The Golden Age

1

The Golden Age 1952-1970
2
Desegregation Ordered

• 1954 The Supreme Court handed down a landmark
  decision. According to Chief Justice Earl Warren
  writing for a unanimous Court, "...in the field
  of public education the doctrine of 'separate but
  equal' has no place." This was sure to have a
  major impact on more than just the educational
  institutions of America. In fact, there was been
  talk of holding a bus boycott in Montgomery,
  Alabama to protest the segregation on city buses.
  How did the South react?

3
Camelot?Never underestimate the power of
television.

4

• Richard Nixon would have been well served to
  heed this warning in 1960 when he faced a young,
  handsome gentleman named John F. Kennedy in one
  of the first televised debates. Turning down
  offers for make-up to help improve his haggard
  appearance as 'unmanly', Nixon's bid for the
  presidency was seriously undermined after 70
  million viewers watched the debate. The fact that
  those who listened to the debate on the radio
  felt that Nixon actually won had no bearing on
  the eventual results and overall effect of this
  meeting. Kennedy had the exuberance of youth and
  an inexplicable charisma that allowed him to
  squeak past Nixon to win the election.

5
LBJ Ushers in the Great Society
6
LBJ

• When John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November
  23, 1963, the presidency fell to his
  second-in-command Vice-president Lyndon Baines
  Johnson. When he took the oath of office on the
  plane that transported Kennedy's body back to
  Washington, he had spent almost half of his life
  in Washington politics. This Texan was a force to
  be reckoned with. In his first State of the Union
  address, he announced a "war on poverty."
  Fighting this war meant creating a new 'Economic
  Opportunity Act' allowing for job-training and
  employment to underprivileged workers. Further,
  Congress passed a Food Stamp Plan. When he won
  the next election in 1964, he created a new
  program called the "Great Society" aimed at
  further aid to the poor and underprivileged. Acts
  passed under this "Great Society" included
  Medicare, rent subsidies, and aid to schools in
  lower socioeconomic areas. However, by 1966,
  examples of welfare fraud and rising medical
  costs combined with the issues of the Vietnam War
  resulted in a strong conservative showing at the
  mid-term elections. By 1969, a Republican would
  be back in office again.

7
Vietnam Escalates and Nixon Wins

• The Vietnam Conflict is one of the most
  controversial episodes in American history. What
  began as an aid program to help the French in
  Indochina in 1950 resulted in a full scale war
  after 1965. As author David McCullogh stated in
  his introduction to Vietnam A Television
  History,
• "The Vietnam War was the longest and most
  unpopular war in which Americans ever fought. And
  there is no reckoning the cost. The toll in
  suffering, sorrow, in rancorous national turmoil
  can never be tabulated. No one wants ever to see
  America so divided again. And for many of the
  more than two million American veterans of the
  war, the wounds of Vietnam will never heal."

8

• As time went on, people became less and less
  inclined to support the war in Vietnam. Johnson's
  popularity began to decline sharply as the
  opposition mounted. By March, 1968, Johnson
  ordered a halt to the bombing of most of North
  Vietnam and further announced that he would not
  run for another term as president. During the
  Election of 1968, the Democrats nominated Vice
  President Hubert Humphrey who declared
  wholehearted support for Johnson's actions at
  home and abroad. The Republicans nominated
  Richard Nixon. Finally, former Democratic
  governor of Alabama, George C. Wallace ran as a
  third-party candidate. The major issues of the
  campaign were 'law and order' and the Vietnam
  War. Nixon promised to bring "fresh ideas and ...
  new leadership" to end the war. Further, he
  blamed the Democrats for the urban crises that
  had ensued including increased crime, riots and
  disorder. Nixon won by only 500,000 votes (though
  he had 110 more electoral votes).