Read Chapters 11 and 12 in the Story of American Freedom.
- Take copious notes
- Compose 3 discussion questions
- Write a reflection comparing the ideals both decades. Evaluate Foners' notion that the 60's "challenged the ... orthodoxy of the 60's and redirected national attention to ... freedom at home."
STUDY FOR THE AP TEST. BUT NOT TOO MUCH, I NEED YOU FRESH AND POSITIVE MONDAY!!!
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Teresa Konopka
AP US
*For the extra credit assignment, I already did it with my copious notes from the week before. I knew what you meant from he get-go with regards to he unfinished question.
What I got out of the text:
The Freedom Train was designed to “re-sell America to Americans”
Blacks still felt segregated even after WWII
Anticommunism and free enterprise were promoted
In 1946, Churchill coined the term iron curtain
Truman emphasized the defense of freedom in his speeches
CIA military coups were established in Iran and Guatemala
Eisenhower was touchy on the subject of liberating fascist Spain
Senator McCarthy accused many senators of being secret communists
To prevent subversion, many ethnic groups in America stuck together
Homosexuals and those in nudist colonies could not be in government service
The American Committee for Cultural Freedom sought to mobilize American
intellectuals as food soldiers in the Cold War
NSC 68 financed military preparations
The NAACP asked why Truman focused on communism instead of racism
Civil liberty activities dwindled in the Cold War era
Brand names emerged
Industrialization led to more advertising for goods
The automobile was praised by the {President’s Committee on Recent Social Trends
High percentages of female workers was seen as mimicking communism
The Pledge of Allegiance arose during the time of the Cold War
Soviets had a remarkable number of female scientists, physicians, and engineers
Foreigners marveled at washing machines, vacuums, and refrigerators
Nixon and the Soviet leader quarreled over capitalism and communism at a meeting
The meaning of freedom was discussed at the national exposition in Moscow
Rosa Parks sparked a bus boycott in 1955
College students started participating in mass activism in the 60s
A second wave of feminism emerged from the “rallying cry of the dispossessed”
Black schoolchildren were beginning to be asked to define the world
Freedom summer was an anti-racist summit for protestors
“Boy” changed to “Mr.” for black callings
Organizers began to advertise in the public media
Martin Luther King Jr. symbolized the black protestors as a whole in elocution
Kennedy announced that there was a moral crisis and that blacks will gain more rights
There was still discrimination towards blacks in public accommodations and job markets
Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act in 1965
The US called for affirmative action in 1966
Randolph and Rustin proposed a Freedom Budget
Malcolm X began to give speeches on radically violent freedom
The US began helping out Third World countries
The Equal Employment Opportunities Commission was established to make getting jobs fairer
Johnson established his international “war on poverty”
Johnson defended the previous New Deal and adapted it
The Great Society would help expand freedoms that Roosevelt established
Urban landscapes began to see ghettoes spring up
The silent generation lamented over no hates, no loves, and little enthusiasms
James Baldwin’s literature gave a bellicose voice to the revolution for blacks
The New Left wanted younger members with real intellectual skills straight out of college
John Dewey emphasized personal development
Freedom was supposedly defended in Vietnam
Rejections of authority took place was new liberalism
Unions began to pay women more money
Friedan published works summarizing inequality among genders
Feminist revolts took place around the Statue of Liberty and quoted the Declaration of Independence
The Port Huron Statement had a hard time connecting conventional politics with private trouble of America
Abortions were banned in many states; domestic violence was broached
The Smith Act persecuted anyone who tried to overthrow the government
The courts began to incorporate the Bill of Rights into decisions
The elderly and handicapped were aggravated (because they were seen as inferior in society)
Medicare burgeoned and the National Guard also grew
In the 60s, the US became / was forced to become more tolerant
Discussion questions:
Why didn’t blacks pair up with white women in their protests?
How did the presidents refer to previous presidencies when making their decisions?
Why did communism become associated with more rights for certain genders?
