Curriculum Guide
History Grade 8
Teacher Guide and
Notes
Unit: _ Days __-__
Concept: The Death of
Liberalism
Overview of this
concept:
Liberalism is a political and moral philosophy based
on liberty and equality. Liberals
espouse a wide array of views depending on their understanding of these
principles, but they generally support civil rights, secularism, racial
equality, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion.
Liberalism
became a distinct movement in the Age of Enlightenment. Liberalism sought to
replace the norms of hereditary privilege, state religion, absolute monarchy,
and the divine right of kings with representative democracy and the rule of
law. Liberals also ended mercantilist policies, royal monopolies and other
barriers to trade, instead promoting free markets. Philosopher John Locke is
often credited with founding liberalism as a distinct tradition, arguing that
each man has a natural right to life, liberty, and property, adding that
governments must not violate these rights based on the social contract.
Leaders
in the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the American Revolution of 1776 and the
French Revolution of 1789 used liberal philosophy to justify the armed
overthrow of royal tyranny. During the 19th and early 20th century, liberalism
in the Ottoman Empire and Middle East influenced periods of reform such as the
Tanzimat as well as the rise of secularism, constitutionalism, and nationalism.
These changes, along with other factors, helped to create a sense of crisis
within Islam, which continues to this day.
The principles of the American Founding, embodied in the Declaration of
Independence and enshrined in the Constitution, came under assault by
Progressives of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
Progressivism rejects the Founders’ ideas of natural rights, limited
government, and the separation of powers, representation, and federalism.
Progressive government, exemplified by the modern administrative state, has fundamentally
transformed key aspects of the American way of life.
Progressives taught that stringent restrictions
on government power were no longer necessary to protect liberty, since human
nature and science had advanced greatly during the 19th century. Progressives
did not believe that individuals are endowed with inalienable rights by a
Creator; rather, they believed that rights are determined by social expediency
and bestowed by the government. In conjunction with this new theory of rights,
Progressivism holds that government must be able to adapt to ever-changing
historical circumstances.
Before
1920, the main ideological opponent of classical liberalism was conservatism, but
liberalism then faced major ideological challenges from new opponents: fascism
and communism. However, during the 20th century liberal ideas also spread even
further—especially in Western Europe—as liberal democracies found themselves on
the winning side in both world wars.
In
Europe and North America, the establishment of social liberalism (often called
simply “liberalism” in the United States) became a key component in the
expansion of the welfare state. The fundamental elements of contemporary
society have liberal roots. The early waves of liberalism popularized economic
individualism while expanding constitutional government. Liberals sought and
established a constitutional order that prized important individual freedoms, such
as freedom of speech and freedom of association; and independent judiciary and
public trial by jury. Later waves of modern liberal thought and struggle were
strongly influenced by the need to expand civil rights.
For example, when individual rights
were the focus of the Civil Rights Movement in the early 1960s, advances were
made by entrepreneurs. In the free market, the music business overcame
segregation, prejudice, and racism. In the mid to late 1950s Elvis Presley, and
in the early 1960s, Motown, and other musical groups and artists integrated
audiences, consumers, teenagers, and music purchasing young people through
popular music, radio, and concerts. In the latter 1960s, arguably the most
acclaimed lead guitarist during the rock era was an African-American, Jimi
Hendrix. Equal rights were achieved in many fields, music, sports, and other
industries. However, mid-1960s social programs, focused on equality of results,
such as LBJ’s Great Society effort, were ineffective: the death of liberalism. The
cost of welfare stifled the free market. Liberalism did not successfully
contain communism in South East Asia and led to the deaths of over 58,000 young
Americans in Vietnam. The “New Left” of the 1960s combined the initial pacifist
tendencies of early 1960s activists and the radicals of the mid to late 1960s into
a potent and growing protest movement against the War in Vietnam. In short,
Liberalism failed to successfully address the pressing concerns regarding
student and urban unrest, the war in Vietnam, foreign affairs, and the
elimination of poverty.
Student
Sources/Handouts that will be used for discussion/evaluation for this concept
(in order of introduction):
·
History of a Free Nation, Volume 2,
Chapters 31-33
(Read before beginning unit)
·
Basic History of the U.S., Vol. 5 (Read before beginning unit)
·
Source #1 (“Long Telegram,” George F. Kennan,
1946)
·
Source #2 (“Truman
Doctrine,” March,
1947)
·
Source
#3 (“Eisenhower Doctrine,” January 1957)
·
Source #4 (“How I Got Over," Mahalia Jackson)
·
Source #5 (“Buked and Scorned,” Mahalia Jackson)
·
Source #6 (“If I Had a Hammer [Bob Seeger],” Peter, Paul,
and Mary)
·
Source #7 (“Only a Pawn in Their Game,” Bob Dylan)
·
Source #8 (“Blowin’ in the Wind,” Bob Dylan)
·
Source #9 (JFK on the “Negro
Question,” dispensation, job quotas by government intervention, News
Conference 60, August 20, 1963, President John F. Kennedy, State
Department Auditorium, Washington, D.C., August 20, 1963)
·
Source #10 (U.S. Constitution, Article One [section 8], Fourteenth
Amendment, and the Fifteenth Amendment)
·
Source
#11 (“The Great Society at Fifty: The Triumph and the Tragedy,” Nicholas
Eberstadt, the American Enterprise Institute)
·
Source
#12 (Making Peace With the ‘60s, David Burner)
·
Source
#13 (“Bodies Upon the Gears,” or “Operation of the Machine,”
Mario Savio
·
Source
#14 (“For What It’s Worth,” Buffalo Springfield)
·
Source
#15 (“Fortunate Son,” Creedence Clearwater Revival)
·
Source
#16 (“The Hippies: The Philosophy of a Subculture,” TIME)
·
Source
#17 (“Black Power,” Stokely Carmichael, Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee [SNCC]),
·
Source
#18 (“Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud,” James Brown)
·
Source
#19 (Excerpted from "I Don't Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing [Open Up the
Door, I'll Get It Myself], James Brown)"; “America Is My Home,” James
Brown)"
·
Source
#20 (“Revolution,” the Beatles)
·
Source
#21 (“Chicago,” Crosby, Stills, & Nash)
·
Source
#22 (Various historic sources on the issue of a standing army)
·
Source
#23 (“Ohio,” Neil Young, as performed by Mott The Hoople)
Overarching
Questions/Themes Students will be evaluating at the end of this unit:
·
How did the free market successfully address
inequities in the distribution of wealth in America? What entrepreneurial
examples can be provided to demonstrate social progress?
·
Liberalism failed to successfully address the
pressing concerns regarding student and urban unrest, the war in Vietnam, and
the elimination of poverty.
·
How
did individuals, such as Mahalia Jackson, express their individual quest for
freedom? What did they say and how did they say it in songs such as “How I Got
Over,” and “Buked and Scorned”? Jackson sang both songs live during the March
on Washington in 1963.
·
In
the early 1960s, how did liberal social activists influence American culture
towards civil rights and freedom?
·
When individual rights were the focus of the
Civil Rights Movement what advances were made?
·
Were social programs effective once they were
concentrated on equality of result?
·
In
the mid to late 1960s, once the government was involved, was progress made in civil
rights and the elimination of poverty?
·
What
advances in the elimination of poverty, if any, were made by black power
movements?
Additional Resources
for Teacher:
·
History of a Free Nation, Chapter
30 Section 1; Chapter 31 Section 4; Section 5 pp. 935-936
·
Basic History of the U.S.
Day 1
Objectives:
·
SWBAT
the desire to protect self-government and how the Eisenhower administration set
the precedent of aiding countries threatened by communism and how the Russian
presence in Cuba threatened the U.S.
Sources/Handouts that
will be used for discussion/evaluation for this lesson:
·
History of a Free Nation, Volume 2,
Chapters 30-31
(Read before beginning unit)
·
Source #1 (“Long Telegram,” George F.
Kennan, 1946)
·
Source #2 (“Truman
Doctrine,” March,
1947)
·
Source
#3 (“Eisenhower Doctrine,” January 1957)
Review—Key Question
(s)
·
How
did the role of government in American democracy change during the Depression
and the New Deal? What changes persist to the present?
·
How
did fear of communism become a serious threat to American democracy during the
Truman administration? What ended the threat during the Eisenhower
administration?
·
Describe
the progress made by African Americans during the New Deal and World War II.
·
Explain
the purposes of the NATO and the Warsaw Pact.
·
How
did World War II and the Cold War permanently change United States foreign
policy?
·
Describe
United States efforts to contain the spread of communism worldwide from
1948-1960. What were the results of these efforts?
Suggested Key
Discussion Points/Questions:
·
Guide
students on a discussion of the Cold War in the world that emerged from the
Second World War.
o There was distrust, suspicion, and
hostility engendered by the Cold War. What happened at the end of World War II?
(The Cold War began when the United
States, without question the most powerful country in the world following World
War II, tried to use its power to proclaim a new global order based on
democracy and capitalism. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union, which undeniably bore
the brunt of the fighting during the war, with an astounding 23 million dead,
rejected the American world order, favoring instead communism and a world
revolution in the name of the worker).
o Why did the Soviets fear the West
and view it as a threat? (It also more
simply wanted to create a buffer of countries friendly to its communist system.
After all, Germany had invaded the Soviet Union twice in thirty years, and used
Poland and other countries of Eastern Europe to do so. The Soviets saw a
protective barrier of friendly states).
o At the same time, what did the
United States see? (The U.S. saw
communism on a revolutionary march to dethrone capitalism).
o What was the result? (The result was an ideological, economic,
and military contest known as the Cold War that shaped American politics,
economic life, and even its cultural and social developments throughout the
1940s, 1950s, and 1960s).
·
Guide
students in a discussion about the ideology of Marxism.
o What did American politicians think
about the ideology of Marxism? (The Cold
War was decades in the making. American politicians had long been suspicious of
a communist ideology that called for the destruction of international
capitalism via worldwide revolution).
o What did the primary theorist of
communism, the German intellectual Karl Marx (1818-1883), maintain about
capitalism? (Marx diagnosed many of the
inherent problems of capitalism).
o What was the role of the workers in
Marxism? (Marx predicted that workers
would not put up with economic inequalities forever; they would revolt, taking
power from the wealthy and the powerful and putting themselves in charge).
o Once the revolution started what
would happen next? (Once the revolution
started, so Marx’s prediction went, it would spread to other nations, taking
down one capitalist country after the next. The workers of the world would
unite).
·
Why
have most Americans been committed to capitalism?
o (Most
Americans feared a worker’s revolution and the American commitment to
capitalism makes some sense. The United States had, after all, emerged in the
early twentieth century as the wealthiest nation in the world because of its
commitment to industrialized capitalism).
o Had the United States pushed back
against communism? (Throughout the twentieth century the United
States pushed back against the growth of communism not only within its own
borders but abroad as well. In 1918, in the notable Polar Bear Expedition, the
United States even landed 5,000 troops in Russia in an unsuccessful bid to aid
anticommunist forces during the Russian Revolution that first led the
communists to power).
o Why were Americans leery about
Marxism after World War II? (Throughout
the twentieth century, then, many Americans were perpetually leery that Karl
Marx’s prediction might come true. After World War II, two issues mushroomed
this long-standing distrust into a hostile Cold War: (1) atomic power and (2)
the Soviet Union’s attempt to create buffer states between it and Western
Europe).
·
What
questions then arose between the two Cold War powers?
o (Was
communism advancing or was the Soviet premier Joseph Stalin just trying to
protect his nation from European invasion? Despite Stalin’s declarations, the
United States saw communism on the march).
o What is the “long telegram?” Read
Source #1. (The “long telegram” was drafted
in 1946 by George F. Kennan, the senior American diplomat stationed in Moscow).
o What did the Americans develop in
the telegram? (Kennan’s response to
communist expansion came to be called containment).
o What was clear about the policy of
containment? (As the policy of
containment went into effect, it was clear the United States was not only in an
ideological war with communism and the Soviet Union, but was also willing to
back it up with military might and economic support).
·
Guide
students in the policy of containment and what it requires of the U.S. (In his “long telegram,” Kennan suggested
that communism was on a collision course with capitalism and that the Soviets
would do four things in order to win: (1) perpetually seek to expand their
territory unless checked by economic, political, and military pressure; (2)
undermine Western colonial development in Africa and the Middle East; (3)
develop their own economic bloc closed off to the rest of the world; and (4)
attempt to penetrate Western civil society to promote Soviet interests. (Cf.
https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu//coldwar/documents/episode-1/kennan.htm).
·
In
their own words, students should be able to summarize the “long telegram.”
o (Kennan
proposed that Western governments fight back. They should educate their public
about the Soviet threat, promote democracy abroad, and work to solve their own
social problems in order to prevent exploitation by communists. What the West
needed to do was contain communism and not let it advance any farther than it
already had).
o In your own words, summarize the
domino theory. (Many understood the
policy of containment in terms of the Domino Theory, which held that the United
States was obligated to prevent the communist “dominoes” from falling for fear
that they would tip off the next dominoes and begin a process of communist
world domination).
o How long was the domino theory
held? (The idea of containing the
dominoes propelled American foreign policy for the next five decades).
·
What
implications does the Domino Theory have about funding and the Marshall Plan? (Shortly after the Marshall Plan was
unveiled, Moscow declared that Soviet-occupied countries would not be permitted
to take American funds. Stalin was afraid that capitalism and democracy might
stimulate anti-Soviet governments to form along its border, threatening Soviet
security. In 1948, Stalin consolidated his control of Eastern Europe by ousting
the last eastern European government not dominated by communists in
Czechoslovakia).
·
What
did Stalin form against the Marshall Plan? (In
1955, the members of the Stalinist union formalized their organization with the
Warsaw Pact. The sides were beginning to harden. Disagreement and suspicion
were turning into an armed standoff).
·
Read
Source #2. In your own words, summarize the March, 1947 Truman Doctrine.
o (Truman
stated: “I believe that it must be the policy of the United States to support
free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by
outside pressures. . . . The free peoples of the world look to us for support
in maintaining their freedoms. If we falter in our leadership, we may endanger
the peace of the world and we shall surely endanger the welfare of this own
nation.”).
·
What
does the Truman Doctrine commit subsequent presidents to do? (The U.S. must support free peoples against
subjugation, to maintain freedoms, and if our leadership fails the world’s
peace and our welfare is endangered).
·
Read
Source #3. President Dwight D. Eisenhower announced the Eisenhower Doctrine in
January 1957, and Congress approved it in March of the same year. What will
happen under the Eisenhower Doctrine? (Under
the Eisenhower Doctrine, a country could request American economic assistance
and/or aid from U.S. military forces if it was being threatened by armed
aggression from another state. Eisenhower singled out the Soviet threat in his
doctrine by authorizing the commitment of U.S. forces “to secure and protect
the territorial integrity and political independence of such nations, requesting
such aid against overt armed aggression from any nation controlled by
international communism.”).
o What is Suez Crisis and did
Eisenhower act wisely? (The Eisenhower
Administration’s decision to issue this doctrine was motivated in part by an
increase in Muslim Arab hostility toward the West, and growing Soviet influence
in Egypt and Syria following the Suez Crisis of 1956. The Suez Crisis, which
had resulted in military mobilization by Great Britain, France, and Israel—as
well as United Nations action—against Egypt, had encouraged pan-Arab sentiment
in the Middle East, and elevated the popularity and influence of Egyptian
President Gamal Abdel Nasser. President Eisenhower believed that, as a result
of the Suez conflict, a power vacuum had formed in the Middle East due to the
loss of prestige of Great Britain and France. Eisenhower feared that this had
allowed Nasser to spread his pan-Arab policies and form dangerous alliances
with Jordan and Syria, and had opened the Middle East to Soviet influence. Eisenhower
wanted this vacuum filled by the United States before the Soviets could step in
to fill the void. Because Eisenhower feared that radical nationalism would
combine with international communism in the region and threaten Western
interests, he was willing to commit to sending U.S. troops to the Middle East
under certain circumstances.)
o What happened in the first real
test of the Eisenhower Doctrine in 1958 in Lebanon? (The threat was not armed aggression or a direct Soviet incursion.
Lebanon’s President, Camille Chamoun, requested assistance from the United
States in order to prevent attacks from Chamoun’s political rivals, some of
whom had communist leanings and ties to Syria and Egypt. Eisenhower responded
to Chamoun’s request by sending U.S. troops into Lebanon to help maintain
order. Although Eisenhower never directly invoked the Eisenhower Doctrine, the
American action in Lebanon was meant not only to help Chamoun’s Government
against its political opponents, but also to send a signal to the Soviet Union
that it would act to protect its interests in the Middle East.)
Follow-up/Assessment Questions:
·
Who
determined the U.S. Post-War policy during the Cold War?
·
What
were the major statements of U.S. Post-War policy?
·
What
did the major statements state?
·
How
did the Soviets react?
·
What
crises emerged in the Post-War period?
Prompt Question for Next Lesson:
·
In
the early 1960s, what social movements emerged to significantly change American
society?
Day 2
Objectives:
·
SWBAT
explain the important musical developments in America indicating significant
social change.
Sources/Handouts that will be used for discussion/evaluation for this
lesson:
·
Source #4 (“How I Got Over," Mahalia Jackson)
·
Source #5 (“Buked and Scorned,” Mahalia Jackson)
·
Source #6 (“If I Had a Hammer [Bob Seeger],” Peter, Paul,
and Mary)
·
Source #7 (“Only a Pawn in Their Game,” Bob Dylan)
·
Source #8 (“Blowin’ in the Wind,” Bob Dylan)
Review/Key
Question (s):
·
As
the U.S. fought for freedom abroad what were racial conditions in the U.S.
like?
·
How
did the U.S. fight for freedom abroad and can a domestic Marshall Plan work?
·
Can
economic opportunities improve for African-Americans in the early 1960s? How?
·
Were
the influential ideological forces in America foreign or domestic?
·
Were
individuals in the African-American community prospering in the early 1960s?
Why?
·
Did
the government assist African-Americans with quotas and affirmative action in
the early 1960s?
Suggested Key Discussion
Points/Questions:
·
How
did individual musical entrepreneurs overcome segregation, prejudice, and racism?
o
(Rock ‘n’ roll developed in the
mid-1950s. It was a derivation of the rhythm and blues that black musicians had
created for black audiences years before. Elvis Presley in fact first recorded
in a studio already legendary among black artists. Elvis and others broke down
color barriers between whites and blacks with their music overcoming
segregation, prejudiced, and racism.)
o
How
did entrepreneurs take advantage of the privileges
of citizenship and flourish during early
1960s America? (In 1959, with the
encouragement of Miracles leader Smokey Robinson, Berry Gordy borrowed $800
from his family to create an R&B record company).
o
Was
the free enterprise system offering opportunities for individual
African-Americans in the early 1960s? (Yes,
hard-working talented people prospered. “Bad Girl” by the Miracles was an
immediate hit as was Barrett Strong’s “Money (That’s What I Want) in 1960. In
1960, Gordy signed an unknown singer Mary Wells, who became the fledgling
label's first star, with Smokey Robinson penning her hits “You Beat Me to the
Punch,” “Two Lovers,” and “My Guy”).
o
How
did Motown’s slogan, “The Sound of Young America,” become a reality in the
early 1960s? (The Miracles' hit “Shop
Around” peaked at No. 1 on the national R&B hit list in late 1960 and at
No. 2 on the Billboard pop charts in 1961, which established Motown as an
independent company exceptionally worthwhile in the American free market. Later
in 1961, Marvelettes’ “Please Mr. Postman” made it to the top of both charts).
o
How
is talent and hard work rewarded in the free enterprise system? Gordy's gift for identifying and bringing
together musical talent, along with the careful management of his artists'
public image, made Motown initially a major national and then international
success.)
o
Does
a successful company open doors for others? Over
the next decade, Gordy signed such artists as the Supremes, Marvin Gaye, the
Temptations, the Four Tops, Gladys Knight & the Pips, Commodores, Martha
and the Vandellas, Stevie Wonder and the Jackson 5. Of those signed, he
innovatively and carefully controlled their public image, dress, manners and choreography
for across-the-board appeal).
