Chapter 27 and 28, Henretta CIVIL RIGHTS & VIETNAM

Important strands in Chapters 27 and 28 Black Rights → Age of Protest The black Civil Rights Movement of the 1940s through 1960s was unprecedented in scale, persistence and in the way it captured the American majority’s attention – so much so that it created ripple effects across all areas of American society. Soon Mexican-Americans, Natives, women and gays were engaged in similar high-profile struggles for their legal rights. Also, a generation of young Americans raised on this massive, high-profile protest movement transferred the skills and passion they’d learned to new forms of protest: for the environment and free speech, against consumerism and the Vietnam War.

Important strands in Chapters 27 and 28 New Deal Liberalism breaks apart Lyndon Johnson followed almost exactly in FDR’s footsteps: He expanded programs for the poor, the old, the disadvantaged, and he fought totalitarianism (in the form of Communism) abroad. But by the 1960s, that combination of programs wasn’t working anymore. The Democrats who favored a liberal agenda at home (rights activists, the poor, liberal college students) were at odds with the Democrats who favored the fight against Communism abroad (blue-collar workers, ethnic whites in the North, conservative Southerners) … and the party splintered.

Important strands in Chapters 27 and 28 A Republican coalition comes together Conservatives saw their opportunity. In 1968, independent candidate George Wallace and Republican Richard Nixon split two important parts of the New Deal coalition away from the Democrats: white, working class Catholics from the North and white conservatives from the South. With these – and charismatic candidates like Ronald Reagan in 1980 – the Republicans created a new majority party for the next three decades. Democrats became the party of Rights; Republicans became the party of Anti-Communism and National Security.