Reflection:
The sixties definitely challenged the orthodoxy of America and redirected national attention to freedom at home. With the Cold War, many Americans were merely expected to ban together as a whole to fight communism. However, many were fearful of bombings and did not fully comprehend the political gravity of the war. Still, when the war ended, the United States had to redirect its focus on something. Auspiciously, blacks and females gave the United States something to occupy its time with. After all, once the United States defeated the Soviet Union and won the “Race for Space,” America was supposedly seen as some utopian superpower. Yet, when Americans were unhappy with how society was viewing them, they did something about it. Great African American orators sprung up, and precocious feminist writers emerged. Colleges in particular held many protests and sit ins for freedom. Liberal arts colleges were also becoming more popular. Basically, those who felt underrepresented finally stood up. Since American politics kept reiterating the notion that America was the land of opportunity and freedom, oppressed peoples felt that it was their civic duty to stand up for their own rights. Hence, the United States redirected its attention not only because the cold War was over, but because it also wanted to prevent any violent uprisings. Indubitably, when people are unhappy, violence saplings become planted.
John Harden
Block B
AP American History: Evaluating the freedom in 1950s and 1960s
The 1950s marked the official beginning of the Cold War in American history. This was the beginning of the fight between the political ideologies of Communism and Democracy, the Soviet Union and the United States. The American government, headed in the federal department by President Harry S. Truman at the time, wished to stop the spread of Communism around the world. The policy invented by George Keenan in his “Long Telegram” under the name of “X” called “containment” was taken in by the American government. Containment called for the United States of America to quarantine Communist regimes wherever they currently were located and crush any newly rising communist parties wherever they showed. America’s interests in the 1950s are first shown evidently through the Truman Doctrine, which stated America’s determination to contain Communism and give aid to foreign nations opposing Communist uprisings. The interests of America are also shown through the Marshall Plan, which pledged and gave economic aid to nations in poverty, so in turn they would support Democracy and Capitalism over Communism. Proceeding President Truman was President Dwight D. Eisenhower who continued Truman’s policies in a more diplomatic motion through the Eisenhower Doctrine, which wished for more political talks and less war. The United States of America during the 1950s cared little for freedom at home. The cases surrounding the spread of McCarthyism, like that of Alger Hiss’ clearly demonstrate how freedoms were once again upbraided for the sake of “protecting the nation from outside, non-democratic threats”. The case of the Rosenberg couple, who were given the sentence of capital punishment and killed in the electric chair for giving Soviet’s information regarding the Atomic Bombs illustrates just how focused the United States was on stopping Communism. Freedom overseas was more important than freedom at home. However, as the author of The Story of American Freedom, Eric Foner notes, “(The 1960s) challenged the…orthodoxy of the 1950s and redirected national attention to…freedom at home.” At the turn of the 1950s, the African-American civil rights movement began to gain great pace. Men and women like Malcolm X, Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks each individually contributed to the Civil Rights movement, leading it in their own ideological ways. College students across the country surprised the American public with the emergence of the “New Left”. Before the 1960s, politically left movements focused on the treatment of labor unions and environmental conservation. The “New Left” advocated social progress and freedoms, such as African rights, freedom of speech, pacifism, female rights and homosexual rights. The “New Left” was challenged, per usual, by the conservative populous of the United States. Nevertheless, the American interests were turned from freedom abroad to freedom at home.
C/C 50s + 60s
Throughout its history, United States of America had the same moto, protect democracy and freedom no matter what. After WWII, the US faced yet another threat, Communism.