·
Were
individuals in the African-American community prospering in the early 1960s?
·
Guide students in a discussion about the March on
Washington and what ideas the singers relied upon.
·
What individualistic themes expressed by singers or
musical groups, such as Peter, Paul, and Mary, and Bob Dylan, indicate that liberal
social change is coming?
·
Read
Source #4. According to her sister, Willa Ward, the inspiration for “How I Got Over” was an experience by composer Clara
Ward, Willa, their mother, Gertrude, and members of their singing group had
traveling in the racially segregated Southern States in 1951. In route to
Atlanta, Georgia, they were besieged by a group of white men. The men were
enraged that black women were riding in a luxury vehicle, a Cadillac, and
surrounded their car and terrorized them with racist taunts. The women were
rescued when, in a burst of inspiration, Gertrude Ward feigned demonic
possession, spewing curses and incantations at the men, who fled.
Ø Direct students to read the lyrics
of the song. What does the composer rely on? What individualist themes are in
the song? (Various but students may
identify soul, Lord, Jesus, religion. She made it individually with the help of
God. This is an example of personal salvation in Reformation theology).
·
Read Source #5. Direct students to
read the lyrics of “Buked and Scorned” which Mahalia Jackson also sang at
the March. Is this corporate, or individual, salvation? (The lyrics indicate rebuking and scorning but individually the
songwriter is “Tryin'
to make this journey all alone.” Social talking or gossiping will never drive
her out but Jesus has died to free her on her journey as an individual).
·
Read Source #6. Direct students to
read the lyrics to “If I Had a Hammer.” What themes can be identified? (Various: the objects, including song, send
out a message, love between my brothers and my sisters, justice, freedom, and
love). What does the song urge people to do? (The song is about social activism and how individuals are to change
society and increase civil rights).
·
Read Source #7. Bob Dylan
wrote “Only a Pawn in Their Game” about
the assassination of activist Medgar Evers.
o
Medgar
Wiley Evers (July 2, 1925 – June 12, 1963) was an African American
civil rights activist in Mississippi, the state's field secretary of the NAACP,
and World War II veteran, having served in the United States Army. He was
assassinated by a white supremacist and Klansman. Evers was assassinated in
1963 by Byron De La Beckwith, a member of the White Citizens’ Council. As a veteran,
Evers was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery.
All-white juries failed to reach verdicts in the first two trials of Beckwith
in the 1960s. He was convicted in 1994 in a new state trial based on new
evidence.
·
Dylan
sang the song at the podium months before it was released on his
ground-breaking album The Times They are a-Changin'.
o
Direct
students to read the lyrics. Why would the song stir controversy? (Dylan suggests that Evers’ killer shared
responsibility for the crime with the wealthy elite who pitted poor whites
against blacks. Individuals are only pawns of society. Be sure to point out
that Evers’ murder was a catalyst for the 1963 march).
·
Read Source #8. Direct students to
read the lyrics to “Blowin’ in the Wind.” What themes can be identified? What
must a man do? (Various: Dylan should be
recognizable as an anti-war activist from the line about cannon balls being
banned, a key theme is that change is coming and blowing in the wind, people
should be allowed to be free, people should hear the cries of the oppressed,
Dylan cleverly connects the civil rights movement with growing anti-war efforts
in this iconic song).
o Students
should grasp that individuals from traditional religious and moral backgrounds,
i.e., Christian gospel singers, social justice folk-singers, and Bob Dylan (who
is Jewish), are in the forefront of liberal social change in the civil rights
movement and early anti-war efforts. They view activism as an application of their
Judeo-Christian freedom and justice principles.
Follow-up/Assessment Questions:
·
How were African-Americans making
financial strides in the early 1960s?
·
How was the individualistic civil
rights movement gaining strength in the early 1960s?
·
How
did music break down barriers of racism and prejudice in the early 1960s?
Prompt Question for Next Lesson:
·
How did the government intervene through
significant Civil Rights legislation in the mid-1960s?
Day 3
Objectives:
·
SWBAT
the shift in government intervention in the mid-1960s, constitutional issues,
and evaluate the Great Society programs of LBJ.
Sources/Handouts that will be used for discussion/evaluation for this
lesson:
·
Source #9 (JFK on the “Negro
Question,” dispensation, job quotas by government intervention, News
Conference 60, August 20, 1963, President John F. Kennedy, State
Department Auditorium, Washington, D.C., August 20, 1963)
·
Source #10 (U.S. Constitution, Article One [section 8], Fourteenth
Amendment, and the Fifteenth Amendment)
·
Source
#11 (“The Great Society at Fifty: The Triumph and the Tragedy,” Nicholas
Eberstadt, the American Enterprise Institute)
Review/Key Question
(s):
·
What
is the difference between free-market solutions to social problems and
government intervention in the economy?
·
How
did liberal policy change during the mid-1960s?
·
How
is the Constitution adapted for political debates during a contentious period
such as the 1960s?
·
What
is the goal of Great Society programs?
Suggested Key Discussion Points/Questions:
·
If African-Americans were making
financial strides and the individualistic civil rights movement was gaining
strength in the early 1960s what happened?
·
The government intervened through
legislation.
·
Social programs that focused on equality of
result were ineffective.
·
One
of liberalism’s 1960s icon was one of America’s most popular presidents --
handsome, charismatic, a war hero. He firmly opposed racial quotas. Can
you name him? Here’s one more clue: He was not a Republican. (The answer is: John F. Kennedy).
·
Read Source #9. When he was elected
president in 1960, Kennedy’s views were considered mainstream in the Democratic
Party. Is Kennedy’s 1960s liberalism supported by the liberals of today? (But while the Kennedy name is still revered
by the Democrats today, the policies he espoused are not. Ronald Reagan,
America’s 40th president, who was a Democrat much of his life, famously said,
“I didn’t leave the Democratic Party. The party left me.”).
·
So, if Kennedy were alive now, which
party would he belong to? (It’s
impossible to know, of course. But we can compare his political positions to
those of today’s Democratic Party).
·
On race: JFK disliked the idea of
using racial preferences and quotas to make up for historic racism and
discrimination. What is Democratic Party policy today about affirmative action?
(Today, affirmative action is Democratic
Party orthodoxy, but Kennedy thought such policies were
counterproductive. “I don't think we can undo the past,” Kennedy said. “We
have to do the best we can now...I don't think quotas are a good idea...We are
too mixed, this society of ours, to begin to divide ourselves on the basis of
race or color.”).
·
During the Cuban Missile Crisis,
leaders of the U.S. and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense, 13-day political
and military standoff in October 1962 over the installation of nuclear-armed
Soviet missiles on Cuba, just 90 miles from U.S. shores. In a TV address on
October 22, 1962, President John Kennedy (1917-63) notified Americans about the
presence of the missiles, explained his decision to enact a naval blockade
around Cuba and made it clear the U.S. was prepared to use military force if
necessary to neutralize this perceived threat to national security. Following
this news, many people feared the world was on the brink of nuclear war.
However, disaster was avoided when the U.S. agreed to Soviet leader Nikita
Khrushchev’s (1894-1971) offer to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for the
U.S. promising not to invade Cuba. Kennedy also secretly agreed to remove U.S.
missiles from Turkey.
·
What was the conflict about during
the Cuban missile crisis?
·
Why was there a crisis in the first
place in Cuba? (After seizing power in
the Caribbean island nation of Cuba in 1959, leftist revolutionary leader Fidel
Castro aligned himself with the Soviet Union. Under Castro, Cuba grew dependent
on the Soviets for military and economic aid. During this time, the U.S. and
the Soviets (and their respective allies) were engaged in the Cold War
(1945-91), an ongoing series of largely political and economic clashes).
·
What
would be the problem if Castro allied himself with the Soviet Union? (The Soviet missile threat would be 90 miles
off the U.S. coast.)
·
What is the tagline of actor Kevin
Costner’s movie about the Cuban Missile Crisis titled "Thirteen Days"?
(Released in 2000, the movie's tagline
was "You'll never believe how close we came.").
·
How
did the U.S. find out about the Soviet presence 90 miles off the U.S. coast?
o
(The
two superpowers plunged into one of their biggest Cold War confrontations after
the pilot of an American U-2 spy plane making a high-altitude pass over Cuba on
October 14, 1962, photographed a Soviet SS-4 medium-range ballistic missile
being assembled for installation).
·
President Kennedy was briefed about
the situation on October 16, and he immediately called together a group of
advisors and officials known as the executive committee, or ExCom. How long did
the crisis last? (For nearly the next two
weeks, the president and his team wrestled with a diplomatic crisis of epic
proportions, as did their counterparts in the Soviet Union).
·
Why
was the threat so pressing to Kennedy?
o
(For
the American officials, the urgency of the situation stemmed from the fact that
the nuclear-armed Cuban missiles were being installed so close to the U.S.
mainland–just 90 miles south of Florida. From that launch point, they were
capable of quickly reaching targets in the eastern U.S. If allowed to become
operational, the missiles would fundamentally alter the complexion of the
nuclear rivalry between the U.S. and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
(USSR), which up to that point had been dominated by the Americans.)
·
What was the Soviet strategy? Why
did they understand the U.S. to be an immediate threat to the Soviet Union?
o
(Soviet
leader Nikita Khrushchev had gambled on sending the missiles to Cuba with the
specific goal of increasing his nation’s nuclear strike capability. The Soviets
had long felt uneasy about the number of nuclear weapons that were targeted at
them from sites in Western Europe and Turkey, and they saw the deployment of
missiles in Cuba as a way to level the playing field. Another key factor in the
Soviet missile scheme was the hostile relationship between the U.S. and Cuba.
The Kennedy administration had already launched one attack on the island–the
failed Bay of Pigs invasion in 1961–and Castro and Khrushchev saw the missiles
as a means of deterring further U.S. aggression).
·
What
do think the American strategy ought to be? Appeasement, aggression, or
something else? What reaction do you think was appropriate for Kennedy and
ExCom?
o
(From
the outset of the crisis, Kennedy and ExCom determined that the presence of
Soviet missiles in Cuba was unacceptable. The challenge facing them was to
orchestrate their removal without initiating a wider conflict–and possibly a
nuclear war. In deliberations that stretched on for nearly a week, they came up
with a variety of options, including a bombing attack on the missile sites and
a full-scale invasion of Cuba. But Kennedy ultimately decided on a more
measured approach. First, he would employ the U.S. Navy to establish a
blockade, or quarantine, of the island to prevent the Soviets from delivering
additional missiles and military equipment. Second, he would deliver an
ultimatum that the existing missiles be removed).
·
How did the American public find out
about Kennedy’s position?
o
(In
a television broadcast on October 22, 1962, the president notified Americans
about the presence of the missiles, explained his decision to enact the
blockade and made it clear that the U.S. was prepared to use military force if
necessary to neutralize this perceived threat to national security. Following
this public declaration, people around the globe nervously waited for the
Soviet response. Some Americans, fearing their country was on the brink of
nuclear war, hoarded food and gas.)
·
How do you think the Soviets should
react to Kennedy’s statement? Appeasement,
aggression, or something else?
o
(A
crucial moment in the unfolding crisis arrived on October 24, when Soviet ships
bound for Cuba neared the line of U.S. vessels enforcing the blockade. An
attempt by the Soviets to breach the blockade would likely have sparked a
military confrontation that could have quickly escalated to a nuclear exchange.
But the Soviet ships stopped short of the blockade.)
·
What
should be done about the existing missiles already in Cuba?
o
(Although
the events at sea offered a positive sign that war could be averted, they did
nothing to address the problem of the missiles already in Cuba. The tense
standoff between the superpowers continued through the week.)
·
How should Kennedy react to a combat
casualty?
o
On October 27, an American
reconnaissance plane was shot down over Cuba, and a U.S. invasion force was
readied in Florida. (The 35-year-old pilot of the downed plane, Major Rudolf
Anderson, is considered the sole U.S. combat casualty of the Cuban missile
crisis.) “I thought it was the last Saturday I would ever see,” recalled U.S.
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (1916-2009), as quoted by Martin Walker in
“The Cold War.” A similar sense of doom was felt by other key players on both
sides.
§
(Despite
the enormous tension, Soviet and American leaders found a way out of the
impasse. During the crisis, the Americans and Soviets had exchanged letters and
other communications, and on October 26, Khrushchev sent a message to Kennedy
in which he offered to remove the Cuban missiles in exchange for a promise by
U.S. leaders not to invade Cuba. The following day, the Soviet leader sent a
letter proposing that the USSR would dismantle its missiles in Cuba if the
Americans removed their missile installations in Turkey.)
·
Kennedy received two messages. What
should Kennedy do in response?
o
(Officially,
the Kennedy administration decided to accept the terms of the first message and
ignore the second Khrushchev letter entirely. Privately, however, American officials
also agreed to withdraw their nation’s missiles from Turkey. U.S. Attorney
General Robert Kennedy (1925-68) personally delivered the message to the Soviet
ambassador in Washington, and on October 28, the crisis drew to a close.)
o
Both the Americans and Soviets were
sobered by the Cuban Missile Crisis. How could communication be improved? (The following year, a direct “hot line”
communication link was installed between Washington and Moscow to help defuse
similar situations, and the superpowers signed two treaties related to nuclear
weapons. The Cold War was far from over, though. In fact, another legacy of the
crisis was that it convinced the Soviets to increase their investment in an
arsenal of intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the U.S.
from Soviet territory).
·
What lessons about American foreign
policy can be gleaned from the Cuban missile crisis? Should we accommodate
aggression or forcefully counter it? (Various:
some may argue that aggression can be accommodated and peace achieved. Others
think that aggression should be forcefully countered).
·
What role should the Eisenhower
Doctrine play in American foreign policy? (Refer
back to the Eisenhower Doctrine in Source #3 if need be as a reminder.).
·
After
JFK’s tragic assassination, landmark legislative acts passed in 1964. What is
the Civil Rights Acts of 1964? (The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is a momentous civil rights and
U.S. labor law in the United States that outlaws discrimination based on race,
color, religion, sex, or national origin. It prohibits unequal application of
voter registration requirements, racial segregation in schools, employment, and
public accommodations).
o
How
did Congress assert its authority? (Congress
asserted its authority to legislate under several different parts of the United
States Constitution, principally its power to regulate interstate commerce
under Article One (section 8), its duty to guarantee all citizens equal
protection of the laws under the Fourteenth Amendment, and its duty to protect
voting rights under the Fifteenth Amendment).
·
Which
political party, Democrat or Republican, favored civil rights in 1964? (Students may engage in differences between
which party best advocates civil rights. However, it may be revealing to drill
down and consider the actual voting and the respective voting of Democratic and
Republican members of Congress).
o
The Civil Rights Act -- which is best known
for barring discrimination in public accommodations -- passed the House on Feb.
10, 1964 by a margin of 290-130. When broken down by party, 61% of Democratic
lawmakers voted for the bill (152 yeas and 96 nays), and a full 80% of the
Republican caucus supported it (138 yeas and 34 nays).
o
When the Senate passed the measure on June
19, 1964,--nine days after supporters mustered enough votes to end the longest
filibuster in Senate history--the margin was 73-27. Better than two-thirds of
Senate Democrats supported the measure on final passage (46 yeas, 21 nays), but
an even stronger 82% of Republicans supported it (27 yeas, 6 nays).
·
Read
Source #10.
o
Did
Congress rightfully exercise its authority? Are civil rights interstate
commerce? Are civil rights guaranteed under the Fourteenth Amendment? Are civil
rights protected under the Fifteenth Amendment? (Various: some may argue that Congress was correct or others may
disagree. In any case, Congress asserted its authority to legislate under
several different parts of the United States Constitution, principally its
power to regulate interstate commerce under Article One (section 8), its duty
to guarantee all citizens equal protection of the laws under the Fourteenth
Amendment, and its duty to protect voting rights under the Fifteenth
Amendment).
·
What is the Great Society? (The Great Society was a
set of domestic programs in the United States launched by Democratic President
Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964–65. The main goal was the elimination of poverty and
racial injustice. New major spending programs that addressed education, medical
care, urban problems, rural poverty, and transportation were launched during
this period. The program and its initiatives were subsequently promoted by him
and fellow Democrats in Congress in the 1960s and years following. The Democratic
landslide in the 1964 election brought many new liberals to Congress, making
the House of Representatives in 1965 the most liberal House since 1938. Anti-war
Democrats complained that spending on the Vietnam War choked off the Great
Society. Many of these programs including Medicare, Medicaid, the Older
Americans Act and federal education funding, continue to the present. The Great
Society's programs expanded under the administrations of Republican Presidents
Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford).
o
Should the government promote social justice
through legislation? (Various but the
essential point is to discuss the difference between social programs that focused
on equality of result, as opposed to the free market of opportunity, and if
these social justice programs are effective).
·
How effective were the Great Society programs
that focused on equality of result?
o
Five decades, nearly $22 trillion and roughly 80
welfare programs later, it’s fair to ask how we’re doing. The short answer? Not
well.
o
In important ways the War on Poverty is an
abject failure. As social critic Irving Kristol has observed, “the welfare
state came gradually to be seen less as a helping hand to those in need, a
‘safety net,’ and more as a communal exercise in compassion toward an
ever-expanding portion of the population.”
o
It’s easy to see why it was “ever-expanding”:
The War on Poverty created negative incentives. Instead of promoting the growth
of healthy families, the welfare system discouraged them. A single mother could
receive larger payments from Uncle Sam by remaining single than by marrying the
father of her child.
§
Should children be without fathers in the home
and rely on the government?
o
(Over
time, many fatherless children entered the world. The welfare checks showed up
month after month, regardless of how their parents spent their days. As these
boys and girls grew up without fathers around, they came to regard such
households as natural. The social safety net, designed to be a temporary help
to the people in need, instead kept them trapped in government dependency).
o
The disincentive for fatherhood continued for
three, even four generations until 1996 when a Republican Congress passed
historic welfare reform legislation (over President Clinton’s veto — twice)
that began turning things around. It transformed the Aid to Families with
Dependent Children program into one known as Temporary Assistance for Needy
Families.
§
Should recipients on welfare be required to
work?
o
Did the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families
program assist recipients?
§
The
program required recipients to perform at least 20 hours per week of work or
job preparation activities in exchange for the cash benefit.
§
What were the results of the program?
§
Overnight, welfare agencies became job placement
offices, and people who had been dependent on government began seeking
employment. Within the first five years after the reform, caseloads were cut in
half. Employment for single mothers also increased dramatically, and child
poverty plummeted.
o
Are recipients able to provide for themselves? (The reform is far from done, though. Today
the federal government runs roughly 80 means-tested welfare programs providing
cash, food, housing and social services to low-income persons).
o
How much does the U.S. spend on welfare in a decade?
o
The United States will spend approximately $14
trillion on means-tested welfare over the next decade.
