 people to the Lincoln Memorial, where King made his 'I have a dream' speech. It put pressure on the Kennedy administration to pass civil rights laws.
What did the Civil Rights Act (1964) do?
Made segregation in public places and discrimination in employment illegal on grounds of race, colour, religion, sex or national origin. Proposed by Kennedy, it was pushed through Congress by Johnson.
What did the Voting Rights Act (1965) do?
Ended literacy tests and other barriers to registration, and allowed federal officials to register voters. Johnson introduced it after the Selma marches and Bloody Sunday at the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
Who was Malcolm X and what did he believe?
The leading spokesman of the Nation of Islam (Black Muslims), who rejected integration and non-violence and argued for Black separatism, Black pride and self-defence (later summed up in his phrase 'by any means necessary', after he left the Nation of Islam in 1964).
How did Malcolm X's attitude change after 1964?
After leaving the Nation of Islam and making the pilgrimage to Mecca he accepted that Black and white people could work together. He was assassinated by Nation of Islam members in February 1965.
Who was Stokely Carmichael?
The SNCC leader who popularised the slogan 'Black Power' in 1966, after becoming frustrated with non-violence and the slow progress of civil rights.
What were the two main types of method used by the Black Panther Party?
Armed patrols to monitor and confront the police over brutality, and community social programmes such as free breakfasts for children.
What were the Jim Crow laws?
State and local laws in the Southern states that enforced racial segregation, keeping Black and white Americans apart in schools, buses, restaurants, parks and other public places.
What was the NAACP and how did it campaign?
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; it challenged segregation and unfair education through legal cases in the courts, e.g. its lawyers won Brown v. Topeka (1954).
What did the Supreme Court rule in Brown v. Topeka (1954)?
That segregation in state schools was unconstitutional, overturning the doctrine of 'separate but equal' in education.
How did Governor Orval Faubus try to stop desegregation at Little Rock High School in 1957?
He used the Arkansas National Guard to block the nine Black students (the Little Rock Nine) from entering the school.
What did Rosa Parks do on 1 December 1955, and why was it significant?
She refused to give up her bus seat and move to the back, and was arrested; as a well-respected NAACP member her brave example united people and encouraged others to campaign for desegregation.
What was the SCLC?
The Southern Christian Leadership Conference, set up in 1957 with Martin Luther King as its president, to coordinate non-violent protest against segregation through Black churches in the South.
What happened to Emmett Till in 1955?
The Black teenager was murdered in Mississippi after being accused of whistling at a white woman in a store; his killers were acquitted by an all-white jury, showing how dangerous the South was.
Give one cause of America's prosperity after the Second World War.
Any one of: Americans spent their wartime savings on consumer goods; high government spending on defence; exports to help rebuild Europe; the baby boom and growth of suburbs raised demand.
What was the 'American Dream'?
The belief that any American could achieve success and prosperity through hard work — shown in the 1950s by owning a suburban home, a car and consumer goods.
What was McCarthyism?
Senator Joseph McCarthy's campaign of accusations from 1950 that communist spies had infiltrated the US government, creating a 'witch hunt' with no real evidence.
What was Rock and Roll, and how did many older Americans react to it?
A new style of music popular with teenagers; many older Americans disliked it and blamed it for encouraging lawlessness and rebellion.
Why did businesses begin aiming advertising directly at teenagers in the 1950s?
Teenagers had growing purchasing power, as prosperous parents could support them for longer instead of them working to support the family.
What was the outcome of the Montgomery Bus Boycott?
The Supreme Court ruled that segregation on buses was illegal, and Montgomery's buses were desegregated in December 1956 after 381 days.
What did the Civil Rights Act of 1968 do?
It banned discrimination in the sale, rental and financing of housing. It was passed days after Martin Luther King's assassination.
What was 'de facto' segregation in the Northern states?
Segregation that existed in practice rather than by law, created by poverty, poor housing and employment patterns in the city ghettos.