In 1946, George F. Kennan's "Long Telegram" from Moscow warned the US of the powerful Soviets and summarized the years to come which became known as the Cold War. Winston Churchill claimed that an Iron Curtain has set over Eastern Europe. Hence, the US became involved in the Greek and Turkish Communistic conflicts. They helped the governments of both countries to defeat the rebel Communists. The purpose of the United States during the 50s was to "scare the hell out of its people" so they would favor the ways of the government and hate Communists. In 1947, Truman did just that with the passing of the Truman Doctrine which helped Greece and Turkey overpower Communism. Although, the US helped with military tactics the Russians didn't help the Greek and Turkish revolts at all, their idea of Communism led their own people to rebel against the government so their country could one day experience the pros of Communism as Soviet Russia has. Today's generation of politicians has the same tactic as the past, but this time around we use our hate tactic against the Middle East and terrorists. The "First Amendment....went into hibernation," said civil libertarian John Frank. During the scare of Communism and reported UFO sightings of Communist invaders McCarthyism took the chance to up his popularity by writing a "Mitchel Report" like accusation of the women, men and homosexuals who he claimed were Communist. This was a huge deal because most of the people he accused to be Communist worked in the government. In 1955, the Rosa Parks incident set the stage for Black rights. Although, they didn't gain their rights during the 50s Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King led the way towards Black Rights. Most blacks were against the Cold War, but with no rights were forced to roll with it but used it to its advantage. Having seen women attack the government during WWI and them becoming so successful the blacks did the same during the Cold War. During the Cold War, nations were linked through linked enterprise - Democracy vs. Communism.
The 50s were similar to the colonial era and WWII as the government praised all that b/s about liberty and freedom. Once the Cold War settled down the 60s were a massive cultural, and social movement as minorities continued to further their rights, especially African-Americans.
CSIHSIS Michelle Shed
Block B May 18, 2008
The Story of American Freedom Chapter 11-12
The sixties was the era of Civil rights and the Cold War. It all started since the freedom train reflected a growing sense of national unease about overt expression of racial inequality. It’s journey also revealed the impact of the Cold War. Convinced in the wake of WWII to underscore the contrast between American freedom and Nazi tyranny, the Freedom train quickly became caught up in the emerging ideological struggle with communism. President Truman the U.S. to the worldwide containment of Soviet Power. The U.S. wanted to aid “ the country in its internal war against subversive elements.”
The Soviets were determined to expand their power throughout the globe. With the Truman Doctrine, Truman embraced the Cold War as the foundation of American foreign policy and cast it as a wide struggle over freedom of the future. Truman believed that the U.S. needed to assume the global responsibility for containing communism. As the leader of the “free world,” the U.S. must shoulder the responsibility of supporting “freedom-loving peoples” whenever they were threatened by Communism. Less than two weeks after announcing the Truman Doctrine, the president established a loyalty review system in which government employees were forced to demonstrate their patriotism without being allowed to confront their accusers or, in some cases, know the specific charges against them. In 1951, the Supreme Court upheld the jailing of eleven communist party leaders under the Smith Act. The U.S. was doing everything in its power to annihilate the threat of communism.
The Cold War gave powerful ammunition to opponents of further change. In the largest public relations campaign in American History, the American Medical Association successfully invoked the specter of “socialized medicine” to discredit Truman’s proposal for national Health insurance. In fact, black organizations even embraced the discourse of the Cold War, while using it to advance their own aims, thus complicating the idea of freedom while helping to cement Cold War ideology as the foundation of political culture.
The height of the Cold War was an inauspicious time to raise questions about the imperfections of American freedom. As a result, during the 1950s, freedom became an inescapable theme of academic research, popular journalism, mass culture, and official pronouncements. What united the nations of the free world was an economic system resting on private ownership. During the Cold War, the “selling of free enterprise” became a major industry, involving corporate advertising, school programs, and newspaper editorials and civic activities. Convinced that advertising was “a new weapon in the worldwide fight for freedom,” the Advertising Council invoked cherished symbols like the Statue of Liberty and the Liberty Bell in the service of “competitive free enterprise,” while business journals incessantly promoted the message that freedom meant economic activity unhampered by government controls. The Advertising Council preached both free enterprise and government-business cooperation, and, in its million-dollar “American Economic System” ad campaign of 1949, reaffirmed labors right to collective bargaining. Large-scale production was not only necessary to fighting the Cold War but enhanced freedom by multiplying consumer goods. In consumer culture, the measure of freedom was the ability to gratify market desires, not the social relations of labor.