·
Read Source #11. In your own words, how has the
American Enterprise Institute characterized the Great Society? (As Nicholas Eberstadt points out in the
American Enterprise Institute’s publication “The Great Society at Fifty: The
Triumph and the Tragedy”: “So deeply impressed is the Great Society into our
consciousness that, as a practical matter, it is scarcely possible for most
citizens now alive even to imagine the American way of life in the days before
our huge, activist, modern welfare state came into existence.”).
Follow-up/Assessment Questions:
·
Did government assistance assist individuals and
strengthen the economy?
·
What were the Constitutional issues at stake
during the 1960s?
·
If we were to evaluate the Great Society
programs of the mid-1960s would you say that were successful? Why or why not?
·
Are Americans now accustomed to entitlement
programs since the 1960s?
·
Are citizens more or less free with a huge,
activist, modern welfare state?
Prompt Question for Next Lesson:
·
What impact did the Great Society have in the African-American
community and what radical movements began in the mid to late 1960s?
Day 4
Objectives:
·
SWBAT explain the birth of radicalism in the mid
to late 1960s.
Sources/Handouts that will be used for discussion/evaluation for this
lesson:
·
Source
#12 (Making Peace With the ‘60s, David Burner)
·
Source
#13 (“Bodies Upon the Gears,” or “Operation of the Machine,”
Mario Savio
·
Source
#14 (“For What It’s Worth,” Buffalo Springfield)
·
Source
#15 (“Fortunate Son,” Creedence Clearwater Revival)
·
Source
#16 (“The Hippies: The Philosophy of a Subculture,” TIME)
Review—Key Question (s):
·
With social improvement lagging why were the
radicals disappointed and how then did the new movements try to speed up
progress?
·
Did the radicals look to the Constitution for social
progress?
Suggested Key Discussion Points/Questions:
·
Read Source #12.
o
What document did the liberal civil rights
movement attempt to fulfill for black Americans? (The Declaration of Independence).
o
Nonviolence liberated people to foster what? (Self-discovery and self-making).
o
What alternative vision of black America arose? (Race).
o
Race as a concept was seen as nearly exclusively
whose? (The nearly exclusive foundation
of the identity of African-Americans).
o
Blackness came close to negating what? (The Civil Rights movement).
o
Black power was associated with America or what
part of the world? (The Third World).
o
Freedom for the black power movement was
individual or collective? (Collective).
o
What group was the basis of exclusion against in
the black power groups? (Whites, i.e.,
even well-meaning liberals who supported the Civil Rights movement.)
o
Black Americans have been more prey to what
forces corrosive of social order? (Drugs,
crime, illiteracy, and shattered families).
·
Who kills more blacks: the Ku Klux Klan or other
blacks? (Other blacks).
·
Does black rage effectively address the ills
that threaten black communities? (No
vocabulary of black rage effectively addresses forces that corrode: drugs,
disintegrating families, and street violence).
·
The “New Left” was inspired by the civil rights
movement and radical student activism began to spread across America’s college
campuses in the early 1960s. The seminal group was Students for a Democratic
Society (SDS), founded in 1959. SDS garnered public notice for declaring that
young people were tired of older political movements, even older radical ones.
The members of SDS formed the core of a self-conscious “New Left” movement,
which rejected the Old Left’s ideologies of economic justice in favor of an
ideology of social justice.
·
Read Source #13. What do you think Mario Savio
was saying about students in higher education? What should students do in
college?
o
One of the
seminal points in the movement was a speech by Mario Savio on the Sproul Hall
Steps at Berkeley, on December 2, 1964. He stated that University students were
“raw material” of production instead of being seen as “human beings.” This is
generally seen as the moment that student radicalism began as he said you have
to put your body on the line to stop the machine. He stated: “unless you're
free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!").
·
Social justice efforts of the New Left did not
result in tangible advances in civil rights.
·
Read Source #14. Although "For What It's
Worth" is often mistaken as an anti-war song, Stephen Stills was inspired
to write the track because of the "Sunset Strip riots" in November
1966. The trouble, which started during the early stages of the counterculture
era, was in the same year Buffalo Springfield had become the house band at the
Whisky a Go Go on the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles.
·
It was within this period that local residents
and businesses had become increasingly annoyed by late-night traffic congestion
caused by crowds of young people going to clubs and music venues along the
Strip. In response they lobbied the city to pass local ordinances that stopped
loitering and enforced a strict curfew on the Strip after 10pm.
·
How do you think young music fans reacted to these
restrictions? (Young music fans felt the
new laws were an infringement of their civil rights).
o
On Saturday, November 12, 1966, fliers were
distributed on Sunset Strip inviting people to join demonstrations later that
day. Several of Los Angeles' rock radio stations also announced that a rally
would be held outside the Pandora's Box club on the corner of Sunset Boulevard
and Crescent Heights. That evening as many as 1,000 young demonstrators,
including celebrities like Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda (who was handcuffed
by police), gathered to protest against the enforcement of the curfew laws.
Although the rallies began peacefully, trouble eventually broke out among the
protesters and police. The unrest continued the next night and periodically
throughout the rest of November and December forcing some clubs to shut down
within weeks.
o
Against the background of these civil
disturbances, Stills recorded the song on December 5, 1966. Buffalo Springfield
– “For What It's Worth,” 1967
·
Describe the teen scene described in the song. (People don’t really understand what is
happening but the threat of guns, sounds, and violence is looming. Battle lines
are drawn. Young people are speaking up but they face resistance. People are in
the streets, paranoia is rampant, and if you are out of line the police will
get you. The major point is that something unsettling is about to occur but
people don’t understand what is happening.)
·
The late 1960s are also associated with hippies.
Who are the hippies? (The hippie
subculture began its development as a youth movement in the United States
during the early 1960s and then developed around the world).
·
Its origins may be traced to European social
movements in the 19th and early 20th century such as Bohemians.
·
What are the hippie influences? Is it an
individualist or communal philosophy? Traditional American or international?
What musical group is representative of the hippies? (Hippies were influenced by Eastern religion and spirituality. From
around 1967, its fundamental ethos — including harmony with nature, communal
living, artistic experimentation particularly in music, and the widespread use
of recreational drugs — spread around the world during the counterculture of
the 1960s, which has become closely associated with the subculture. For
example, the Beatles went to India which was an important movement. In
February 1968, the Beatles travelled to Rishikesh in northern India to take
part in an advanced Transcendental Meditation [TM] training course at the
ashram of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The visit followed the group's denunciation of
drugs in favor of TM, and received widespread media attention. Led by George
Harrison’s commitment, the band's interest in the Maharishi's teachings changed
Western attitudes about Indian spirituality and encouraged the study of
Transcendental Meditation. The visit was also the most productive period for
the band's songwriting. While in India, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and
Harrison wrote many songs, and Ringo Starr finished writing his first. Eighteen
of those songs were recorded for The Beatles ["the White Album"], two
songs appeared on the Abbey Road album, and others were used for various solo
projects).
·
What happened to the beatniks of the 1950s and
early 1960s?
o
(The
change in the public label from "beatnik" to "hippie"
occurred after the 1967 Human Be-In in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park, where
Allan Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, and Michael McClure led the crowd in chanting
"Om". Ginsberg was also at the infamous 1968 Democratic National
Convention, and was friends with Abbie Hoffman and other members of the Chicago
Seven. Stylistic differences between beatniks, marked by somber colors, dark
shades and goatees, gave way to colorful psychedelic clothing and long hair worn
by hippies. While the beats were known for "playing it cool" and
keeping a low profile, hippies became known for flaunting their flamboyant
lifestyle).
·
Why was San Francisco so important during the
hippie era?
·
On January 14, 1967, the outdoor Human Be-In in
San Francisco popularized hippie culture across the United States, with 30,000
hippies gathering in Golden Gate Park.
·
The Monterey Pop Festival from June 16 to June
18 in 1967 introduced the rock music of the counterculture to a wide audience
and marked the start of the "Summer of Love." The Pop Festival was a
seminal hippie event.
·
One of the highlights was Jimi Hendrix, the top-rated rock guitarist of all time, who
was post-racial before the term was even invented. During his four years as a
star he seemed to live in a virtually all-white world. His two bandmates in the
Jimi Hendrix Experience were white, and his audience was virtually all-white.
Hendrix even talked and dressed like a hippie, with his spacey verbal
references, crushed velvet pants, and bandannas.
·
Scott McKenzie's rendition of John Phillips'
song, "San Francisco," became a hit in the United States and Europe.
The lyrics, "If you're going to San Francisco, be sure to wear some
flowers in your hair", inspired thousands of young people from all over
the world to travel to San Francisco, sometimes wearing flowers in their hair
and distributing flowers to passersby, earning them the name, "Flower
Children."
·
The “San Francisco Sound,” bands such as the
Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company (with Janis Joplin), and
Jefferson Airplane continued to live in the Haight Ashbury district, but by the
end of the summer, the incessant media coverage led the Diggers to declare the
"death" of the hippie with a parade. According to the late poet
Stormi Chambless, the hippies buried an effigy of a hippie in the Panhandle to
demonstrate the end of his/her reign.
·
The “San Francisco Sound” indicated how popular the
anti-war movement had grown since the mid-1960s.
·
Read Source #15. John Fogarty’s lyrics in the
consistently prevalent hit records of his band Creedence Clearwater Revival are
revealing. Five songs are suggestive of anti-war sentiment: “Bad Moon Rising,”
“Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” “Run Through the Jungle,” and “Who’ll Stop the
Rain?” What in “Fortunate Son” does the everyman protagonist state that makes
it the archetypical anti-war song of the late 1960s? (Some folks are red, white, and blue but they [The Establishment, the
authorities] point the cannon at you. The typical American young man is not a
senator’s son or fortunate since they are being drafted. With star spangled
eyes the ordinary American son is sent to war and is only expected to give
more. The average American son is not a military person.)
·
Read Source #16. In your own words, what is the
hippie philosophy? (Various, but students
should realize that it is the antithesis of the Challenger philosopher and it
is irresponsible and narcissistic).
§
Regarding this period of history, the July 7,
1967, TIME magazine featured a cover story entitled, "The Hippies: The
Philosophy of a Subculture." The article described the guidelines of the
hippie code: "Do your own thing, wherever you have to do it and whenever
you want. Drop out. Leave society as you have known it. Leave it utterly. Blow
the mind of every straight person you can reach. Turn them on, if not to drugs,
then to beauty, love, honesty, fun."
·
It is estimated that around 100,000 people
traveled to San Francisco in the summer of 1967. The media was right behind
them, casting a spotlight on the Haight-Ashbury district and popularizing the
"hippie" label. With this increased attention, hippies found support
for their ideals of love and peace but were also criticized for their
anti-work, pro-drug, and permissive ethos. Misgivings about the hippie culture,
particularly with regard to drug abuse and lenient morality, fueled the moral
panic of the late 1960s.
Follow-up/Assessment Questions:
·
How
were African-Americans negatively affected by the Great Society programs?
·
How
did the largely white student protests on college campuses emerge?
·
How
did popular music illustrate what young people were feeling during this
contentious era?
·
What
were the accomplishments, if any, of the hippie movement?
Prompt Question for Next Lesson:
·
In
the latter 1960s, what separation took place between the American civil rights
movement and black power?
Day 5
Objectives:
·
SWBAT
explain the split between the civil rights movement of the early 1960s and the
radical black activist faction of the late 1960s.
Sources/Handouts that will be used for discussion/evaluation for this
lesson:
·
Source
#17 (“Black Power,” Stokely Carmichael, Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee [SNCC]),
·
Source
#18 (“Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud,” James Brown)
·
Source
#19 (Excerpted from "I Don't Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing [Open Up the
Door, I'll Get It Myself], James Brown)"; “America Is My Home,” James
Brown)"
Review/Key Question
(s):
·
What
had happened to the African-American community according to David Burner
(Source #12)?
·
Why
did the “New Left” radicals of the late 1960s adopt new slogans, new thinking,
and split from the traditional American civil rights movement of the early
1960s?
·
How
can social progress best be made: by government planning or the free-market
system?
Suggested Key Discussion Points/Questions:
·
Why was 1968 such a critical year?
o
Emergence of the Black Power movement
o
Martin Luther King was assassinated
o
Robert Kennedy was assassinated
o
Attempted assassination of George Wallace, a
presidential contender
o
The Democratic Party Convention in Chicago
o
Youth riots, demonstrations in urban areas
resulting in the “Long Hot Summers”
o
Student protests against the war in Vietnam
o
Election of Richard Nixon as President
·
The 1960s were characterized by two contrasting
viewpoints on civil rights as represented by Malcom X and Stokely Carmichael as
opposed to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and James Brown.
o
Integrationist
(King) Brown = Freedom Now Black Power
separatists = Black Power
·
How did the Northern Black Nationalist movement
differ from the Integrationist Civil Rights movement of Dr. Martin Luther King?
(As the civil rights movement fought its
major battles in the South during the early 1960s, a new Black Nationalist
movement was rising in the North).
·
Who led the Black Nationalist movement and what
did he say? (The Nation of Islam and its
charismatic spokesman, Malcolm X, attained prominence for criticizing the
timidity of mainstream civil rights protesters.)
·
What did the Nation of Islam call for? (The Nation of Islam’s leaders rejected the
integrationist perspective of these leaders, calling instead for an independent
and separate black nation-state).
·
What racist policies did they initiate? (They demanded that black Americans
patronize only black-owned stores.)
·
What did the Nation of Islam think about Dr.
King’s movement? (They declared that
nonviolence was fruitless.)
·
Why did the Nation of Islam appeal to some
blacks? (The Nation of Islam seemed for
many black people to be a more realistic solution than nonviolent resistance.)
·
Why didn’t Malcolm X and Dr. King see eye to
eye?
·
"You don't integrate with a sinking
ship." This was Malcolm X's curt explanation of why he did not favor
integration of blacks with whites in the United States.
·
What did Malcolm X argue?
o
Malcolm X argued that America was too racist in
its institutions and people to offer hope to blacks. The solution proposed by
the Nation of Islam was a separate nation for blacks to develop themselves
apart from what they considered to be a corrupt white nation destined for
divine destruction.
·
How did Dr. King’s movement differ from black
separatism?
o
In contrast with Malcolm X's black separatism,
Martin Luther King, Jr. offered what he considered "the more excellent way
of love and nonviolent protest" as a means of building an integrated
community of blacks and whites in America. He rejected what he called "the
hatred and despair of the black nationalist."
o
How American was Dr. King?
§
Dr. King believed that the fate of black
Americans was "tied up with America's destiny" despite the
enslavement and segregation of blacks throughout American history.
·
What was the American religious impulse of Dr.
King’s message?
o
King had faith that "the sacred heritage of
our nation and the eternal will of God" could reform white America through
the nonviolent Civil Rights Movement.
o
A point to consider is to contrast the respective
aims and means of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr. to evaluate the
possibilities for black American progress in the 1960s.
o
Despite the political gains of the 1960s, Black
Nationalist militancy continued to gather strength, mainly because social and
economic discrimination persisted. Beginning in the summer of 1965, following
riots in the Watts section of Los Angeles, urban unrest became endemic to many
northern black communities. The Watts riot exploded when a seemingly routine
traffic stop erupted into violence. The riot lasted six days and left
thirty-four dead and more than one thousand injured. Persistent racism was
certainly one cause of the riots, but so was the civil rights movement’s
strategic decision not to address urban poverty. The “long hot summers”
continued throughout the late 1960s after Dr. King’s assassination.
·
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(or, SNCC—pronounced “snick”) hoped to tap into the urban rage by establishing
chapters in the North and developing programs to channel energy into
constructive activities. Yet the increasing anger soon changed SNCC itself.
·
What significant event for black power happened
in 1966?
·
In 1966, after being attacked by police during a
peaceful march in Mississippi, SNCC chairman Stokely Carmichael rallied a crowd
by calling for “black power,” and the crowd began chanting the phrase.
·
What happened to white people who supported SNCC
after black power emerged?
o
White people were purged from SNCC.
·
How did American civil rights leaders react?
o
This development alarmed many: Roy Wilkins, the
head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (or the NAACP),
called it “a reverse Ku Klux Klan.”
·
Read
Source #17. What is Carmichael’s goal of Black Power?
o
The
first popular use of the term "Black Power" as a political and racial
slogan was by Carmichael and Willie Ricks (later known as Mukasa Dada), both
organizers and spokespersons for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC). On June 16, 1966, in a speech in Greenwood, Mississippi, after the
shooting of James Meredith during the March Against Fear.
·
What
is Carmichael’s goal of Black Power?
o
Carmichael
said: “This is the twenty-seventh time I have been arrested and I ain't going
to jail no more! The only way we gonna stop them white men from whuppin' us is
to take over. What we gonna start sayin' now is Black Power!” (Carmichael saw the concept of "Black
Power" as a means of group solidarity, take over, society is at fault with
institutional racism. Instead of individual achievement Black Power meant
taking control based on racial differences).
o
With
his use of the term, Carmichael felt this movement was not just a movement for
racial desegregation, but rather a movement to help end how American racism had
weakened blacks.
o
He
said, "'Black Power' means black people coming together to form a political
force and either electing representatives or forcing their representatives to
speak their needs."
·
By the late 1960s, Black Power emerged as a
movement bridging the gap between Black Nationalism and the civil rights
struggle. Leaders in the Black Power movement argued that black people should
have control over the social, educational, and religious institutions in their
communities. Black Power advocated black pride at a time when blackness was
stigmatized.
·
Perhaps no Black Power organization captured the
attention of America more than the Black Panther Party, founded in 1966 in
Oakland, California. The Black Panthers believed that providing goods and
services to the most downtrodden people of the black community would be
essential to a black revolution, and they developed free clothing and medical
programs, as well as a free breakfast program that fed thousands of poor
children each week. They began patrolling the streets in armed groups in an
attempt to end police brutality. The Black Panthers were also frequently
associated with the urban unrest that swept through many black communities in
the late 1960s, particularly the riots in more than one hundred cities
following the shocking assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., on April 4,
1968.
o
What was the essential difference between
Stokely Carmichael and Martin Luther King? (Stokely
Carmichael argued that the “white power structure” was the ultimate cause of
such spontaneous upheavals. There was a division between those aligned with
Martin Luther King, Jr. and those aligned with Stokely Carmichael, marked by
their respective slogans, "Freedom Now" and "Black Power.")
§
Carmichael (June 29, 1941 – November 15, 1998),
later known as Kwame Ture, was a Trinidadian-American revolutionary active in
the Civil Rights Movement, and later, the global Pan-African movement. Growing
up in the United States from the age of 11, he graduated from Howard
University. He rose to prominence in the civil rights and Black Power
movements, first as a leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee
(SNCC), later as the "Honorary Prime Minister" of the Black Panther
Party (BPP), and finally as a leader of the All-African People's Revolutionary
Party (A-APRP).
·
1968 was contentious as the separate impulses of
the civil rights movement bifurcated between the non-violent integrationist
wing of Martin Luther King and the black power separatist factions of the Black
Panthers, Stokely Carmichael, and the Nation of Islam.
·
The liberals of 1968 were conflicted as anti-war
movements had grown stronger and liberalism was split between the New Left
radicals and mainstream liberals.
