1. Unit 8: Cold War and Civil Unrest
1945-1980
Section 1: Fear, Family and Innocence
Lost: The Long 50’s

2. Essential Questions
• Were methods used by the U.S. to contain
communism (both at home and abroad)
justified?
• How did Cold War anxieties affect Americans’
lives? What were we afraid of?
• Was the “long ‘50s” an age of affluence for all
Americans? What social and economic
conflicts were bubbling under the surface?

7. Section 2
WITH LIBERTY AND JUSTICE FOR ALL:
THE STRUGGLE FOR CIVIL RIGHTS

8. Essential Questions
• Was the civil right movement a success or a
failure? Did it end?
• Was it inevitable that the multifaceted civil
rights movement was met with stern and
sometimes violent opposition?
• Why did some civil rights activists reject
nonviolent civil disobedience in favor of a
more aggressive stance?

9. Civil Rights applied to whom?
The term “civil rights” includes the equality of rights for
the following minorities in varying degrees:
RACE ETHNICITY
Gender
RELIGION SEXUAL
ORIENTATION
“Civil Rights” came about as a result of what
contentious & “peculiar” institution in America’s history?

10. Major Turning Point in Civil Rights
What major Court ruling changed the course for Civil Rights?
Brown v. Board of Education:
• 1954:Supreme Court ruled that separate was not equal and
that public schools must be desegregated.
Thurgood Marshall argued against the
continuance of school segregation in a
class action suit before the Court
• Chief Justice Earl Warren: “Separate educational facilities are
inherently unequal.” => impact?
Supreme Court reversed Plessy v. Ferguson=> and
put a legal end to ”separate but equal”
Was that the end of segregation?

11. Brown v. Board of Education II:
• States- especially in South, resisted…
– In response: Court ordered an end to segregation with
“All deliberate speed”
• South’s reaction?
– ? resistance
• Federal Government’s Response?
– 1957 Little Rock High School
• Ike activates National Guard to enforce Court’s order
– 1962 University of Mississippi
• JFK sends in 82nd Airborne & Federal Marshalls
to enforce Court’s order
– 1963 University of Alabama
• JFK sends in US Marshals & forces Governor Wallace to back down
• It would take 15 yrs from Brown I to de-segregate 11

12. The Civil Rights Movement
• Movement’s Strategy:
– Non-violent protest of segregated American society
• Movement’s tactic: Civil disobedience
• Key illustrations of Movement’s Strategy & Tactics:
– “Lunch counter sit-ins” beginning Feb 1960 in Greensboro, NC
– CORE Freedom Rides – summer of 1961=>
• Escalating violence erupts throughout the South
– MLK & Birmingham protest march => more violence
– Voter registration drives in South => still more violence
• Tactics serving strategy:
– Non-violent protesters attacked with water canon and police
dogs viewed by America on national TV
– Nation’s reaction (disgust & guilt) => impact on Congress?
12

13. Congressional Response
• Civil Rights Acts (1957-1960) =>
– Mostly symbolic and short of the mark
• JFK’s assassination => major impact on public & Congress
• Guilt and momentum & LBJ’s support =>
– Civil Rights Act of 1964
– Voting Rights Act of 1965 (significance?)
• Legal protection for minority suffrage
• Voting Rights Acts (follow-up & expansion) of 1968,1974,1991
13

14. Section 3
HOUSE BURNING DOWN: VIETNAM
AND LIBERALISM’S DESCENT

15. Essential Questions
• Why were we in Vietnam? Could the war have
been avoided?
• Did LBJ keep his promises to the American
people? Was the “Great Society” a far-fetched
idea?

16. Where is Vietnam?

17. Why Did the United States
Fight a War in Vietnam?
• Basically to hold the line against
the spread of world
Communism. America paid for
the war the French fought
against Communist Vietnam as
a part of the Truman Doctrine
(1947) “to help free peoples to
maintain their free institutions
and their national integrity
against … totalitarian regimes.”
In the 1950’s, America became
involved again.

18. Longest and Most Unpopular War (Until
Iraq)
• The Vietnam War was the longest
and most unpopular war in
American history. During the war:
– 58,000 Americans lost their lives.
• The oldest man killed was 62 years old;
the youngest, 16.
• 61% of the men killed were 21 or
younger.
– 304,000 were wounded.
– 75,000 were severely disabled.
– The United States spent over $200
billion dollars on the war.

19. The Domino Theory
• American policymakers developed the “Domino
Theory” as a justification for the involvement. This
theory stated, “If South Vietnam falls to the
Communist, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, Burma, India
and Pakistan would also fall like dominos. The Pacific
Islands and even Australia could be at risk”.

20. Section 4
WHO CAN WE TRUST?
SCANDAL, STAGFLATION, & A CRISIS OF
CONFIDENCE

21. Essential Questions
• Should Richard Nixon have resigned the
Presidency? Should Gerald Ford have granted
him a pardon?
• Why was Jimmy Carter unable to retain the
Presidency? Should he have acted differently?

22. Nixon’s Conservative Backlash wins in
1968.
• Inflation, rising prices, and funding for Great
Society, cost of living tripled.
• Stagnant economy and an unpopular war.
• Nixon “Vietnamizes” the war in 1973.
(540,000 troops)
• My Lai and the Cambodia attacks create a
negative image and protests.

23. First Term and Re-election
• Twenty-sixth Amendment (vote @ 18)
• Détente (better relations with China and the Soviet
Union), SALT, and Henry Kissinger (national security
advisor).
• 1972 Democrat George McGovern was a liberal dove
alienated the working class.
• With a “peace is at hand” statement, Nixon won with
a landslide in 72: 520 electoral votes to 17.

24. Watergate and Impeachment
• Nixon’s paranoia led him to create the “Plumbers”
unit of CREEP. June 17, 1972 five men arrested in
Democratic headquarters with “bugging” equipment.
• Secretive, unethical, unlawful use of FBI, CIA, IRS, the
enemies list, Vice President Agnew, and many
resignations.
• Gerald Ford is appointed Vice President.
• The White House tapes, impeachment, resignation
on August 8, 1974. Ford takes oath as the first un-
elected President.

25. Another End to the War!
• Secret bombings in Cambodia against Pol Pot and his
regime.
• 1975 North Vietnamese move South and take over
South Vietnam. Evacuation of remaining US citizens
and 140,000 S. Vietnamese.
• Later some 500,000 S. Vietnamese arrive in the US
• 56,000 U.S. deaths, 300,000 injuries, and $118
billion.

26. Mr. Carter
• Bicentennial election with Ford (R) versus Carter (D).
Carter won with a narrow victory.
• Positive diplomacy: peace between Israel and
Egypt, canal ownership to Panama, and relations
open with Soviets.
• Negative diplomacy: Cuban/Soviet troops in
Africa, US supported Iranian government
overthrown, SALT II talks halted because of Khomeini
and the anti-American Muslims attack on the US
embassy (hostages), Soviets attack Afghanistan
(Soviet’s Vietnam).