Transcript File

A Time of Social Change
The Rise of the Youth Movement
• The youth movement originated with the baby boomers. They
made up 58.2% of the total 35 years old.
• On college campuses across the nation that youth protest
movements began and reached their peak.
• Formation of the “New Left” Young adults who believed a
small, wealthy elite controlled politics, and wealth.
The Free Speech Movement
• 1964, the university of California Berkeley restricted student’s rights to
distribute literature and to recruit volunteers for political causes on
campus.
• Many students were unhappy with their colleges because of huge classes
and they were taught by graduate students.
• Many professors claimed they were too busy with research to meet with
students. Faceless administrators made rules that were not always easy to
obey and imposed punishments for violations.
• December 2, 1964 students had a sit-in and a powerful speech by Mario
Savio.
• The events led to 600 police entering campus and arresting more than 700
protesters.
• The arrests set off an even larger protest movement. Within days, a
campus-wide strike had stopped classes. Many members of the faculty
voiced their support for the free speech movement. In the face of this
growing opposition, the administration gave in to the students’ demands.
• Soon afterward, the Supreme Court upheld students’ rights to freedom of
speech and assembly on campuses.
Counter Culture
• While many young Americans in the 1960s sought to reform
the system, others rejected it entirely.
• They tried to create a new lifestyle based on flamboyant dress,
rock music, drug use, and communal living.
• They created what became known as the counterculture, and
the people were commonly called “hippies.”
The Revival of the Women’s movement
By 1963 nearly 1/3rd of all
American workers were women.
On average women in 1963 only
earned 60% of what men earned.
Feminism is the belief that men and women should be equal politically, economically, and
socially.
In 1961 JFK ordered a formal
inquiry into the position of
women in American society.
The study discovered:
•Women were discriminated
at work.
•Women were promoted less
then men and promoted less
often.
•The report motivated
change.
•It helped create a network of
feminist activists who lobbied
for women’s legislation.
• In 1963 they won passage of
the Equal Pay Act, which in
most cases outlawed paying
men more than women for
the same job.
Betty Friedan wrote the book The Feminine Mystique
attempting to explain and examine women who stayed
at home.
She concluded that many women felt trapped by
domestic life, rather than fulfilled by it. The Feminine
Mystique sparked a national debate about the roles and
rights of women.
1964 Civil Rights Act.
•Congress gave the women’s movement another boost by
including them in the 1964 Civil Rights Act.
•Title VII of the act outlawed job discrimination not only on the
basis of race, color, religion, and national origin, but also on the
basis of gender.
•This provided a strong legal basis for the changes the women’s
movement later demanded.
NOW
NOW stands for National Organization for Women and
they fought against gender discrimination in the
workplace, schools and in the justice system. They also
worked to end violence and achieve abortion rights.
The Equal Rights Amendment=ERA
•Proposed amendment promised equal treatment for men & women in all
spheres of life.
•It failed to become law because Phyllis Schlafly and conservative groups
argued that men and women would have to share public restrooms and
women could be drafted into the military.
•Congress had passed the amendment in 1972, but it required 38 states to
ratify it’s acceptance within 7 years. By 1979 35 states had ratified the
amendment and it was 3 short. Congress extended the time period, but it
was still never ratified.
Roe V. Wade
This was a landmark Supreme Court decision that
struck down a lower court decision that banned
abortion. This decision started a debate that
continues to this day.
Roe V. Wade
Pro-Choice
• Pro-Choice groups felt that
• Pro life groups argued on
women could not achieve
religious or moral grounds
equality until they could
that fetal life was sacred and
control when they could have
should be protected.
children.
• Pro life groups also felt that • They felt that legal abortion
was necessary to protect
the courts ruling of a right to
women’s health.
privacy strayed to far from
the intent of the constitution.
Pro-Life
The decision stated that state governments could not regulate
abortion during the first three months of pregnancy.
Positive effects of women’s movement
• In 1970 just 5% of the
nations lawyers were
women.
• By 1980, that number had
risen to 12%
• More women began to
participate in government.
• Women still only made up 5%
of Congress.
• In 1972 Shirley Chisholm
became the 1st African
American woman to run for
president.
Latino Americans
In the twentieth century, Mexican immigration to the United States rose
greatly, partly due to the turmoil of the Mexican Revolution that began in
1910.