‘60s
civil rights movement
Integrationist (King)
Black
Power separatists
James Brown The New Left Radicals
Liberalism
New Left Radicals Mainstream Liberals (JFK, LBJ,
Hubert Humphrey)
·
The
integrationist wing of civil rights is to be distinguished against the black
power separatists. A good example of individual achievement, hard work, and pursuing
the American Dream is illustrated in a song by James Brown, “I’m Black and I’m
Proud.” It is a song which is easy to misinterpret as a simple, Black Power
song but an examination of the lyrics is revealing.
·
Read
Source #18. How is the song in contrast to Stokely Carmichael’s understanding
of Black Power? The song addresses the Black Power movement of 1968: but how it addresses black power is the
interesting aspect of the song. (Brown is
distancing himself from the radical Black Power movement emerging in 1968).
·
What
individualist gospel song does Brown sample? (Mahalia Jackson’s spiritual, “Buked and Scorned,” in the lyrics: “We’ve been buked and we’ve been scorned).
·
How
does Brown suggest blacks get their share? Does he expect anything to be given
to him? Does he want to work for others or himself? (We have been treated poorly but we can’t quit until we get our share
working for ourselves. We demand a chance to do things for ourselves. We would
rather die on our feet than live on our knees. Brown is black and proud which
means to work hard for yourself rather than be dependent on others).
·
Read
Source #19. Several other Brown singles from the same era as "Say It Loud
– I'm Black and I'm Proud", notably "I Don't Want Nobody to Give Me
Nothing (Open Up the Door, I'll Get It Myself)", explored similar themes
of black empowerment and self-reliance. And, coupled with his "America Is
My Home" tune we can see that just as individual American Jews and
Christians in the early 1960s are relying on their talent, hard work, and
education to bring about social change so was Brown. At the same time that the
liberal Great Society programs were being implemented there was a negative
impact on black culture and families.
·
What
individualist themes are to be found in these additional two songs? (Brown states clearly that he does not want
anyone to give him anything but he will get it himself. He does not want
self-pity but equal opportunity and not a guaranteed outcome by the government.
He wants education and books so that he can develop himself. He wants to be
self-reliant, use his talents, and without help from others. He loves America
as his home. Races should unite against the enemies of America. We enjoy
freedom of speech and although there are many nice places to visit you should
get an education here. America is the best country without a doubt. Opportunity
is here for the lowest person including a shoeshine boy. There are no royals or
an aristocracy here. Work hard and you can make it in America.)
·
Both
the Federal government with the Great Society programs and Black Power
organizations were pitted against the individualist, hard-working America that
inspired James Brown and early 1960s singers during the March on Washington in
1963.
·
The
war in Vietnam pitted civil rights leaders against one another. Popular
entertainer James Brown believed as a religious leader Dr. King should not have
spoken out about the Vietnam War. Those were difficult days for King because he
was being pulled apart by two movements: the Civil Rights movement and the war
in Vietnam. When Dr. King spoke out against the Vietnam War, Mr. Brown thought
he was wrong because Brown thought that he is a religious leader. He is not a
politician. He is getting out of his bag, as we would say, he is getting out of
what he stands for and he can create a problem for himself. Because the powers
that be are not going to stand for this.
·
After
Martin Luther King was killed, despite their disagreement on Vietnam, Brown
continued his non-violent, hard-working American message.
Follow-up/Assessment
Questions:
·
During
this contentious time, do you think things will calm down or escalate?
·
Do
you understand the differences between of radicalism and traditional, American
civil rights and why they appealed to diverse people?
·
Why
do you think James Brown didn’t believe in Black Power?
·
What
was Brown’s alternative?
Prompt Question for
the Next Lesson:
·
How
did the theme of revolution play out and end the late 1960s?
Day 6
Objectives:
·
SWBAT
understand how revolution was in the air in the late 1960s and what impact it
had on American popular music, politics, and Constitution.
Sources/Handouts that
will be used for discussion/evaluation for this lesson:
·
Source
#20 (“Revolution,” the Beatles)
·
Source
#21 (“Chicago,” Crosby, Stills, & Nash)
·
Source
#22 (Various historic sources on the issue of a standing army)
·
Source
#23 (“Ohio,” Neil Young, as performed by Mott The Hoople)
Review—Key Question
(s)
·
How
had American politics changed significantly from the early to the late 1960s?
·
Had
American politics become more heated or calmer throughout the decade?
Suggested Key
Discussion Points/Questions:
·
Read
Source #20. By 1968 revolution was in the air and with increasing anti-war
protests, the Vietnam Tet offensive, and student riots in France, the Beatles
decided to issue an overtly political song, “Revolution.”
·
What
do you think the Beatles meant in this song? (They discounted destruction, acts of violence, the radical left (i.e.,
Chairman Mao) and hate stating):
·
“You
say you'll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it's the institution
Well, you know
You'd better free your mind instead.”
·
The
1960s and into the 1970s was a period of social protest and discontent. For
example, consider Gil Scott Heron’s, incendiary, “The Revolution Will Not Be
Televised.”
o
“You
will not be able to plug in, turn on, and cop out.”
o
“There
will be no pictures of pigs shooting down brothers in the instant replay.”
o
“The
revolution will not be televised; the revolution will be live.”
o
When
did the revolution occur?
o
Consider
that since the song was released:
FACT 1. Over 1,400 more black
Americans murdered other blacks in two years than were lynched from 1882 to
1968.
FACT 2. Black People (mostly men)
commit a grossly disproportionate amount of crime.
FACT 3. Despite making up just 13%
of the population, blacks committed half of homicides in the United
States for nearly 30 years.
FACT 4. Chicago’s death toll is
almost equal to that of both wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, combined.
FACT 5. It would take cops 40 years
to kill as many black men as have died at the hands of others black men in
2012 alone.
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/11/28/5-devastating-facts-black-black-crime/
·
Military involvement in Vietnam was part of
America’s containment policy during the Cold War.
·
Should
presidents invoke executive power to
expand war-making privileges and deploy military troops?
·
Why
did Indochina become a flash point of executive power? (Beginning with the presidency of Harry S. Truman, the Indochina wars
became a matter of inheritance for the President of the United States.
Particularly for Truman and then Dwight Eisenhower, the presidential office
seemed to come with an obligation to provide substantial economic and military
assistance to aid the French in Indochina).
·
Upon
inheriting the presidency itself with the assassination of President John F.
Kennedy, what did Lyndon B. Johnson do about Indochina? (His inheritance became fully-known and felt across the country with
the 1964 Tonkin Gulf Resolution. It was there that this matter of inheritance
became the Vietnam War).
·
What
did Nixon do? (In turn, with the
subsequent public reaction to Nixon’s bombing operations in Cambodia and Laos,
soon the escalation of the Vietnam War became a matter for Congress with the
1973 War Powers Resolution. With Johnson’s executive mandate for war and
Nixon’s justification of executive authority, the Vietnam War set a dangerous
precedent for presidential war powers, as it placed constitutional
misinterpretations to the forefront, and exemplified the limitations of modern
congressional war powers.)
·
Should
we adhere to the original, written Constitution or the living Constitution of
the Progressives? (The concept of
presidential war powers in Vietnam is one that remains an active scholarly and
constitutional debate. It is a concept that is based on a living Constitution,
and has enabled presidents to expand their executive powers to deploy troops
without a declaration of war in foreign affairs. Such a living interpretation
of the Constitution has substituted alleged necessity and circumstances to be
in forefront in the decision to go war. In the end, Johnson’s executive mandate
for war and Nixon’s constitutional arguments for a stronger Commander-in-Chief
set dangerous precedents, as an unaccountable president remains the principal
concern for the future of presidential prerogative. The expansion of the
Vietnam War and knowledge of the futility of the conflict at the highest levels
of the American government was not known by the American public until the
publication of the Pentagon Papers.)
·
The
Vietnam War provoked strident freedom of the press issues.
·
Recall
one of the earlier freedom of the press cases: Rex v. Zenger (1735)
·
What
was the issue in the Zenger case?
·
The
colony of New York tried publisher John Peter Zenger for seditious libel
against the governor. At that time, truth was not a defense in a libel case.
Zenger’s attorney told the jury of their power and duty to judge the law as
well as the facts, and the jury acquitted Zenger. Though not a Supreme Court
case, this is a landmark freedom of the press case.
·
In
the New York Times v. United States (1971) a claimed threat to national
security was no justification for prior restraint on publication of classified
documents (the Pentagon Papers) about the Vietnam War.
o
Facts of the case: in what became known as the
"Pentagon Papers Case," the Nixon Administration attempted to prevent
the New York Times and Washington Post from publishing materials belonging to a
classified Defense Department study regarding the history of United States
activities in Vietnam. The President argued that prior restraint was necessary
to protect national security. This case was decided together with United States
v. Washington Post Co.
§
Question: did the Nixon administration's efforts to
prevent the publication of what it termed "classified information"
violate the First Amendment?
§
(Yes. In the per curiam opinion the Court held that
the government did not overcome the "heavy presumption against" prior
restraint of the press in this case. Justices Black and Douglas argued that the
vague word "security" should not be used "to abrogate the
fundamental law embodied in the First Amendment." Justice Brennan reasoned
that since publication would not cause an inevitable, direct, and immediate
event imperiling the safety of American forces, prior restraint was
unjustified.)
·
Opposition to the Vietnam War came from those
who did not believe containment in Vietnam was necessary, those who did not
want to fight a foreign war, and those who sympathized with communist
principles.
·
Read Source #21 for understanding the impact
that Vietnam had on young people. What happened at the Democratic Convention in
Chicago during 1968?
·
Youth, riots, anti-war protest, and politics
all seemed to come to a head at the Democratic Party Convention in August of
1968.
§ Tens
of thousands of protesters swarmed the streets to rally against the Vietnam War
and the political status quo. By the time Vice President Herbert Humphrey
received the presidential nomination, the strife within the Democratic Party
was laid bare and the streets of Chicago had seen riots and bloodshed involving
protesters, police and bystanders alike, radically changing America’s political
and social landscape.
§
Chaos
preceded the Convention. The months leading up to the infamous 1968 Democratic
Convention were turbulent.
·
What
significant event had happened just a few months before the Convention? (The brutal assassination of Martin Luther
King, Jr. in April had left the country reeling).
·
The
Vietnam War was in its 13th year and the recent Tet Offensive had proved the
conflict was far from over, as the draft sent more young men into the fray. It
was only a matter of time before a showdown would take place between the
government of President Lyndon B. Johnson and America’s war-weary citizens.
§
By
the time delegates arrived for the convention in Chicago, protests had been set
in motion by members of the Youth International Party (yippies) and the
National Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam (MOBE), whose
organizers included Rennie Davis and Tom Hayden.
§
But
Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley had no intention of letting his city or the
convention be overrun by protestors. The stage was set for an explosive
face-off.
§
The
Democratic Party was in crisis. President Johnson—despite being elected with a
huge majority in 1964—was soon loathed by many of his peers and constituents due
to his pro-Vietnam War policies.
·
President
Johnson saw the writing on the wall and, on March 31, told a stunned nation
during a televised address that he would not seek reelection.
o
The
announcement came at the end of this TV speech concerning the situation in
Vietnam where increasing numbers of young American soldiers were being killed
amid the recent escalation of the war by the North Vietnamese.
o
In
January 1968, the Tet Offensive had occurred in which North Vietnamese troops
staged a surprise attack on 36 provincial capitals and five major cities in
South Vietnam including an attack on the U.S. embassy in Saigon and the
presidential palace.
o
Filmed
footage of the attacks and the resulting carnage appeared on nightly news
programs watched by the American public. Unlike previous wars, news personnel
in Vietnam were not censored and thus often took graphic frontline combat
footage.
o
Year
after year of TV news reports showing bloodied Americans and dead Vietnamese
civilians led many Americans to question the necessity of the ordeal. By 1968,
demonstrations and unrest had erupted on college campuses with demands for an
immediate end to the war.
§
Amid the mounting death toll and
continuing erosion of popular and political support for the war, President
Johnson was faced with having to decide America's future course in the
conflict.
·
What should President Johnson do
about Vietnam? (Various: his choices
included possible escalation in an effort to win the war, or the pursuit of
peace with an enemy who now seemed determined to fight and win no matter what
the cost.)
o
Tragically,
the race was turned upside down again when Robert Kennedy was assassinated
after giving his victory speech following the California primary on June 4.
o
Pigasus
was a nominee. Fed up with Democratic leadership’s penchant for war, yippies
protesting at the 1968 Democratic National Convention conceived their own
solution: nominate a pig for president. Jerry Rubin and Abbie Hoffman came up
with the idea, named their candidate “Pigasus the Immortal” and pledged, “They
nominate a president and he eats the people. We nominate a president and the
people eat him.” Rubin and other members of his campaign staff were arrested at
his first press conference in front of the Chicago Convention Center.
o
Protestors
took over Lincoln Park. About a week before the convention, despite not having
permission, thousands of protestors—many of them from out of state and from
middle-class families—set up camp at Lincoln Park.
o
In
the meantime, Democratic Party delegates began arriving in a Chicago that was
rapidly approaching a state of siege: National Guardsmen and policemen met
their planes. Their hotels were under heavy guard and the convention Amphitheatre
was a virtual fortress. Violence began at Lincoln Park.
o
Around
11:00 p.m. on Sunday, August 25, a couple thousand police officers wearing riot
gear, helmets and gas masks lined up at Lincoln Park. Some threw tear gas into
the crowd. Protestors scattered every which way and rushed out of the park,
blindly falling over each other as the tear gas assaulted their eyes. The
police attacked them with clubs and often didn’t stop when someone was subdued
on the ground. Eyewitnesses report it was a scene of unrestrained bloodshed and
chaos. Later, the police defended their actions by claiming the protestors
shouldn’t have broken curfew or resisted arrest.
o
On
Tuesday night, when a promised televised prime-time debate on Vietnam was
postponed until after midnight when most viewers would be asleep, the anti-war
delegates made their fury known to the point that Mayor Daley had the
convention adjourned for the night.
o
Around
3:30 p.m. on Wednesday, a teenage boy climbed a flagpole near the band shell
and lowered the American flag. The police moved in swiftly to arrest him as
protestors rallied to his aid, assaulting the officers with rocks and food or
whatever else they had on hand. The police beat protestors at will with clubs
and fists.
o
If
you were a delegate at the Convention would you have voted for peace or
escalation? (Various answers should be
explored but prospects for peace or escalation are the two basic alternatives).
o
The
peace plank was defeated, a huge blow to the peace delegates and millions of Americans
who wanted the Vietnam War to end, and the delegates erupted into chaos. By
nightfall, a standoff had ensued in front of the Hilton between thousands of
angry protestors and thousands of police officers. No one knows who or what
triggered the first blow, but soon police began clearing out the crowd,
pummeling protestors (and innocent bystanders) with billy clubs and using so
much tear gas that it reportedly reached Humphrey some 25 floors up as he
watched the bedlam unfold from his hotel room window.
o
At
home in their living rooms, horrified Americans alternated between watching
images of police brutally beating young, blood-splattered demonstrators and
Humphrey’s nomination. During the nomination process, some delegates spoke to
the violence. One pro-McGovern delegate went so far as to refer to the police
violence as “Gestapo tactics in the streets of Chicago.”
o
Late
that evening, Humphrey won the presidential nomination with Senator Edmund
Muskie of Maine as his running mate. But the win was nothing to celebrate. Any
illusion of unity within the Democratic Party was shattered—after Humphrey’s
nomination, many anti-war delegates joined protesters in solidarity and held a
candlelight vigil. The next day, the remaining protesters and hundreds of
anti-war delegates attempted to reach the Amphitheatre again but were deterred
with tear gas. At midnight on August 29, the bloody and contentious 1968
Democratic Convention officially ended.
o
Over
650 protesters were arrested during the convention. The total number of injured
protesters is unknown but over 100 were treated at area hospitals. It was
reported that 192 police officers were injured and 49 required medical
treatment.
o
Black
Panther activist Bobby Seale and four other protest organizers, known as the Chicago
Eight, were charged with conspiracy and crossing state lines to incite a riot
and brought to trial. After Seale complained about being denied his right to
choose his own lawyer, the judge ordered him to appear before the jury each day
bound, gagged and chained to a chair.
o
Seale
was removed from the Chicago Eight case and ordered to stand trial separately,
making the defendants into the Chicago Seven. Seale was sentenced to four years
for contempt of court, but the charges were later overturned.
o
After
a lengthy, often circus-like trial, the jury found the Chicago Seven not guilty
of conspiracy. Five defendants, however, were found guilty of inciting a riot.
All convictions were eventually overturned on appeal.
·
The
pandemonium at the 1968 Democratic National Convention did little to stop the
Vietnam War or win the 1968 presidential election. By the end of the year,
Republican Richard M. Nixon was President-elect of the United States and 16,592
American soldiers had been killed in Vietnam, the most of any year since the
war began.
o
(Cf.
1968 Democratic Convention [Documentary.] YouTube; 1968: Hippies, Yippies and
the First Mayor Daley. The Chicago Tribune; Chicago ’68: A Chronology. Chicago
68; An Excerpt From: Rights in Conflict: The violent confrontation of
demonstrators and police in the parks and streets of Chicago during the week of
the Democratic National Convention of 1968. Chicago 68; A Look Back at the 1968
Democratic National Convention. MSNBC; Brief History of 1968’s Democratic National
Convention. CNN All Politics; ‘Police Riot’ at the Democratic National
Convention. World History Project; Riots Erupt at the Democratic National
Convention. World History Project.
·
During
the 1968 presidential campaign, James Brown endorsed mainstream liberal
Democratic presidential candidate Hubert Humphrey and appeared with Humphrey at
political rallies.
·
Brown
began supporting Republican president Richard Nixon after being invited to
perform at Nixon's inaugural ball in January 1969. Brown's endorsement of Nixon
during the 1972 presidential election negatively impacted his career during
that period with several national Black organizations boycotting his records
and protesting at his concert shows. Brown stated he was neither Democratic nor
Republican despite his support of Republican presidents such as Nixon and
Ronald Reagan. Following the death of Reagan, Brown stated to CNN, "I'm
kind of in an uproar. I love the country and I got – you know I've been around
a long time, through many presidents and everything.”
·
With
the election of Nixon in 1968 he inherited LBJ’s problems of Vietnam, student
protests, and racial equality.
·
If
you were President Nixon what would your policies about Vietnam, student
protests, and racial equality be? (Various
but you want the students to understand that it was a contentious period in
American history. Vietnam had escalated and many more people now grasped that
it was an unwinnable war. Students had never been that active and riotous on
college campuses before and it was a unique problem. Racial equality as an
issue seemed mired in government programs and yet the “long hot summers” of
riots and demonstrations in urban areas continued).
·
The
movement against the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War began
in the U.S. with demonstrations in 1964 and grew in strength in later years.
The U.S. became polarized between those who advocated continued involvement in
Vietnam and those who wanted peace.
·
Many
in the peace movement were students, mothers, or anti-establishment hippies.
Opposition grew with participation by the African-American civil rights,
women's liberation, and Chicano movements, and sectors of organized labor.
Additional involvement came from many other groups, including educators,
clergy, academics, journalists, lawyers, physicians (such as Benjamin Spock),
Civil Rights Movement leaders and military veterans. Opposition consisted
mainly of peaceful, nonviolent events; few events were deliberately provocative
and violent. In some cases, police used violent tactics against demonstrators.
o
By
1967, according to Gallup Polls, an increasing majority of Americans considered
US military involvement in Vietnam to be a mistake, echoed decades later by the
then head of American war planning, former U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert
McNamara.