On December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a veteran of civil rights activities in Montgomery, Alabama, was arrested for refusing to surrender her seat on a city bus to a white rider, as required by municipal law. The incident sparked a yearlong bus boycott, the beginning of the greatest mass movement in modern American History. Within a decade, the civil rights revolution had overturned the edifice of segregation and won the ballot for black citizens in the South. Challenging the received orthodoxy of the Cold War, it redirected national attention to the unfinished business of freedom at home.
With the sit-ins of 1960, college students, black and white, propelled the struggled to a new level of mass activism and civil disobedience. By the end of 1960, 70,000 people had participated in civil rights demonstrations. Civil rights activists sought to identify the nation’s cherished symbols of freedom with their cause, as when students organized a sit-in at the Liberty Bell in 1965 to support the southern drive for voting rights. At a time when Cold War ideology had high lightened the danger to liberty from excessive government and made respect for the distinction between “civil society” and the realm of politics a cornerstone of liberal thinking, civil rights activists resurrected the vision of federal authority as the custodian of freedom. The Cold War had severed the civil rights movement from left-wing groups that linked the black condition to a board of critique of economic inequality.
The years 1962 and 1963 witnessed the appearance of path breaking books that challenged one or another aspect of the Cold War consensus. For example, James Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time gave angry voice to the black revolution. The war in Vietnam was a logical extension and a reaction ad absurd of Cold War policies and assumptions. A complex struggle for national independence, led by communists who enjoyed widespread support throughout the country, was reduced in American eyes to a defining battleground of the Cold War.
By the late sixties, movements for Chicano rights, homosexual rights, Native American rights, and others dotted the political landscape. With the sixties, the U.S. became a freer country because of civil liberties, civil disobedience, and the right to assemble.
COPIOUS NOTES
On September 16, 1947, the “Freedom Train” opened to the public in Philadelphia.
The Freedom train attracted 3.5 million visitors, and millions more took part in civic activities that accompanied its journey, including labor-management forums, educational programs, and patriotic parades.
Black Americans had virtually no voice planning the exhibit and many were initially skeptical about it.
Winston Churchill declared that an “iron curtain” had descended across Europe, partitioning the free West from the Communist East.
In his speech about the “Truman Doctrine,” Truman embraced the Cold War as the foundation of American foreign policy and cast it as a worldwide struggle over the future and freedom.
Britain announced that it could no longer supply financial aid to the governments of Greece and Turkey, threatened by a Communist led rebellion.
NSC 68 issued a clarion call for permanent military buildup to enable the U.S. to engage in a global crusade against communism.
Central Intelligence Agency- Established in 1946
In the early 1950s, the CIA organized military coups in Guatemala and Iran that replaced elected officials deemed to threaten foreign investments with dictators attuned to American interests.
Anticommunism became a tool wielded by white supremacists against black civil rights, employers against unions, and upholders of sexual mortality and traditional gender roles against homosexuality.
As the CIO launched “Operation Dixie” in the hope of brining unionization to the South and shattering the hold of white supremacists on politics in the region, Truman pressed for the enactment pf FDR’s economic Bill of Rights.
After the passage of the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which withdrew bargaining rights and legal protection from unions whose leaders failed to swear under oath that they’re not communists, the CIO expelled numerous left wing officials and 11 Communist led unions, representing nearly 1 million workers.
In October 1947, the report of Truman’s Commission of Civil Rights offered a devastating indictment of racial inequality in America and called for government intervention to abolish segregation and ensure equal treatment in housing, employment, education, and the criminal justice system.
McCarran Internal Security Act- barred totalitarians from entering the United States.
In 1950, Freedom House began assessing the status of freedom in the world’s nations.
December 1, 1955, Rosa Parks, a veteran of civil rights activities in Montgomery, Alabama, was arrested for refusing to surrender her seat on a city bus to a white rider, as required by municipal law.
QUESTIONS
1. How did the war in Vietnam influence Civil disobedience, while resembling the Cold War?
2. What purpose did advertising serve in the 1960s?
3. Why were so many college students participating in sit-ins in the 1960s?
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