During the 1920s, half a million Mexicans immigrated to the United States
through official channels. An unknown number entered the country through
other means.
Mexicans Face Discrimination
• Most Mexican immigrants lived in barrios in the Southwest.
•These were poor, crowded, urban neighborhoods segregated by race and
socioeconomic level.
•Poverty and high infant mortality were endemic.
•Job discrimination and language barriers forced the majority of Mexicans
into low-paying jobs as agricultural laborers.
•During the Great Depression, poor whites and Mexicans battled for the
few jobs available.
• In many cases, whites won. About one-third of Mexican immigrants
returned to Mexico.
•Federal repatriation—returning immigrants and their U.S.-born children
to Mexico—added to the wave of people leaving the United States.
Latino Americans
•Many Mexicans came to the United States during World War II as part of
the Bracero program.
• A large number remained in the United States illegally after the war.
• In 1954 President Eisenhower created a program to deport illegal Latino
immigrants. More than 3.7 million Mexicans were deported during this
time, including some U.S. citizens who “looked” Mexican.
•In the 1950s many Puerto Ricans came to the United States.
•These people were U.S. citizens. As was the case with Mexican immigrants,
harsh economic conditions in their homeland made it easy for U.S. factory
owners and farmers to recruit Puerto Ricans as cheap labor.
Latino organizations
League of United Latin American Citizens In 1929 the League of United Latin American
Citizens (LULAC) created to represent Latinos who were U.S. citizens and wanted to
assimilate into U.S. society. LULAC fought against the segregation of Latinos in public
places and segregation of Spanish-speaking children in “Mexican schools.”
American GI Forum created after World War II to speak for Mexican American veterans
who had been excluded from veterans’ organizations or refused medical services from
the Veterans Administration.
United Farm Workers In the 1960s Latino farm workers suffered from extreme poverty,
dangerous working conditions, and squalid living conditions. César Chávez and Dolores
Huerta created the United Farm Workers (UFW). They led a strike against vineyard
owners that evolved into a national boycott of grapes, a four-year effort that resulted in
improvements for farm workers.
Mexican American Youth Organization MAYO fought discrimination through the
organization of walkouts and demonstrations to protest discrimination and push for
bilingual education. Congress passed the Bilingual Education Act in 1968 which allowed
schools to have classes for immigrants to learn their in their native language while they
also learned English.
La Raza Unida A new political party, La Raza Unida (The United People), was formed in
1969. La Raza promoted Latino causes and supported Latino political candidates.
The Lives of Native Americans
Living Conditions
• Most Native Americans did not
share the prosperity many
Americans experience in the
1950s.
• The average income was ½ of
what a white man would make.
• Rates of alcoholism and
tuberculosis were high.
Termination Policy
Dwight Eisenhower started a policy
called the Termination Policy
• The goal was to “end the
status of Indians as wards of
the government and grant
them all the rights and
prerogatives pertaining to
American citizenship”.
• Between 1952 and 1967,
some 200,000 Native
Americans were resettled
into the cities.
• The results were disastrous,
the government failed to
provide resources to help
them adjust to urban life.
The Rise of a Movement
The Occupation of Alcatraz
• In 1969 a group of
Native Americans tried
to reclaim Alcatraz
Island.
• They claimed that the
1868 Treaty of Fort
Laramie gave them the
right to use any surplus
federal territory.
The occupation lasted 18 months until the federal
marshals removed the Indians by force.
Partly as a result, New Mexico returned 48,000 acres of land to
the Taos Pueblo in 1970. Indian nations in Washington, Maine
and Connecticut also settled land claims.
AIM
The American Indian Movement was found by Clyde Bellencourt in 1968. This
organization became the major force behind the larger Red Power movement.
Aim called for renewal of traditional cultures, economic independence, and
better education for Indian children.
AIM sometimes took drastic steps to accomplish it’s
goals. In 1973 at Wounded Knee, South Dakota 80
years after US soldiers killed 300 Sioux, conflict
unfolded again.
Aim members seized Wounded Knee because they
believed the reservation tribal government was
corrupt.
After AIM members seized Wounded Knee, federal agents tried to drive them
out. The two sides faced off for 71 days. 2 AIM activists were killed and a
federal marshal was wounded. The government agreed to consider AIMS
grievances but this was never followed through.
We Shall Remain!