·
The
high and the low points of the hippie youth movement came in 1969. From the
height of the hippie era, Woodstock, we hit the lows with Altamont and Charlie
Manson.
·
The
Woodstock Music & Art Fair—informally, the Woodstock Festival or simply
Woodstock—was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days
of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in
the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York,
from August 15 to 18, 1969. Bethel, in Sullivan County, is 43 miles (69 km)
southwest of the town of Woodstock, New York, in adjoining Ulster County.
o
During
the sometimes rainy weekend, 32 acts performed outdoors before an audience of
400,000 young people. It is widely regarded as a pivotal moment in popular
music history. Rolling Stone listed it as one of the 50 Moments That Changed
the History of Rock and Roll.
o
The
festival is also widely considered to be the definitive nexus for the larger
counterculture generation.
o
The
event was captured in the 1970 documentary movie Woodstock, an accompanying
soundtrack album, and Joni Mitchell's song "Woodstock", which
commemorated the event and became a major hit for Crosby, Stills, Nash &
Young.
o
Woodstock
was the high point of the hippie movement.
·
On
the other hand, a subsequent festival was the low point. The Altamont Speedway
Free Festival was a counterculture-era rock concert held on Saturday, December
6, 1969, at the Altamont Speedway in northern California, between Tracy and
Livermore. The event is best known for considerable violence, including the
death of Meredith Hunter and three accidental deaths: two caused by a
hit-and-run car accident and one by drowning in an irrigation canal. Four
births were reported during the event. Scores were injured, numerous cars were
stolen and then abandoned, and there was extensive property damage.
o
The
concert featured, in order of appearance: Santana, Jefferson Airplane, The
Flying Burrito Brothers, and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, with the Rolling
Stones taking the stage as the final act. The Grateful Dead were also scheduled
to perform, but declined to play shortly before their scheduled appearance due
to the increasing violence at the venue. "That's the way things went at
Altamont—so badly that the Grateful Dead, prime organizers and movers of the
festival, didn't even get to play," staff at Rolling Stone magazine wrote
in a detailed narrative on the event, terming it in an additional follow-up
piece "rock and roll's all-time worst day, December 6th, a day when
everything went perfectly wrong."
o
Approximately
300,000 people attended the concert, and some anticipated that it would be a
"Woodstock West." Filmmakers Albert and David Maysles shot footage of
the event and incorporated it into a documentary film titled Gimme Shelter
(1970).
·
Another
hippie, Charlie Manson, epitomized the failure of the hippie lifestyle. Charles
Manson was a lifelong criminal who had been released from prison just in time
for San Francisco's Summer of Love. With his long hair, charisma and the
ability to charm a crowd with his guitar playing, his singing and rhetoric,
Manson exhibited many of the outward manifestations of hippie identity. Yet he
hardly exemplified the hippie ideals of peace, love, compassion and human
fellowship; through twisted logic, hallucinogenic drugs, and psychological
manipulation, he inspired his followers to commit murder. Manson's highly
publicized 1970 trial and subsequent conviction in January 1971 irrevocably
tarnished the hippie image in the eyes of many Americans.
o
Charles
Milles Manson (né Maddox, November 12, 1934 – November 19, 2017) was an
American criminal and cult leader. In the late 1960s, he formed what became
known as the Manson Family, a quasi-commune in California. Manson's followers
committed a series of nine murders at four locations in July and August 1969.
In 1971 he was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder
for the deaths of seven people, all of which were carried out at his
instruction by members of the group. Manson was also convicted of first-degree
murder for two other deaths.
o
At
the time the Manson Family began to form, Manson was an unemployed ex-convict
who had spent half of his life in correctional institutions for a variety of
offenses. Before the murders, he was a singer-songwriter on the fringe of the
Los Angeles music industry, chiefly through a chance association with Dennis
Wilson, drummer and founding member of the Beach Boys. Manson believed in what
he called "Helter Skelter", a term he took from the Beatles' song of
the same name to describe an impending apocalyptic race war. He believed the
murders would help precipitate that war. From the beginning of his notoriety, a
pop culture arose around him in which he ultimately became an emblem of
insanity, violence and the macabre. After Manson was charged with the crimes of
which he was later convicted, recordings of songs written and performed by him
were released commercially, starting with Lie: The Love and Terror Cult (1970).
Various musicians have covered some of his songs.
o
On
March 6, 1970 (the day the court vacated Manson's status as his own attorney),
LIE, an album of Manson music, was released. This included "Cease to
Exist", a Manson composition the Beach Boys had recorded with modified
lyrics and the title "Never Learn Not to Love". Over the next couple
of months, only about 300 of the album's 2,000 copies sold.
·
Several
contentious issues—the frustration of youth searching for a more authentic
status quo, the rise of Black Power, women seeking to change American society’s
perceptions of gender roles—fused together with protests against the war in
Vietnam to create a swirling, acrimonious time filled with change, hope, and
frustration.
o
From
1965 to 1970, opposition to the war increased in proportion to the American
military commitment, and by 1968 there were more than half a million American
troops in Vietnam. Opposition grew from a small-scale protest movement in the
middle 1960s to a mainstream force by 1967 and 1968. By the early 1970s, it had
had a major impact on American society.
o
A
considerable number of Americans were shocked by the antiwar protests and by
the rise of the counterculture. Although one poll in 1967 showed that 46
percent of the public thought the war was a “mistake,” most Americans believed
that the United States should attempt to win now that it was involved. As the
antiwar movement spread, it provoked anger from conservatives, who saw it as
treasonous. In 1970, construction workers (known as “hard hats”) violently
attacked antiwar demonstrators in New York City. The hard hats viewed their
attacks as their patriotic duty against treasonous kids. It was true, however,
that many of the war’s protesters were students who had deferrals from the
military, while most of the soldiers were from working-class families who did not
have the money to go to college and thus had no way to avoid the draft.
·
In
1970, in response to Nixon's widening of the Vietnam War into Cambodia,
students throughout the US protested. Nixon sent the National Guard to restore
order to the Kent State campus. The resulting consequences changed the course
of the war.
·
Recall
the Constitutional debates about a standing army in Article 1, Section 8. Are
there any dangers in maintaining a standing military force? Read Source #22 on
the various historic sources on the issue of a standing army.
·
Should
the National Guard be deployed against civilians?
(Various, but after reading the historic
sources students should grasp the difference between the policing of civilians
and trained military troops who are ordinarily deployed against foreign
enemies).
·
Read
Source #23: the song, “Ohio” (Cf. “Ohio,” Mott The Hoople,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SNgkosO7SE).
·
The
Kent State shootings (also known as the May 4 massacre or the Kent State
massacre) occurred at Kent State University in the US city of Kent, Ohio, and
involved the shooting of unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard on
Monday, May 4, 1970. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds,
killing four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent
paralysis.
o
Some
of the students who were shot had been protesting the “excursion” into
neighboring Cambodia from Vietnam which was perceived as an escalation of the
Vietnam War. The Cambodian Campaign, which President Richard Nixon announced
during a television address on April 30, had just been revealed. Other students
who were shot had been walking nearby or observing the protest from a distance.
o
There
was a significant national response to the shootings: hundreds of universities,
colleges, and high schools closed throughout the United States due to a student
strike of four million students, and the event further affected public
opinion—at an already socially contentious time—over the role of the United
States in the Vietnam War.
Follow-up/Assessment
Questions:
·
How
were early efforts towards effective civil rights gains successful?
·
How
were social programs centered on equality of outcomes ineffective?
Prompt Question for
Next Lesson:
History, Grade 8
Student Sources Supplement __
The Death of Liberalism
1. “Long Telegram,” George F. Kennan, 1946
In his “long telegram,” Kennan suggested
that communism was on a collision course with capitalism and that the Soviets
would do four things in order to win: (1) perpetually seek to expand their
territory unless checked by economic, political, and military pressure; (2)
undermine Western colonial development in Africa and the Middle East; (3)
develop their own economic bloc closed off to the rest of the world; and (4)
attempt to penetrate Western civil society to promote Soviet interests.
861.00/2 - 2246: Telegram
The Charge in the Soviet Union (Kennan) to the
Secretary of State
SECRET
Moscow, February 22, 1946--9 p.m. [Received February
22--3: 52 p.m.]
511. Answer to Dept's 284, Feb 3 [13] involves
questions so intricate, so delicate, so strange to our form of thought, and so
important to analysis of our international environment that I cannot compress
answers into single brief message without yielding to what I feel would be
dangerous degree of over-simplification. I hope, therefore, Dept will bear with
me if I submit in answer to this question five parts, subjects of which will be
roughly as follows:
(1) Basic features of post-war Soviet outlook.
(2) Background of this outlook
(3) Its projection in practical policy on official
level.
(4) Its projection on unofficial level.
(5) Practical deductions from standpoint of US policy.
I apologize in advance for this burdening of
telegraphic channel; but questions involved are of such urgent importance,
particularly in view of recent events, that our answers to them, if they
deserve attention at all, seem to me to deserve it at once. There follows
Part 1: Basic Features of Post War Soviet Outlook, as
Put Forward by Official Propaganda Machine
Are as Follows:
(a) USSR still lives in antagonistic "capitalist
encirclement" with which in the long run there can be no permanent
peaceful coexistence. As stated by Stalin in 1927 to a delegation of American
workers:
"In course of further development of
international revolution there will emerge two centers of world significance: a
socialist center, drawing to itself the countries which tend toward socialism,
and a capitalist center, drawing to itself the countries that incline toward
capitalism. Battle between these two centers for command of world economy will
decide fate of capitalism and of communism in entire world."
(b) Capitalist
world is beset with internal conflicts, inherent in nature of capitalist
society. These conflicts are insoluble by means of peaceful compromise.
Greatest of them is that between England and US.
(c) Internal conflicts of capitalism inevitably
generate wars. Wars thus generated may be of two kinds: intra-capitalist wars
between two capitalist states, and wars of intervention against socialist
world. Smart capitalists, vainly seeking escape from inner conflicts of
capitalism, incline toward latter.
(d) Intervention against USSR, while it would be
disastrous to those who undertook it, would cause renewed delay in progress of
Soviet socialism and must therefore be forestalled at all costs.
(e) Conflicts between capitalist states, though
likewise fraught with danger for USSR, nevertheless hold out great
possibilities for advancement of socialist cause, particularly if USSR remains
militarily powerful, ideologically monolithic and faithful to its present
brilliant leadership.
(f) It must be borne in mind that capitalist world is
not all bad. In addition to hopelessly reactionary and bourgeois elements, it
includes (1) certain wholly enlightened and positive elements united in
acceptable communistic parties and (2) certain other elements (now described
for tactical reasons as progressive or democratic) whose reactions, aspirations
and activities happen to be "objectively" favorable to interests of
USSR These last must be encouraged and utilized for Soviet purposes.
(g) Among negative elements of bourgeois-capitalist
society, most dangerous of all are those whom Lenin called false friends of the
people, namely moderate-socialist or social-democratic leaders (in other words,
non-Communist left-wing). These are more dangerous than out-and-out reactionaries,
for latter at least march under their true colors, whereas moderate left-wing
leaders confuse people by employing devices of socialism to seine interests of
reactionary capital.
So much for premises. To what deductions do they lead
from standpoint of Soviet policy? To following:
(a) Everything must be done to advance relative
strength of USSR as factor in international society. Conversely, no opportunity
most be missed to reduce strength and influence, collectively as well as
individually, of capitalist powers.
(b) Soviet efforts, and those of Russia's friends
abroad, must be directed toward deepening and exploiting of differences and
conflicts between capitalist powers. If these eventually deepen into an
"imperialist" war, this war must be turned into revolutionary
upheavals within the various capitalist countries.
(c) "Democratic-progressive" elements abroad
are to be utilized to maximum to bring pressure to bear on capitalist
governments along lines agreeable to Soviet interests.
(d) Relentless battle must be waged against socialist
and social-democratic leaders abroad.
Part 2: Background of Outlook
Before examining ramifications of this party line in
practice there are certain aspects of it to which I wish to draw attention.
First, it does not represent natural outlook of
Russian people. Latter are, by and large, friendly to outside world, eager for
experience of it, eager to measure against it talents they are conscious of
possessing, eager above all to live in peace and enjoy fruits of their own
labor. Party line only represents thesis which official propaganda machine puts
forward with great skill and persistence to a public often remarkably resistant
in the stronghold of its innermost thoughts. But party line is binding for
outlook and conduct of people who make up apparatus of power--party, secret
police and Government--and it is exclusively with these that we have to deal.
Second, please note that premises on which this party
line is based are for most part simply not true. Experience has shown that
peaceful and mutually profitable coexistence of capitalist and socialist states
is entirely possible. Basic internal conflicts in advanced countries are no
longer primarily those arising out of capitalist ownership of means of
production, but are ones arising from advanced urbanism and industrialism as
such, which Russia has thus far been spared not by socialism but only by her
own backwardness. Internal rivalries of capitalism do not always generate wars;
and not all wars are attributable to this cause. To speak of possibility of
intervention against USSR today, after elimination of Germany and Japan and
after example of recent war, is sheerest nonsense. If not provoked by forces of
intolerance and subversion "capitalist" world of today is quite capable
of living at peace with itself and with Russia. Finally, no sane person has
reason to doubt sincerity of moderate socialist leaders in Western countries.
Nor is it fair to deny success of their efforts to improve conditions for
working population whenever, as in Scandinavia, they have been given chance to
show what they could do.
Falseness of those premises, every one of which
predates recent war, was amply demonstrated by that conflict itself
Anglo-American differences did not turn out to be major differences of Western
World. Capitalist countries, other than those of Axis, showed no disposition to
solve their differences by joining in crusade against USSR. Instead of
imperialist war turning into civil wars and revolution, USSR found itself
obliged to fight side by side with capitalist powers for an avowed community of
aim.
Nevertheless, all these theses, however baseless and
disproven, are being boldly put forward again today. What does this indicate?
It indicates that Soviet party line is not based on any objective analysis of
situation beyond Russia's borders; that it has, indeed, little to do with
conditions outside of Russia; that it arises mainly from basic inner-Russian
necessities which existed before recent war and exist today.
At bottom of Kremlin's neurotic view of world affairs
is traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity. Originally, this
was insecurity of a peaceful agricultural people trying to live on vast exposed
plain in neighborhood of fierce nomadic peoples. To this was added, as Russia
came into contact with economically advanced West, fear of more competent, more
powerful, more highly organized societies in that area. But this latter type of
insecurity was one which afflicted rather Russian rulers than Russian people;
for Russian rulers have invariably sensed that their rule was relatively
archaic in form fragile and artificial in its psychological foundation, unable
to stand comparison or contact with political systems of Western countries. For
this reason they have always feared foreign penetration, feared direct contact
between Western world and their own, feared what would happen if Russians
learned truth about world without or if foreigners learned truth about world
within. And they have learned to seek security only in patient but deadly
struggle for total destruction of rival power, never in compacts and
compromises with it.
It was no coincidence that Marxism, which had
smoldered ineffectively for half a century in Western Europe, caught hold and
blazed for first time in Russia. Only in this land which had never known a
friendly neighbor or indeed any tolerant equilibrium of separate powers, either
internal or international, could a doctrine thrive which viewed economic
conflicts of society as insoluble by peaceful means. After establishment of
Bolshevist regime, Marxist dogma, rendered even more truculent and intolerant
by Lenin's interpretation, became a perfect vehicle for sense of insecurity
with which Bolsheviks, even more than previous Russian rulers, were afflicted.
In this dogma, with its basic altruism of purpose, they found justification for
their instinctive fear of outside world, for the dictatorship without which
they did not know how to rule, for cruelties they did not dare not to inflict,
for sacrifice they felt bound to demand. In the name of Marxism they sacrificed
every single ethical value in their methods and tactics. Today they cannot
dispense with it. It is fig leaf of their moral and intellectual
respectability. Without it they would stand before history, at best, as only
the last of that long succession of cruel and wasteful Russian rulers who have
relentlessly forced country on to ever new heights of military power in order
to guarantee external security of their internally weak regimes. This is why
Soviet purposes most always be solemnly clothed in trappings of Marxism, and
why no one should underrate importance of dogma in Soviet affairs. Thus Soviet
leaders are driven [by?] necessities of their own past and present position to
put forward which [apparent omission] outside world as evil, hostile and
menacing, but as bearing within itself germs of creeping disease and destined
to be wracked with growing internal convulsions until it is given final Coup
de grace by rising power of socialism and yields to new and better world.
This thesis provides justification for that increase of military and police
power of Russian state, for that isolation of Russian population from outside
world, and for that fluid and constant pressure to extend limits of Russian
police power which are together the natural and instinctive urges of Russian
rulers. Basically this is only the steady advance of uneasy Russian
nationalism, a centuries old movement in which conceptions of offense and
defense are inextricably confused. But in new guise of international Marxism,
with its honeyed promises to a desperate and war torn outside world, it is more
dangerous and insidious than ever before.
It should not be thought from above that Soviet party
line is necessarily disingenuous and insincere on part of all those who put it
forward. Many of them are too ignorant of outside world and mentally too
dependent to question [apparent omission] self-hypnotism, and who have no
difficulty making themselves believe what they find it comforting and
convenient to believe. Finally we have the unsolved mystery as to who, if
anyone, in this great land actually receives accurate and unbiased information
about outside world. In atmosphere of oriental secretiveness and conspiracy
which pervades this Government, possibilities for distorting or poisoning
sources and currents of information are infinite. The very disrespect of
Russians for objective truth--indeed, their disbelief in its existence--leads
them to view all stated facts as instruments for furtherance of one ulterior
purpose or another. There is good reason to suspect that this Government is
actually a conspiracy within a conspiracy; and I for one am reluctant to
believe that Stalin himself receives anything like an objective picture of
outside world. Here there is ample scope for the type of subtle intrigue at
which Russians are past masters. Inability of foreign governments to place
their case squarely before Russian policy makers--extent to which they are
delivered up in their relations with Russia to good graces of obscure and
unknown advisors whom they never see and cannot influence--this to my mind is
most disquieting feature of diplomacy in Moscow, and one which Western
statesmen would do well to keep in mind if they would understand nature of
difficulties encountered here.
Part 3: Projection of Soviet Outlook in Practical
Policy on Official Level
We have now seen nature and background of Soviet
program. What may we expect by way of its practical implementation?
Soviet policy, as Department implies in its query
under reference, is conducted on two planes: (1) official plane represented by
actions undertaken officially in name of Soviet Government; and (2)
subterranean plane of actions undertaken by agencies for which Soviet
Government does not admit responsibility.
Policy promulgated on both planes will be calculated
to serve basic policies (a) to (d) outlined in part 1. Actions taken on
different planes will differ considerably, but will dovetail into each other in
purpose, timing and effect.
On official plane we must look for following:
(a) Internal policy devoted to increasing in every way
strength and prestige of Soviet state: intensive military-industrialization;
maximum development of armed forces; great displays to impress outsiders;
continued secretiveness about internal matters, designed to conceal weaknesses
and to keep opponents in dark.
(b) Wherever it is considered timely and promising,
efforts will be made to advance official limits of Soviet power. For the
moment, these efforts are restricted to certain neighboring points conceived of
here as being of immediate strategic necessity, such as Northern Iran, Turkey,
possibly Bornholm However, other points may at any time come into question, if
and as concealed Soviet political power is extended to new areas. Thus a
"friendly Persian Government might be asked to grant Russia a port on
Persian Gulf. Should Spain fall under Communist control, question of Soviet
base at Gibraltar Strait might be activated. But such claims will appear on
official level only when unofficial preparation is complete.