What were President Kennedy's social policies (the 'New Frontier')?
Plans to tackle poverty and improve education and health care, including raising the minimum wage and aid to deprived areas — but Congress blocked much of it.
What was President Johnson's 'Great Society'?
His programme of social reform to end poverty and racial injustice, investing in education, housing and health care (Medicare for the over-65s and Medicaid for the poor).
What did the Equal Pay Act (1963) do?
It made it law that men and women must receive equal pay for doing the same job.
What was the National Organisation for Women (NOW)?
A group founded in 1966, led by Betty Friedan, which campaigned peacefully for sexual equality in US law by lobbying politicians and taking employers to court over unequal pay.
What did the Supreme Court rule in Roe v Wade (1973)?
That women had the right to a safe, legal abortion, despite opposition from some states.
What was the 'Stop ERA' campaign?
Phyllis Schlafly's campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment, arguing full equality would harm women by, for example, having them drafted into combat. It succeeded: not enough states ratified the ERA.
True or false? The feminist movements of the 1960s won laws that made women's average pay equal to men's.
False. New laws increased opportunities in education and reproductive rights, but in practice women's average pay remained lower than men's.
True or false? Senator Joseph McCarthy set up the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC).
False. HUAC was a House of Representatives committee set up in 1938; McCarthy was a Senator and ran his own Senate investigations.
True or false? People accused of being communists during McCarthyism kept their jobs if no evidence was found against them.
False. The disgrace of simply being accused forced many out of their jobs and made it hard for them to find work again.
What is consumerism?
An economy and way of life built around people buying more and more goods, which is thought to drive growth; in 1950s America it was fuelled by advertising and buying on credit.
What was the GI Bill?
A 1944 law giving returning servicemen cheap home loans and grants for college or training; millions of veterans used it, boosting house-building and the suburbs.
How widespread was television in America by the end of the 1950s?
About nine in ten households had a TV set, up from fewer than one in ten in 1950.
Who was Elvis Presley?
The most famous Rock and Roll star of the 1950s; his 1956 TV appearances drew enormous audiences and alarmed many older Americans.
Give one group that did not share in America's post-war prosperity.
The elderly: many relied on small pensions or savings, and in 1959 about a third of Americans over 65 lived below the poverty line.
Who were Julius and Ethel Rosenberg?
Americans convicted of passing atomic secrets to the Soviet Union and executed in June 1953, a case that deepened fear of communist spies.
Give one reason fear of communism grew in America after 1945.
The Soviet Union tested its own atomic bomb in 1949, the same year China became communist, so Americans feared communism was spreading.
What was Truman's Loyalty Programme (1947)?
Truman's scheme to vet the loyalty of federal government workers through FBI checks; anyone judged a possible 'security risk' could lose their job.
Why did McCarthy lose public support in 1954?
He accused army officers of being communists without evidence, and the televised Army–McCarthy hearings showed him as a bully; the Senate condemned him that December.
What was The Feminine Mystique (1963)?
Betty Friedan's best-selling book arguing that many middle-class housewives felt trapped and unfulfilled by lives limited to home and family; it helped launch the 1960s women's movement.
What was the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA)?
A proposed change to the Constitution, passed by Congress in 1972, saying that equal rights under the law could not be denied because of a person's sex.
What was the Women's Liberation Movement ('Women's Lib')?
Younger, more radical feminists who used direct action, such as the 1968 protest at the Miss America beauty contest, to draw attention to women's inequality.
What did the Education Amendments of 1972 (Title IX) do?
Banned sex discrimination in any school or college receiving federal money, opening up courses and especially sport to girls and women.
What did the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (1965) do?
Johnson's law giving major federal funding to schools, aimed especially at those serving poor children.
What was Head Start?
A Great Society programme from 1965 giving pre-school education, meals and health checks to children from poor families.
Give one limitation of Johnson's Great Society.
The rising cost of the Vietnam War took money away from the programmes, so poverty was reduced but not ended.