(c) Russians will participate officially in
international organizations where they see opportunity of extending Soviet
power or of inhibiting or diluting power of others. Moscow sees in UNO not the
mechanism for a permanent and stable world society founded on mutual interest
and aims of all nations, but an arena in which aims just mentioned can be
favorably pursued. As long as UNO is considered here to serve this purpose,
Soviets will remain with it. But if at any time they come to conclusion that it
is serving to embarrass or frustrate their aims for power expansion and if they
see better prospects for pursuit of these aims along other lines, they will not
hesitate to abandon UNO. This would imply, however, that they felt themselves
strong enough to split unity of other nations by their withdrawal to render UNO
ineffective as a threat to their aims or security, replace it with an
international weapon more effective from their viewpoint. Thus Soviet attitude
toward UNO will depend largely on loyalty of other nations to it, and on degree
of vigor, decisiveness and cohesion with which those nations defend in UNO the
peaceful and hopeful concept of international life, which that organization
represents to our way of thinking. I reiterate, Moscow has no abstract devotion
to UNO ideals. Its attitude to that organization will remain essentially
pragmatic and tactical.
(d) Toward colonial areas and backward or dependent
peoples, Soviet policy, even on official plane, will be directed toward
weakening of power and influence and contacts of advanced Western nations, on
theory that in so far as this policy is successful, there will be created a
vacuum which will favor Communist-Soviet penetration. Soviet pressure for
participation in trusteeship arrangements thus represents, in my opinion, a
desire to be in a position to complicate and inhibit exertion of Western
influence at such points rather than to provide major channel for exerting of
Soviet power. Latter motive is not lacking, but for this Soviets prefer to rely
on other channels than official trusteeship arrangements. Thus we may expect to
find Soviets asking for admission everywhere to trusteeship or similar
arrangements and using levers thus acquired to weaken Western influence among
such peoples.
(e) Russians will strive energetically to develop
Soviet representation in, and official ties with, countries in which they sense
Strong possibilities of opposition to Western centers of power. This applies to
such widely separated points as Germany, Argentina, Middle Eastern countries,
etc.
(f) In international economic matters, Soviet policy
will really be dominated by pursuit of autarchy for Soviet Union and
Soviet-dominated adjacent areas taken together. That, however, will be
underlying policy. As far as official line is concerned, position is not yet
clear. Soviet Government has shown strange reticence since termination
hostilities on subject foreign trade. If large scale long term credits should
be forthcoming, I believe Soviet Government may eventually again do lip
service, as it did in 1930's to desirability of building up international
economic exchanges in general. Otherwise I think it possible Soviet foreign
trade may be restricted largely to Soviet's own security sphere, including
occupied areas in Germany, and that a cold official shoulder may be turned to
principle of general economic collaboration among nations.
(g) With respect to cultural collaboration, lip
service will likewise be rendered to desirability of deepening cultural
contacts between peoples, but this will not in practice be interpreted in any
way which could weaken security position of Soviet peoples. Actual
manifestations of Soviet policy in this respect will be restricted to arid channels
of closely shepherded official visits and functions, with superabundance of
vodka and speeches and dearth of permanent effects.
(h) Beyond this, Soviet official relations will take
what might be called "correct" course with individual foreign governments,
with great stress being laid on prestige of Soviet Union and its
representatives and with punctilious attention to protocol as distinct from
good manners.
Part 4: Following May Be Said as to What We May Expect
by Way of Implementation of Basic Soviet Policies on Unofficial, or
Subterranean Plane, i.e. on Plane for Which Soviet Government Accepts no
Responsibility
Agencies utilized for promulgation of policies on this
plane are following:
1. Inner central core of Communist Parties in other
countries. While many of persons who compose this category may also appear and
act in unrelated public capacities, they are in reality working closely
together as an underground operating directorate of world communism, a
concealed Comintern tightly coordinated and directed by Moscow. It is important
to remember that this inner core is actually working on underground lines,
despite legality of parties with which it is associated.
2. Rank and file of Communist Parties. Note
distinction is drawn between those and persons defined in paragraph 1. This
distinction has become much sharper in recent years. Whereas formerly foreign
Communist Parties represented a curious (and from Moscow's standpoint often
inconvenient) mixture of conspiracy and legitimate activity, now the conspiratorial
element has been neatly concentrated in inner circle and ordered underground,
while rank and file--no longer even taken into confidence about realities of
movement--are thrust forward as bona fide internal partisans of certain
political tendencies within their respective countries, genuinely innocent of
conspiratorial connection with foreign states. Only in certain countries where
communists are numerically strong do they now regularly appear and act as a
body. As a rule they are used to penetrate, and to influence or dominate, as
case may be, other organizations less likely to be suspected of being tools of
Soviet Government, with a view to accomplishing their purposes through
[apparent omission] organizations, rather than by direct action as a separate
political party.
3. A wide variety of national associations or bodies
which can be dominated or influenced by such penetration. These include: labor
unions, youth leagues, women's organizations, racial societies, religious
societies, social organizations, cultural groups, liberal magazines, publishing
houses, etc.
4. International organizations which can be similarly
penetrated through influence over various national components. Labor, youth and
women's organizations are prominent among them. Particular, almost vital
importance is attached in this connection to international labor movement. In
this, Moscow sees possibility of sidetracking western governments in world
affairs and building up international lobby capable of compelling governments
to take actions favorable to Soviet interests in various countries and of
paralyzing actions disagreeable to USSR
5. Russian Orthodox Church, with its foreign branches,
and through it the Eastern Orthodox Church in general.
6. Pan-Slav movement and other movements (Azerbaijan,
Armenian, Turcoman, etc.) based on racial groups within Soviet Union.
7. Governments or governing groups willing to lend
themselves to Soviet purposes in one degree or another, such as present
Bulgarian and Yugoslav Governments, North Persian regime, Chinese Communists,
etc. Not only propaganda machines but actual policies of these regimes can be
placed extensively at disposal of USSR
It may be expected that component parts of this
far-flung apparatus will be utilized in accordance with their individual
suitability, as follows:
(a) To undermine general political and strategic
potential of major western powers. Efforts will be made in such countries to
disrupt national self confidence, to hamstring measures of national defense, to
increase social and industrial unrest, to stimulate all forms of disunity. All
persons with grievances, whether economic or racial, will be urged to spelt
redress not in mediation and compromise, but in defiant violent struggle for
destruction of other elements of society. Here poor will be set against rich,
black against white, young against old, newcomers against established
residents, etc.
(b) On unofficial plane particularly violent efforts
will be made to weaken power and influence of Western Powers of [on] colonial
backward, or dependent peoples. On this level, no holds will be barred.
Mistakes and weaknesses of western colonial administration will be mercilessly
exposed and exploited. Liberal opinion in Western countries will be mobilized
to weaken colonial policies. Resentment among dependent peoples will be
stimulated. And while latter are being encouraged to seek independence of
Western Powers, Soviet dominated puppet political machines will be undergoing
preparation to take over domestic power in respective colonial areas when
independence is achieved.
(c) Where individual governments stand in path of
Soviet purposes pressure will be brought for their removal from office. This
can happen where governments directly oppose Soviet foreign policy aims
(Turkey, Iran), where they seal their territories off against Communist
penetration (Switzerland, Portugal), or where they compete too strongly, like
Labor Government in England, for moral domination among elements which it is
important for Communists to dominate. (Sometimes, two of these elements are
present in a single case. Then Communist opposition becomes particularly shrill
and savage. [)]
(d) In foreign countries Communists will, as a rule,
work toward destruction of all forms of personal independence, economic,
political or moral. Their system can handle only individuals who have been
brought into complete dependence on higher power. Thus, persons who are
financially independent--such as individual businessmen, estate owners,
successful farmers, artisans and all those who exercise local leadership or
have local prestige, such as popular local clergymen or political figures, are
anathema. It is not by chance that even in USSR local officials are kept
constantly on move from one job to another, to prevent their taking root.
(e) Everything possible will be done to set major
Western Powers against each other. Anti-British talk will be plugged among
Americans, anti-American talk among British. Continentals, including Germans,
will be taught to abhor both Anglo-Saxon powers. Where suspicions exist, they
will be fanned; where not, ignited. No effort will be spared to discredit and
combat all efforts which threaten to lead to any sort of unity or cohesion
among other [apparent omission] from which Russia might be excluded. Thus, all
forms of international organization not amenable to Communist penetration and
control, whether it be the Catholic [apparent omission] international economic
concerns, or the international fraternity of royalty and aristocracy, must
expect to find themselves under fire from many, and often [apparent omission].
(f) In general, all Soviet efforts on unofficial
international plane will be negative and destructive in character, designed to
tear down sources of strength beyond reach of Soviet control. This is only in
line with basic Soviet instinct that there can be no compromise with rival
power and that constructive work can start only when Communist power is doming
But behind all this will be applied insistent, unceasing pressure for
penetration and command of key positions in administration and especially in
police apparatus of foreign countries. The Soviet regime is a police regime par
excellence, reared in the dim half world of Tsarist police intrigue, accustomed
to think primarily in terms of police power. This should never be lost sight of
in ganging Soviet motives.
Part 5: [Practical Deductions From Standpoint of US
Policy]
In summary, we have here a political force committed
fanatically to the belief that with US there can be no permanent modus
vivendi that it is desirable and necessary that the internal harmony of our
society be disrupted, our traditional way of life be destroyed, the
international authority of our state be broken, if Soviet power is to be
secure. This political force has complete power of disposition over energies of
one of world's greatest peoples and resources of world's richest national
territory, and is borne along by deep and powerful currents of Russian
nationalism. In addition, it has an elaborate and far flung apparatus for
exertion of its influence in other countries, an apparatus of amazing
flexibility and versatility, managed by people whose experience and skill in
underground methods are presumably without parallel in history. Finally, it is
seemingly inaccessible to considerations of reality in its basic reactions. For
it, the vast fund of objective fact about human society is not, as with us, the
measure against which outlook is constantly being tested and re-formed, but a
grab bag from which individual items are selected arbitrarily and tendenciously
to bolster an outlook already preconceived. This is admittedly not a pleasant
picture. Problem of how to cope with this force in [is] undoubtedly greatest
task our diplomacy has ever faced and probably greatest it will ever have to
face. It should be point of departure from which our political general staff
work at present juncture should proceed. It should be approached with same
thoroughness and care as solution of major strategic problem in war, and if
necessary, with no smaller outlay in planning effort. I cannot attempt to
suggest all answers here. But I would like to record my conviction that problem
is within our power to solve--and that without recourse to any general military
conflict.. And in support of this conviction there are certain observations of
a more encouraging nature I should like to make:
(1) Soviet power, unlike that of Hitlerite Germany, is
neither schematic nor adventunstic. It does not work by fixed plans. It does
not take unnecessary risks. Impervious to logic of reason, and it is highly
sensitive to logic of force. For this reason it can easily withdraw--and
usually does when strong resistance is encountered at any point. Thus, if the
adversary has sufficient force and makes clear his readiness to use it, he
rarely has to do so. If situations are properly handled there need be no
prestige-engaging showdowns.
(2) Gauged against Western World as a whole, Soviets
are still by far the weaker force. Thus, their success will really depend on
degree of cohesion, firmness and vigor which Western World can muster. And this
is factor which it is within our power to influence.
(3) Success of Soviet system, as form of internal
power, is not yet finally proven. It has yet to be demonstrated that it can survive
supreme test of successive transfer of power from one individual or group to
another. Lenin's death was first such transfer, and its effects wracked Soviet
state for 15 years. After Stalin's death or retirement will be second. But even
this will not be final test. Soviet internal system will now be subjected, by
virtue of recent territorial expansions, to series of additional strains which
once proved severe tax on Tsardom. We here are convinced that never since
termination of civil war have mass of Russian people been emotionally farther
removed from doctrines of Communist Party than they are today. In Russia, party
has now become a great and--for the moment--highly successful apparatus of
dictatorial administration, but it has ceased to be a source of emotional
inspiration. Thus, internal soundness and permanence of movement need not yet
be regarded as assured.
(4) All Soviet propaganda beyond Soviet security
sphere is basically negative and destructive. It should therefore be relatively
easy to combat it by any intelligent and really constructive program.
For those reasons I think we may approach calmly and
with good heart problem of how to deal with Russia. As to how this approach
should be made, I only wish to advance, by way of conclusion, following
comments:
(1) Our first step must be to apprehend, and recognize
for what it is, the nature of the movement with which we are dealing. We must
study it with same courage, detachment, objectivity, and same determination not
to be emotionally provoked or unseated by it, with which doctor studies unruly
and unreasonable individual.
(2) We must see that our public is educated to
realities of Russian situation. I cannot over-emphasize importance of this.
Press cannot do this alone. It must be done mainly by Government, which is
necessarily more experienced and better informed on practical problems
involved. In this we need not be deterred by [ugliness?] of picture. I am
convinced that there would be far less hysterical anti-Sovietism in our country
today if realities of this situation were better understood by our people.
There is nothing as dangerous or as terrifying as the unknown. It may also be
argued that to reveal more information on our difficulties with Russia would
reflect unfavorably on Russian-American relations. I feel that if there is any
real risk here involved, it is one which we should have courage to face, and
sooner the better. But I cannot see what we would be risking. Our stake in this
country, even coming on heels of tremendous demonstrations of our friendship
for Russian people, is remarkably small. We have here no investments to guard,
no actual trade to lose, virtually no citizens to protect, few cultural
contacts to preserve. Our only stake lies in what we hope rather than what we
have; and I am convinced we have better chance of realizing those hopes if our
public is enlightened and if our dealings with Russians are placed entirely on
realistic and matter-of-fact basis.
(3) Much depends on health and vigor of our own
society. World communism is like malignant parasite which feeds only on
diseased tissue. This is point at which domestic and foreign policies meets
Every courageous and incisive measure to solve internal problems of our own
society, to improve self-confidence, discipline, morale and community spirit of
our own people, is a diplomatic victory over Moscow worth a thousand diplomatic
notes and joint communiqués. If we cannot abandon fatalism and indifference in
face of deficiencies of our own society, Moscow will profit--Moscow cannot help
profiting by them in its foreign policies.
(4) We must formulate and put forward for other
nations a much more positive and constructive picture of sort of world we would
like to see than we have put forward in past. It is not enough to urge people
to develop political processes similar to our own. Many foreign peoples, in
Europe at least, are tired and frightened by experiences of past, and are less
interested in abstract freedom than in security. They are seeking guidance
rather than responsibilities. We should be better able than Russians to give
them this. And unless we do, Russians certainly will.
(5) Finally we must have courage and self-confidence
to cling to our own methods and conceptions of human society. After Al, the
greatest danger that can befall us in coping with this problem of Soviet
communism, is that we shall allow ourselves to become like those with whom we
are coping.
KENNAN
800.00B
International Red Day/2 - 2546: Airgram
2. “Truman Doctrine,” President Harry
S. Truman, 1947
“I believe that it must be
the policy of the United States to support free peoples who are resisting
attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures. . . . The
free peoples of the world look to us for support in maintaining their freedoms.
If we falter in our leadership, we may endanger the peace of the world and we
shall surely endanger the welfare of this own nation.”
Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, Members of the Congress
of the United States:
The gravity of the situation which confronts the world
today necessitates my appearance before a joint session of the Congress. The
foreign policy and the national security of this country are involved.
One aspect of the present situation, which I wish to
present to you at this time for your consideration and decision, concerns
Greece and Turkey.
The United States has received from the Greek
Government an urgent appeal for financial and economic assistance. Preliminary
reports from the American Economic Mission now in Greece and reports from the
American Ambassador in Greece corroborate the statement of the Greek Government
that assistance is imperative if Greece is to survive as a free nation.
I do not believe that the American people and the
Congress wish to turn a deaf ear to the appeal of the Greek Government.
Greece is not a rich country. Lack of sufficient
natural resources has always forced the Greek people to work hard to make both
ends meet. Since 1940, this industrious and peace loving country has suffered
invasion, four years of cruel enemy occupation, and bitter internal strife.
When forces of liberation entered Greece they found
that the retreating Germans had destroyed virtually all the railways, roads,
port facilities, communications, and merchant marine. More than a thousand
villages had been burned. Eighty-five per cent of the children were tubercular.
Livestock, poultry, and draft animals had almost disappeared. Inflation had wiped
out practically all savings.
As a result of these tragic conditions, a militant
minority, exploiting human want and misery, was able to create political chaos
which, until now, has made economic recovery impossible.
Greece is today without funds to finance the
importation of those goods which are essential to bare subsistence. Under these
circumstances the people of Greece cannot make progress in solving their
problems of reconstruction. Greece is in desperate need of financial and
economic assistance to enable it to resume purchases of food, clothing, fuel
and seeds. These are indispensable for the subsistence of its people and are
obtainable only from abroad. Greece must have help to import the goods
necessary to restore internal order and security, so essential for economic and
political recovery.
The Greek Government has also asked for the
assistance of experienced American administrators, economists and technicians
to insure that the financial and other aid given to Greece shall be used
effectively in creating a stable and self-sustaining economy and in improving
its public administration.
The very existence of the Greek state is today
threatened by the terrorist activities of several thousand armed men, led by Communists,
who defy the government's authority at a number of points, particularly along
the northern boundaries. A Commission appointed by the United Nations security
Council is at present investigating disturbed conditions in northern Greece and
alleged border violations along the frontier between Greece on the one hand and
Albania, Bulgaria, and Yugoslavia on the other.
Meanwhile, the Greek Government is unable to cope
with the situation. The Greek army is small and poorly equipped. It needs
supplies and equipment if it is to restore the authority of the government
throughout Greek territory. Greece must have assistance if it is to become a
self-supporting and self-respecting democracy.
The United States must supply that assistance. We
have already extended to Greece certain types of relief and economic aid but
these are inadequate.
There is no other country to which democratic Greece
can turn.
No other nation is willing and able to provide the
necessary support for a democratic Greek government.
The British Government, which has been helping
Greece, can give no further financial or economic aid after March 31. Great
Britain finds itself under the necessity of reducing or liquidating its
commitments in several parts of the world, including Greece.
We have considered how the United Nations might
assist in this crisis. But the situation is an urgent one requiring immediate
action and the United Nations and its related organizations are not in a
position to extend help of the kind that is required.
It is important to note that the Greek Government
has asked for our aid in utilizing effectively the financial and other
assistance we may give to Greece, and in improving its public administration.
It is of the utmost importance that we supervise the use of any funds made
available to Greece; in such a manner that each dollar spent will count toward
making Greece self-supporting, and will help to build an economy in which a
healthy democracy can flourish.
No government is perfect. One of the chief virtues
of a democracy, however, is that its defects are always visible and under
democratic processes can be pointed out and corrected. The Government of Greece
is not perfect. Nevertheless it represents eighty-five per cent of the members
of the Greek Parliament who were chosen in an election last year. Foreign
observers, including 692 Americans, considered this election to be a fair
expression of the views of the Greek people.
The Greek Government has been operating in an
atmosphere of chaos and extremism. It has made mistakes. The extension of aid
by this country does not mean that the United States condones everything that
the Greek Government has done or will do. We have condemned in the past, and we
condemn now, extremist measures of the right or the left. We have in the past
advised tolerance, and we advise tolerance now.
Greece's neighbor, Turkey, also deserves our
attention.
The future of Turkey as an independent and
economically sound state is clearly no less important to the freedom-loving
peoples of the world than the future of Greece. The circumstances in which
Turkey finds itself today are considerably different from those of Greece.
Turkey has been spared the disasters that have beset Greece. And during the
war, the United States and Great Britain furnished Turkey with material aid.
Nevertheless, Turkey now needs our support.
Since the war Turkey has sought financial assistance
from Great Britain and the United States for the purpose of effecting that
modernization necessary for the maintenance of its national integrity.
That integrity is essential to the preservation of
order in the Middle East.
The British government has informed us that, owing
to its own difficulties can no longer extend financial or economic aid to
Turkey.
As in the case of Greece, if Turkey is to have the
assistance it needs, the United States must supply it. We are the only country
able to provide that help.
I am fully aware of the broad implications involved
if the United States extends assistance to Greece and Turkey, and I shall
discuss these implications with you at this time.
One of the primary objectives of the foreign policy
of the United States is the creation of conditions in which we and other
nations will be able to work out a way of life free from coercion. This was a
fundamental issue in the war with Germany and Japan. Our victory was won over
countries which sought to impose their will, and their way of life, upon other
nations.
To ensure the peaceful development of nations, free
from coercion, the United States has taken a leading part in establishing the
United Nations, The United Nations is designed to make possible lasting freedom
and independence for all its members. We shall not realize our objectives,
however, unless we are willing to help free peoples to maintain their free
institutions and their national integrity against aggressive movements that
seek to impose upon them totalitarian regimes. This is no more than a frank
recognition that totalitarian regimes imposed on free peoples, by direct or
indirect aggression, undermine the foundations of international peace and hence
the security of the United States.
The peoples of a number of countries of the world
have recently had totalitarian regimes forced upon them against their will. The
Government of the United States has made frequent protests against coercion and
intimidation, in violation of the Yalta agreement, in Poland, Rumania, and
Bulgaria. I must also state that in a number of other countries there have been
similar developments.
At the present moment in world history nearly every
nation must choose between alternative ways of life. The choice is too often
not a free one.
One way of life is based upon the will of the
majority, and is distinguished by free institutions, representative government,
free elections, guarantees of individual liberty, freedom of speech and
religion, and freedom from political oppression.
The second way of life is based upon the will of a
minority forcibly imposed upon the majority. It relies upon terror and
oppression, a controlled press and radio; fixed elections, and the suppression
of personal freedoms.
I believe that it must be the policy of the United
States to support free peoples who are resisting attempted subjugation by armed
minorities or by outside pressures.
I believe that we must assist free peoples to work
out their own destinies in their own way.
I believe that our help should be primarily through
economic and financial aid which is essential to economic stability and orderly
political processes.
The world is not static, and the status quo is not
sacred. But we cannot allow changes in the status quo in violation of the
Charter of the United Nations by such methods as coercion, or by such
subterfuges as political infiltration. In helping free and independent nations
to maintain their freedom, the United States will be giving effect to the
principles of the Charter of the United Nations.
It is necessary only to glance at a map to realize
that the survival and integrity of the Greek nation are of grave importance in
a much wider situation. If Greece should fall under the control of an armed
minority, the effect upon its neighbor, Turkey, would be immediate and serious.
Confusion and disorder might well spread throughout the entire Middle East.
Moreover, the disappearance of Greece as an
independent state would have a profound effect upon those countries in Europe
whose peoples are struggling against great difficulties to maintain their
freedoms and their independence while they repair the damages of war.
It would be an unspeakable tragedy if these
countries, which have struggled so long against overwhelming odds, should lose
that victory for which they sacrificed so much. Collapse of free institutions
and loss of independence would be disastrous not only for them but for the
world. Discouragement and possibly failure would quickly be the lot of
neighboring peoples striving to maintain their freedom and independence.
Should we fail to aid Greece and Turkey in this
fateful hour, the effect will be far reaching to the West as well as to the
East.
We must take immediate and resolute action.
I therefore ask the Congress to provide authority
for assistance to Greece and Turkey in the amount of $400,000,000 for the
period ending June 30, 1948. In requesting these funds, I have taken into
consideration the maximum amount of relief assistance which would be furnished
to Greece out of the $350,000,000 which I recently requested that the Congress
authorize for the prevention of starvation and suffering in countries devastated
by the war.
In addition to funds, I ask the Congress to
authorize the detail of American civilian and military personnel to Greece and
Turkey, at the request of those countries, to assist in the tasks of
reconstruction, and for the purpose of supervising the use of such financial
and material assistance as may be furnished. I recommend that authority also be
provided for the instruction and training of selected Greek and Turkish
personnel.
Finally, I ask that the Congress provide authority
which will permit the speediest and most effective use, in terms of needed
commodities, supplies, and equipment, of such funds as may be authorized.
If further funds, or further authority, should be
needed for purposes indicated in this message, I shall not hesitate to bring
the situation before the Congress. On this subject the Executive and
Legislative branches of the Government must work together.
This is a serious course upon which we embark.
I would not recommend it except that the alternative
is much more serious. The United States contributed $341,000,000,000 toward
winning World War II. This is an investment in world freedom and world peace.
The assistance that I am recommending for Greece and
Turkey amounts to little more than 1 tenth of 1 per cent of this investment. It
is only common sense that we should safeguard this investment and make sure
that it was not in vain.
The seeds of totalitarian regimes are nurtured by
misery and want. They spread and grow in the evil soil of poverty and strife.
They reach their full growth when the hope of a people for a better life has
died. We must keep that hope alive.
The free peoples of the world look to us for support
in maintaining their freedoms.
If we falter in our leadership, we may endanger the
peace of the world -- and we shall surely endanger the welfare of our own
nation.
Great responsibilities have been placed upon us by
the swift movement of events.
I am confident that the Congress will face these
responsibilities squarely.
3. Summary of the “Eisenhower Doctrine,” President
Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1957
Eisenhower Doctrine, a
country could request American economic assistance and/or aid from U.S.
military forces if it was being threatened by armed aggression from another
state. Eisenhower singled out the Soviet threat in his doctrine by authorizing
the commitment of U.S. forces “to secure and protect the territorial integrity
and political independence of such nations, requesting such aid against overt
armed aggression from any nation controlled by international communism.”
4. Mahalia Jackson - How I Got Over Lyrics
1963 March on Washington: Mahalia Jackson sings her "How I Got
Over": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TALcOreZi0A
"How I Got Over" - Mahalia Jackson
How
I got over
How did I make it over
You know my soul look back and wonder
How did I make it over
How I made it over
Going on over all these years
You know my soul look back and wonder
How did I make it over
Tell me how we got over Lord
Had a mighty hard time coming on over
You know my soul look back and wonder
How did we make it over
Tell me how we got over Lord
I've been falling and rising all these years
But you know my soul look back and wonder
How did I make it over
But, soon as I can see Jesus
The man that died for me
Man that bled and suffered
And he hung on Calvary
And I want to thank him for how he brought me
And I want to thank God for how he taught me
Oh thank my God how he kept me
I'm gonna thank him 'cause he never left me
Then I'm gonna thank God for 'ole time religion
And I'm gonna thank God for giving me a vision
One day, I'm gonna join the heavenly choir
I'm gonna sing and never get tired
And then I'm gonna sing somewhere 'round God alter
And I'm gonna shout all my trouble over
You know I've gotta thank God and thank him for being
So good to me, Lord yeah
How I made it over Lord
I had to cry in the midnight hour coming on over
But you know my soul look back and wonder
How did I make it over
5. Lyrics to Buked
And Scorned, “Buked and
Scorned” is a traditional African-American spiritual. The first version is the
Tuskegee Singers recording “I’ve Been Buked and I’ve Been Scorned” on Victor
Records on Feb. 14, 1916 (released 1918). It was in the repertoire of Mahalia
Jackson and was used in the 1960’s Civil Right movement as an anthem. The song
appeared in print in the 1888 book, “In Old Alabama: Being the Chronicles of
Miss Mouse, the Little Black Merchant” By Anne Hobson, Carol McPherson,
Doubleday, Page & Company.
I've been buked and I've been
scorned,
I've been buked and I've been
scorned,
Children, I've been buked and I've
been scorned,
Tryin' to make this journey all
alone
You may talk about me sure as you
please
Talk about me sure as you please
Children, talk about me sure as you
please
Your talk will never drive me down
to my knees
Jesus died to set me free
Jesus died to set me free
Children, Jesus died to set me free
Nailed to that cross on Calvary
I've been buked and I've been
scorned
I've been buked and I've been
scorned
Children, I've been buked and I've
been scorned
Tryin' to make this journey all
alone
6. If I Had a Hammer (Pete Seeger), sung by Peter, Paul, and
Mary at the March on Washington
1963 March on Washington, Peter, Paul & Mary – “If I Had
A Hammer” https://youtu.be/AKgm9ARmOMM
Peter Seeger (May 3, 1919 –
January 27, 2014) was an American folk singer and social activist. A fixture on
nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the
early 1950s as a member of the Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead
Belly’s “Goodnight Irene.” Members of the Weavers were blacklisted during the
McCarthy Era. In the 1960s, Seeger re-emerged on the public scene as a
prominent singer of protest music in support of civil rights.
A
prolific songwriter, his best-known songs include the co-written “Where Have
All the Flowers Gone?” and “If I Had a Hammer (The Hammer Song)” and “Turn!
Turn! Turn!” "Flowers" was a hit recording for the Kingston Trio
(1962); Marlene Dietrich, who recorded it in English, German, and French
(1962); and Johnny Rivers (1965). "If I Had a Hammer" was a hit for
Peter, Paul and Mary (1962) and Trini Lopez (1963) while the Byrds had a number
one hit with "Turn! Turn! Turn!" in 1965.
Seeger
was one of the folk singers responsible for popularizing the spiritual “We
Shall Overcome” (also recorded by Joan Baez and many other singer-activists)
that became the acknowledged anthem of the Civil Rights Movement.
Peter, Paul and Mary was an American
folk group formed in New York
City in 1961, during the American folk music revival phenomenon. The trio was
composed of tenor Peter Yarrow, baritone Noel Paul Stookey, and alto Mary
Travers. The group's repertoire included songs written by Bob Dylan. Mary
Travers said she was influenced by Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, and the Weavers.
In
the documentary
Peter, Paul & Mary: Carry It On — A Musical Legacy
members of the Weavers discuss how Peter, Paul and Mary took over the torch of
the social commentary of folk music in the 1960s.
If I had a hammer,
I'd hammer in the
morning
I'd hammer in the
evening,
All over this land
I'd hammer out
danger,
I'd hammer out a
warning,
I'd hammer out love
between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.
If I had a bell,
I'd ring it in the
morning,
I'd ring it in the
evening,
All over this land
I'd ring out danger,
I'd ring out a
warning
I'd ring out love
between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.
If I had a song,
I'd sing it in the
morning,
I'd sing it in the
evening,
All over this land
I'd sing out danger,
I'd sing out a
warning
I'd sing out love
between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.
Well I got a hammer,
And I got a bell,
And I got a song to
sing, all over this land.
It's the hammer of
Justice,
It's the bell of
Freedom,
It's the song about
Love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.
It's the hammer of
Justice,
It's the bell of
Freedom,
It's the song about
Love between my brothers and my sisters,
All over this land.
7. “Only a Pawn in Their Game,” Bob Dylan
Only a Pawn in
Their Game. Bob Dylan wrote this about the assassination of activist
Medgar Evers and sang it at the podium months before it was released on The
Times They are a-Changin'. It stirred controversy for suggesting that
Evers' killer shared responsibility for the crime with the wealthy elite who
pitted poor whites against blacks. Evers' murder was a catalyst for the 1963
march.
https://youtu.be/KY2lQV3ADfc
A bullet from the back of a bush took Medgar Evers’ blood
A finger fired the trigger to his name
A handle hid out in the dark
A hand set the spark
Two eyes took the aim
Behind a man’s brain
But he can’t be blamed
He’s only a pawn in their game
A South politician preaches to the poor white man
“You got more than the blacks, don’t complain.
You’re better than them, you been born with white skin,” they explain.
And the Negro’s name
Is used it is plain
For the politician’s gain
As he rises to fame
And the poor white remains
On the caboose of the train
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game
The deputy sheriffs, the soldiers, the governors get paid
And the marshals and cops get the same
But the poor white man’s used in the hands of them all like a tool
He’s taught in his school
From the start by the rule
That the laws are with him
To protect his white skin
To keep up his hate
So he never thinks straight
’Bout the shape that he’s in
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game
From the poverty shacks, he looks from the cracks to the tracks
And the hoofbeats pound in his brain
And he’s taught how to walk in a pack
Shoot in the back
With his fist in a clinch
To hang and to lynch
To hide ’neath the hood
To kill with no pain
Like a dog on a chain
He ain’t got no name
But it ain’t him to blame
He’s only a pawn in their game.
Today, Medgar Evers was buried from the bullet he caught
They lowered him down as a king
But when the shadowy sun sets on the one
That fired the gun
He’ll see by his grave
On the stone that remains
Carved next to his name
His epitaph plain:
Only a pawn in their game
8. Blowin’ in the Wind, Bob Dylan
Joan Chandos Baez (born January 9,
1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist whose
contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest or social justice. She
was one of the first major artists to record the songs of Bob Dylan in the
early 1960s; Baez was already an internationally celebrated artist and did much
to popularize his early songwriting efforts. Baez also performed fourteen songs
at the 1969 Woodstock Festival and has displayed a lifelong commitment to
political and social activism.
Bob Dylan (born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941)
is an American singer-songwriter, author, and artist who has been an
influential figure in popular music and culture for more than five decades.
Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s, when he became a
reluctant "voice of a generation" with songs such as “Blowin’ in the
Wind, and “The Times They Are a-Changin’” which became anthems for the Civil
Rights Movement and anti-war movement.
How many roads must a man walk down
Before you call him a man?
How many seas must a white dove sail
Before she sleeps in the sand?
Yes, 'n' how many times must the cannon balls fly
Before they're forever banned?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind
Yes, 'n' how many years can a
mountain exist
Before it's washed to the sea?
Yes, 'n' how many years can some people exist
Before they're allowed to be free?
Yes, 'n' how many times can a man turn his head
And pretend that he just doesn't see?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind
Yes, 'n' how many times must a man
look up
Before he can see the sky?
Yes, 'n' how many ears must one man have
Before he can hear people cry?
Yes, 'n' how many deaths will it take till he knows
That too many people have died?
The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind
The answer is blowin' in the wind
9. JFK on the “Negro Question,”
dispensation, job quotas by government intervention, News
Conference 60, August 20, 1963, President John F. Kennedy, State Department
Auditorium, Washington, D.C., August 20, 1963
QUESTION: Mr. President, some Negro leaders are saying
that, like the Jews persecuted by the Nazis, the Negro is entitled to some kind
of special dispensation for the pain of second-class citizenship over these
many decades and generations. What is your view of that in general, and what is
your view in particular on the specific point that they are recommending of job
quotas by race?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, I don't think-- I don't think that is
the generally held view, at least as I understand it, of the Negro community,
that there is some compensation due for the lost years, particularly in the
field of education.
What I think they would like is to see
their children well educated so that they could hold jobs and have their
children accepted and have themselves accepted as equal members of the
community. So I don't think we can undo the past. In fact, the past is going to
be with us for a good many years in uneducated men and women who lost their
chance for a decent education. We have to do the best we can now. That is what
we are trying to do. I don't think quotas are a good idea. I think it is a
mistake to begin to assign quotas on the basis of religion or race or color, or
nationality.
I think we get into a good deal of
trouble. Our whole view of ourselves is a sort of one society. That has not
been true. At least that is where we are trying to go. I think that we ought
not to begin the quota system. On the other hand, I do think that we ought to
make an effort to give a fair chance to everyone who is qualified, not through
a quota, but just look over our employment rolls, look over our areas where we
are hiring people, and at least make sure we are giving everyone a fair chance,
but not hard and fast quotas. We are too mixed, this society of ours, to begin
to divide ourselves on the basis of race or color.
10. U.S. Constitution
·
Source #6 (U.S. Constitution, Article One [section 8], Fourteenth
Amendment, and the Fifteenth Amendment)
Ø
“To
regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with
the Indian Tribes.”
·
Fourteenth
Amendment
Ø
"nor
shall any State [...] deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal
protection of the laws."
·
Fifteenth
Amendment
o
“Section
1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be
denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race,
color, or previous condition of servitude.
o
Section
2. The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate
legislation.”
11. As Nicholas Eberstadt points out in the American Enterprise Institute’s
publication “The Great Society at Fifty: The Triumph and the Tragedy”: “So
deeply impressed is the Great Society into our consciousness that, as a
practical matter, it is scarcely possible for most citizens now alive even to
imagine the American way of life in the days before our huge, activist, modern
welfare state came into existence.”
12. Making Peace With the ‘60s, David Burner, Princeton University Press
(1996)
“The rights movement sought, in
effect, to bring black Americans under the Declaration of Independence. It
stood for one of the truest beliefs of the American experiment: that it should
be an aim of a good society to eliminate, as far as possible, the arbitrary and
vicious barriers that background and surroundings erect against the full
achievement of personal identity. That principal will never, can never, become
fully realized, but it is an imperative toward American politics should strive.
Nonviolence was fitting for a movement demanding liberation from arbitrary
constraints, for that conduct fosters self-discovery and self-making. But
another aspirant to the liberation of black Americans had been long present,
and in the middle and late 1960s this alternative vision gained prominence once
again. This was the concept of race as the nearly exclusive foundation of the
identity of African-Americans. As beguiling as nationalism, that corrupter of
recent Western and world history, as seductive to American blacks as white racism
has been to whites, that embrace of blackness came close to negating the civil
rights movement" (p. 49).”
"As to the more aggressive
assertiveness that accompanied black power: some of this found its rationale in
a selective reading of a subtle and insightful book, The Wretched of the Earth,
by the psychiatrist Frantz Fanon, born in Martinique and a resident of Algeria
at the time of his death in 1961. Though he wrote not of the United States but
of the Third World, Fanon had wide renown, and black power leaders, among them
Stokely Carmichael and Eldridge Cleaver, were drawn to his work. Fanon's thesis
is that only through active resistance to their oppressors can oppressed people
achieve inner as well as outer freedom, and an authentic collective identity"
(p. 52).
[The radical black power movement
excluded those not black enough for its liking.] "In 1967, the year that
SNCC officially excluded whites from membership, CORE did the same" (p.
68).”
“Though the civil rights movement
won formal and in many ways informal equality and brought sizable numbers of
blacks into the middle class, it failed to cut the Gordian knots, the most
enduring social problems that came out of the country's racial past. Since the
great days of the rights demonstrations, black Americans have been prey, more
than the rest of the country, to forces corrosive of social order. Especially
visible is a black underclass, trapped in a world of drugs, crime, illiteracy,
and shattered families. The instabilities of black families, a growing number
of them headed by women and mired in welfare dependency, were at the core of
black social malaise. So argued the sociologist and politician Daniel Patrick
Moynihan in a controversial position paper published in the mid-sixties. Today
far more blacks die annually, victims of other blacks, than were killed in all
the lynchings in American history. Others are living victims not of the Ku Klux
Klan but of street drugs supplied by their black brothers. Drugs,
disintegrating families, street violence--these are the ills that threaten
black communities, and no vocabulary of black rage will begin effectively to
address them" (p. 82)."
13. “Bodies Upon the Gears,” or
“Operation of the Machine,” Mario Savio
Also known as "Operation of the
Machine", this speech is possibly Savio's most known work. Speaking on the
steps of Sproul Hall, on December 2, 1964:
We were told the following: If President
Kerr actually tried to get something more liberal out of the regents in his
telephone conversation, why didn't he make some public statement to that
effect? And the answer we received, from a well-meaning liberal, was the
following: He said, 'Would you ever imagine the manager of a firm making a
statement publicly in opposition to his board of directors?' That's the answer!
Well, I ask you to consider: If this is a
firm, and if the board of regents are the board of directors; and if President
Kerr in fact is the manager; then I'll tell you something. The faculty are a bunch
of employees, and we're the raw material! But we're a bunch of raw materials
that don't mean to be—have any process upon us. Don't mean to be made into any
product. Don't mean ... Don't mean to end up being bought by some clients of
the University, be they the government, be they industry, be they organized
labor, be they anyone! We're human beings!
There's a time when the operation of the
machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take
part! You can't even passively take part! And you've got to put your bodies
upon the gears and upon the wheels ... upon the levers, upon all the apparatus,
and you've got to make it stop! And you've got to indicate to the people who
run it, to the people who own it, that unless you're free, the machine will be
prevented from working at all!
14. “For
What It’s Worth,” Buffalo Springfield
There's something happening here
what it is ain't exactly clear
there's a man with a gun over there
telling me I got to beware
I think it's time we stop, children,
what's that sound everybody look
what's going down
There's battle lines being drawn
nobody's right if everybody's wrong
young people speaking their minds
getting so much resistance from
behind
I think it's time we stop, hey,
what's that sound everybody look
what's going down
What a field-day for the heat
a thousand people in the street
singing songs and carrying signs
mostly say, hooray for our side
it's time we stop, hey, what's that
sound
everybody look what's going down
Paranoia strikes deep
into your life it will creep it
starts when you're always afraid
you step out of line, the man come
and take you away we
better stop, hey, what's that sound
everybody
look what's going down stop, hey,
what's that
sound everybody look what's going
down stop, now,
what's that sound everybody look
what's going down stop,
children, what's that sound
everybody look what's going down
15. Fortunate Son
Some folks are born made to wave the flag
Ooh, they're red, white and blue
And when the band plays "Hail to the chief"
Ooh, they point the cannon at you, Lord
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no senator's son, son
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate one, no
Some folks are born silver spoon in hand
Lord, don't they help themselves, oh
But when the taxman comes to the door
Lord, the house looks like a rummage sale, yes
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no millionaire's son, no
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate one, no
Some folks inherit star spangled eyes
Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord
And when…
Some folks inherit star spangled eyes
Ooh, they send you down to war, Lord
And when you ask them, "How much should we give?"
Ooh, they only answer "More! More! More!" yoh
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no military son, son
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate one, one
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate one, no no no
It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no fortunate son, no no no
Songwriter: John C Fogerty
Fortunate Son lyrics © The Bicycle Music Company
16. “The Hippies: The Philosophy of
a Subculture,” TIME
Regarding this period of history,
the July 7, 1967, TIME magazine featured a cover story entitled, "The
Hippies: The Philosophy of a Subculture." The article described the guidelines
of the hippie code: "Do your own thing, wherever you have to do it and
whenever you want. Drop out. Leave society as you have known it. Leave it
utterly. Blow the mind of every straight person you can reach. Turn them on, if
not to drugs, then to beauty, love, honesty, fun."
17. “Black Power,” Stokely Carmichael, Student Nonviolent
Coordinating Committee (SNCC), June 16, 1966, in a speech in Greenwood,
Mississippi, after the shooting of James Meredith during the March Against
Fear, Carmichael said:
§
“This
is the twenty-seventh time I have been arrested and I ain't going to jail no
more! The only way we gonna stop them white men from whuppin' us is to take
over. What we gonna start sayin' now is Black Power!”
18. “I’m Black and I’m Proud,” James Brown
Uh! Your bad self!
Say it loud! I'm black and I'm proud
Say it louder! I'm black and I'm proud
Look a-here!
Some people say we got a lot of
malice, some say it's a lotta nerve
But I say we won't quit movin' until we get what we deserve
We've been buked and we've been scourned
We've been treated bad, talked about as sure as you're born
But just as sure as it take two eyes to make a pair, huh!
Brother we can't quit until we get our share
Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud
Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud
One more time, say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud, huh!
I've worked on jobs with my feet and
my hands
But all the work I did was for the other man
And now we demands a chance to do things for ourselves
We tired of beatin' our head against the wall
An' workin' for someone else
Say it loud! I'm black and I'm proud
Say it loud! I'm black and I'm proud
Say it loud! I'm black and I'm proud
Say it loud! I'm black and I'm proud, oh!
Ooh-wee, you're killin' me
Alright, uh, you're out of sight!
Alright, so tough you're tough enough!
Ooh-wee uh! you're killin' me! oow!
Say it loud! I'm black and I'm proud
Say it louder! I'm black and I'm proud
Now we demand a chance to do things
for ourselves
We tired of beatin' our heads against the wall
And workin' for someone else look a-here
There's one thing more I got to say right here
Now, now we're people, we're like the birds and the bees
We rather die on our feet than keep livin' on our knees
Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud
huh!
Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud huh!
Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud Lord-a, Lord-a, Lord-a
Say it loud, I'm black and I'm proud, ooh!
Uh! alright now, good God
You know we can do the boogaloo
Songwriters: James Brown / Alfred
James Ellis
Say It Loud - I'm Black And I'm
Proud [Live In Dallas] lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
19. Excerpts: "I Don't Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing
(Open Up the Door, I'll Get It Myself)", and, "America Is My
Home"
"I Don't Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing (Open Up the
Door, I'll Get It Myself)"
I don't want nobody
To give me nothing
Open up the door
I'll get it myself
Don't give me sorrow
I want equal opportunity
To live tomorrow
Give me schools
And give me better books
So I can read about myself
And gain my truly looks
Some of us try
As hard as we can
We don't want no sympathy
We just wanna be a man
We got talents we can use
On our side of town
Let's get our heads together
And get it up from the ground
Got to get myself together
So many things I got to do
So many things I got to do
I don't need no help from you
Tell everybody, everybody else
All of these things, baby
I got to do it myself
Kids, get that education
And don't you take no more
'Cause if we gonna get
This thing together
Then you got to carry the ball
Songwriters: James Brown
I Don't Want Nobody to Give Me
Nothing lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc
“America Is My Home”
Talking 'bout me leaving America
You gotta be crazy, man, I like
All the nice thing, Jack
Colonial suits and things, look at here
Now I am sorry for the man
Who don't love this land
Now black and white, they may fight
But when up the enemy come
We'll get together and run about all side
I love it
The sun don't come out in rainy weather
But when you ball it down they are still together
Now let's not overlook the fact that we are, we are still in reach
You got to chance to make it and you got a freedom of speech
Say what you wanna, tell 'em how you feel
There may be a lot of places, a lot of places that you like to go
But believe me if you get an education you can blow
You can all it blow, dig this
Now you tell me if I'm wrong
America is still the best country
And that's without a doubt
America is still the best country
Without a doubt
And if anybody says it ain't, you can try to put him out
They ain't going nowhere, you got a good fight
When I tell you one time that I was a shoeshine boy
Every word I said, I meant
But name me any other country
You can start out as a shoeshine boy
And shake hand with the president
It ain't gonna help you gotta had that royal blood to make it
And I ain't got nothing royal but me
So I can take the chances, I'm gonna stay home
And look at here I got a brand new jet
When I need to move
I saw a brother made it
Now it ain't that a rule
So look at here
Brothers and sisters and friends, dig this
So quit your dreaming all night
Stop beatin' yourself and get up and fight
Don't give up, you might give up, but just don't give out
I know if you give out don't give up
There's no quick going, I mean like keep it moving you know
Cause if you stop like a ball quit rolling
Now we got two of the [Incomprehensible] from Florida to
Rome
Which we know there's one thing we'll never forget
America's still our home, hit it bad
God bless America, I'm talking about me too
You know I'm American myself, I like that kind of thing, look at here
Songwriters: Hayward Epps Moore / James Brown
America Is My Home lyrics © Warner/Chappell Music, Inc.
20. “Revolution,” the Beatles
You say you'll change the constitution
Well, you know
We all want to change your head
You tell me it's the institution
Well, you know
You'd better free your mind instead.
21. “Chicago,” Crosby, Stills, & Nash
So your brother's bound and gagged
And they've chained him to a chair
Won't you please come to Chicago just to sing
In a land that's known as freedom how can such a thing be fair
Won't you please come to Chicago for the help that we can
bring
We can change the world rearrange the world
It's dying - to get better
Politicians sit yourselves down, there's nothing for you here
Won't you please come to Chicago for a ride
Don't ask jack to help you `cause he'll turn the other ear
Won't you please come to Chicago or else join the other side
We can change the world rearrange the world
It's dying - if you believe in justice
Dying - and if you believe in freedom
Dying - let a man live his own life
Dying - rules and regulations, who needs them open up the door
Somehow people must be free I hope the day comes soon
Won't you please come to Chicago show your face
From the bottom of the ocean to the mountains of the moon
Won't you please come to Chicago no one else can take your place
We can change the world rearrange the world
It's dying - if you believe in justice
Dying - and if you believe in freedom
Dying - let a man live his own life
Dying - rules and regulations, who needs them open up the door
Songwriters: Donald Clint Goodman / Jack S. Conrad
Chicago lyrics © Sony/ATV Music Publishing LLC, Universal
Music Publishing Group
22. Various historic sources on the issue of a standing army
James Madison: “A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive
will not long be safe companions to liberty. The means of defence agst. foreign
danger, have been always the instruments of tyranny at home. Among the Romans
it was a standing maxim to excite a war, whenever a revolt was apprehended.
Throughout all Europe, the armies kept up under the pretext of defending, have
enslaved the people.”
Patrick Henry: “A standing army we shall have, also, to execute the
execrable commands of tyranny; and how are you to punish them? Will you order
them to be punished? Who shall obey these orders? Will your mace-bearer be a
match for a disciplined regiment?”
Henry St. George Tucker in Blackstone’s 1768 Commentaries on
the Laws of England: “Wherever standing armies are kept up, and when the
right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext
whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of
destruction.”
Commonwealth of Virginia in 1788: “… that standing armies in time of
peace are dangerous to liberty, and therefore ought to be avoided, as far as
the circumstances and protection of the community will admit; and that in all
cases the military should be under strict subordination to and governed by the
civil power.”
Pennsylvania Convention: “… as standing armies in time of peace are
dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; and that the military shall
be kept under strict subordination to and be governed by the civil power.”
U.S. State Department website: “Wrenching memories of the Old World
lingered in the 13 original English colonies along the eastern seaboard of
North America, giving rise to deep opposition to the maintenance of a standing
army in time of peace. All too often the standing armies of Europe were
regarded as, at best, a rationale for imposing high taxes, and, at worst, a
means to control the civilian population and extort its wealth.”
23. “Ohio,” Neil Young, as performed by Mott The Hoople (Cf.
https://youtu.be/zmYLC4fVcHI)
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming
We're finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in Ohio
Gotta’ get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago
What if you knew her?
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na
Na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na
Gotta’ get down to it
Soldiers are cutting us down
Should have been done long ago
What if you knew her?
And found her dead on the ground
How can you run when you know?
Tin soldiers and Nixon coming
We're finally on our own
This summer I hear the drumming
Four dead in Ohio
Four dead in Ohio
Four dead in Ohio
Four dead in Ohio
Four dead in Ohio
Four dead in Ohio
Four dead in Ohio
Four dead in Ohio
Four dead in Ohio
Four dead in Ohio
Four dead in Ohio
Name __________________________________________ Date
_____________________
History Test #__--The Death of Liberalism
___________/100
Define: ( /10)
1.
executive
power
2.
segregation
Short Answer:
3.
What
was the Cold War which began after World War II and what was American policy?
( /20)
4.
Why
was revolution in the air during 1968 and what critical events occurred as a
result of anti-war protests?
( /25)
Geography: ( /10)
5.
Find
and identify Chicago, Ohio, Memphis, March on Washington, Cuba
Essay Question
Directions: Read the following questions carefully. Answer only one of the following questions in
paragraph form on a separate piece of paper. Include in your answer a thesis
statement and relevant supporting details. ( /35)
6.
Why
was music such a powerful force in the 1960s and how does it reveal what
happened during the period?
-or-
Six
Evaluate
the social movements of the 1960s and the success or failure of the Civil
Rights Movement, Great Society programs, and black power.
Name __________________________________________ Date
_____________________
History Test #__--The Death of Liberalism
___________/100
Define: ( /10)
7.
executive
power
expand war-making
privileges and deploy military troops
8.
segregation
color barriers between
whites and blacks
Short Answer:
9.
What
was the Cold War which began after World War II and what was American policy?
( /20)
The Cold War began
when the United States, without question the most powerful country in the world
following World War II, tried to use its power to proclaim a new global order
based on democracy and capitalism. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union, which
undeniably bore the brunt of the fighting during the war, with an astounding 23
million dead, rejected the American world order, favoring instead communism and
a world revolution in the name of the worker. The “long telegram” was drafted
in 1946 by George F. Kennan, the senior American diplomat stationed in Moscow. Kennan’s
response to communist expansion came to be called containment. As the policy of containment went into
effect, it was clear the United States was not only in an ideological war with
communism and the Soviet Union, but was also willing to back it up with
military might and economic support. The Domino Theory, the Marshall Plan, the
Truman Doctrine, and the Eisenhower Doctrine was American policy developed
throughout the Cold War.
10.
Why
was revolution in the air during 1968 and what critical events occurred as a
result of anti-war protests?
( /25)
o
Emergence
of the Black Power movement
o
Martin
Luther King was assassinated
o
Robert
Kennedy was assassinated
o
Attempted
assassination of George Wallace, a presidential contender
o
The
Democratic Party Convention in Chicago
o
Youth
riots, demonstrations in urban areas resulting in the “Long Hot Summers”
o
Student
protests against the war in Vietnam
o
Election
of Richard Nixon as President
By 1968 revolution was
in the air and with increasing anti-war protests, the Vietnam Tet offensive,
and student riots in France, the Beatles and Gil Scott Heron described the
incendiary period as revolutionary. Youth, riots, anti-war protest, and politics all seemed to come to a
head at the Democratic Party Convention in August of 1968. Tens of thousands of
protesters swarmed the streets to rally against the Vietnam War and the
political status quo. By the time Vice President Herbert Humphrey received the
presidential nomination, the strife within the Democratic Party was laid bare
and the streets of Chicago had seen riots and bloodshed involving protesters,
police and bystanders alike, radically changing America’s political and social
landscape. Chaos preceded the Convention. The months leading up to the
infamous 1968 Democratic Convention were turbulent. The pandemonium at the 1968
Democratic National Convention did little to stop the Vietnam War or win the
1968 presidential election. By the end of the year, Republican Richard M. Nixon
was President-elect of the United States and 16,592 American soldiers had been
killed in Vietnam, the most of any year since the war began.
The Kent State
shootings (also known as the May 4 massacre or the Kent State massacre)
occurred at Kent State University in the US city of Kent, Ohio, and involved
the shooting of unarmed college students by the Ohio National Guard on Monday,
May 4, 1970. The guardsmen fired 67 rounds over a period of 13 seconds, killing
four students and wounding nine others, one of whom suffered permanent
paralysis.
Some of the students
who were shot had been protesting the “excursion” into neighboring Cambodia
from Vietnam which was perceived as an escalation of the Vietnam War. The
Cambodian Campaign, which President Richard Nixon announced during a television
address on April 30, had just been revealed. Other students who were shot had
been walking nearby or observing the protest from a distance.
Geography: ( /10)
11. Find and identify Chicago, Ohio,
Memphis, March on Washington, Cuba
Essay Question
Directions: Read the following questions carefully. Answer only one of the following questions in
paragraph form on a separate piece of paper. Include in your answer a thesis
statement and relevant supporting details. ( /35)
12. Why was music such a powerful force
in the 1960s and how does it reveal what happened during the period?
·
Rock ‘n’ roll developed in the
mid-1950s synthesizing African-American music and pop music.
·
Entrepreneurs took advantage of the
privileges of citizenship and flourished during the early 1960s America.
·
Students
should grasp that individuals from traditional religious and moral backgrounds,
i.e., Christian gospel singers, social justice folk-singers, and Bob Dylan (who
is Jewish), are in the forefront of liberal social change in the civil rights
movement and early anti-war efforts.
·
"For What It's Worth" was
written because of the "Sunset Strip riots" in November 1966.
·
Eastern religion and spirituality
entered through the Beatles influence.
·
The
Monterey Pop Festival from June 16 to June 18 in 1967 introduced the rock music
of the counterculture to a wide audience and marked the start of the
"Summer of Love."
·
The “San
Francisco Sound” indicated how popular the anti-war movement had grown since
the mid-1960s.
·
The integrationist wing of civil
rights, represented by James Brown, is to be distinguished against the black
power separatists.
·
By 1968 revolution was in the air
and with increasing anti-war protests, the Vietnam Tet offensive, and student
riots in France, the Beatles decided to issue an overtly political song,
“Revolution.”
·
The 1960s and into the 1970s was a
period of social protest and discontent. For example, consider Gil Scott
Heron’s, incendiary, “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.”
·
The Woodstock Music & Art
Fair—informally, the Woodstock Festival or simply Woodstock—was a music
festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music".
·
On the other hand, a subsequent
festival was the low point. The Altamont Speedway Free Festival was a
counterculture-era rock concert held on Saturday, December 6, 1969, at the
Altamont Speedway in northern California, between Tracy and Livermore.
·
The Kent State shootings (also
known as the May 4 massacre or the Kent State massacre) occurred at Kent State
University in the US city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of unarmed
college students by the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970.
-or-
Six
Evaluate
the social movements of the 1960s and the success or failure of the Civil
Rights Movement, Great Society programs, and black power.
·
African-Americans
were making financial strides and the individualistic civil rights movement was
gaining strength in the early 1960s.
·
The
government intervened through legislation.
·
Social programs that focused on
equality of result were ineffective.
·
One
of liberalism’s 1960s icon, JFK, was one of America’s most popular presidents
and he firmly opposed racial quotas.
·
The Republican Party favored civil
rights in 1964.
·
The Great Society was a set of domestic programs in the United States
launched by Democratic President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1964–65.
·
Five decades, nearly $22 trillion
and roughly 80 welfare programs later, the Great Society is largely a failure.
·
Blackness,
as a concept, came close to negating the Civil Rights movement.
·
The “New
Left” was inspired by the civil rights movement and radical student activism
began to spread across America’s college campuses in the early 1960s but failed
to make progress in civil rights.
·
The 1960s
were characterized by two contrasting viewpoints on civil rights as represented
by Malcom X and Stokely Carmichael as opposed to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
and James Brown.
·
Malcolm X
argued that America was too racist in its institutions and people to offer hope
to blacks.
·
King had
faith that "the sacred heritage of our nation and the eternal will of
God" could reform white America through the nonviolent Civil Rights
Movement.
·
Carmichael saw the concept of
"Black Power" as a means of group solidarity, take over, society is
at fault with institutional racism. Instead of individual achievement Black
Power meant taking control based on racial differences.
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