This document provides an overview of major events and policies related to civil rights and liberalism during the Kennedy and Johnson administrations from 1960-1968. It discusses the 1960 presidential election, Kennedy's domestic agenda, his assassination in 1963. It then covers LBJ's legislative accomplishments as president, the 1964 election, and Great Society programs to fight poverty. The document also outlines the expanding civil rights movement, key civil rights legislation, and the rise of more radical groups like the Black Panthers. It concludes with discussions of foreign policy shifts and the assassinations of MLK and RFK in 1968.

1. Chapter 29:
Civil Rights and the
Ordeal of Liberalism!
By Louie Klemm, Shaina Jadormio, and Ian
Kytlica

2. Presidential Campaign of 1960
• Richard Nixon (Republican) vs. John
Fitzgerald Kennedy (Democrat)
• Kennedy won!

3. John Kennedy
• "New Frontier"
o promised domestic
reforms
• Kennedy remains
ambitious
o wins approval of tariff
reductions
o creating legislative
agenda for a tax cut

4. Kennedy's Assassination
o Kennedy was murdered on the
streets of Dallas Texas (Nov. 22,
1963)
• Lee Harvey Oswald was later killed
by a vigilante and his story was never
heard by the public court system

5. Lyndon Johnson
• Kennedy's successor
• 1963-1966: Impressive legislative
record
o Kennedy's death resulted in an
emotional tide allowing many
Americans to support the New Frontier
• Great Society
o won approval by Congress

6. The Presidential Election of 1964
• Lyndon's first year
as President
o focused on the 1964
election
• Senator Barry
Goldwater of
Arizona
(Republican) vs.
Johnson Lyndon
(Democrat)
• LBJ won!

7. Assaults on Poverty
• Medicare
o federal aid to the elderly for medical expenses
• Medicaid
o extended welfare recipients of Medicare to all
ages
• Office of Economic Opportunity
o new educational, housing, healthcare, and
employment programs
• Community action
o members of the community participating in the

8. Cities, Schools and
Immigration
• Housing Act of 1961
o gave federal grants to cities
• Department of Housing and Urban
Development
o new cabinet agency
• Model Cities Program
o federal subsidies for urban redevelopment
pilot programs.

9. Cities, Schools, and
Immigration cont.
• Kennedy faced two obstacles with
education.
• Secondary Education Act of 1965
o extended aid to private and Catholic schools
based on the condition of the students
• Immigration Act of 1965
o 170,000 immigrants each year
o eliminated national origins that gave
preference

10. Legacies of the Great
Society
• Loss of revenues
• Competition with military costs
and federal spending
• Disillusionment grew
• Americans were convinced that
the program was failure
• There were also benefits

12. Expanding the Protests
• African American
college students from
Greensboro staged sit-
in.
• Student Nonviolent
Coordinating
Committee
o kept the spirit of
resistance alive
• Freedom Rides
o forced desegregation of

13. Expanding the Protests
cont.
• SNCC and Southern Christian Leadership
Conference
• James Meredith
o African American student enrolled in an all white
school
• Martin Luther King Jr.
o nonviolent demonstrations
• Police Commissioner Eugene Bull
o made brutal efforts to stop march in Birmingham
• Governor George Wallace won the 1962 election
o hoped to prevent court enrollment of African

14. A National Commitment
• Important television
Address
• Legislative proposals
prohibiting:
o segregation in public
accommodations
o barring discrimination
in employment
o increase government
power to file suits on
segregated schools

15. A National Commitment
Cont.
• Lincoln Memorial civil rights
demonstration
• Martin Luther King: "I have a
dream."
• Kennedy's Assassination
o June 1963, Kennedy proposed the civil
rights legislation
o postponed the civil rights legislation
o Early 1964, Senate passed the civil right

16. The Battle for Voting Rights
• "Freedom Summer"
o produced violent responses from
Southern whites
• Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
o alternative to the regular state party
• King organized demonstration in Selma,
Alabama (treated same as in Birmingham)
• Civil Rights Act of 1965
o provided federal protection

17. The Changing Movement
• Gov't view on racism changed from de
jure to de facto
• De Jure means "accepted by law"
• De facto means "accepted by community"
• Racism was no longer contained in the
South
• Watts Riots in Los Angeles (started with a white police officer hitting a black
man with his club)
• LBJ developed concept of "Affirmative Action" (pressuring employers and
institutions to give up anti-minority practices and take up positive minority
measures instead)

18. Urban Violence
• Harlem disturbances
• Race riots
o police reaction
• Additional outbreaks
• Commission on Civil
Disorders
o eliminated bad
conditions of the
ghetto

19. Black Power
"Black Power" was a
social philosophy
• Increased Racial Pride
Many Civil Rights Org.
• Tended to be divided
Non-Radicals
• NAACP
• Southern Christian Leadership
Conference (SCLC)
• Urban League
Moderate/Strong Radicals
• Black Panthers
• Student Nonviolent Coordinating
Committee
• Congress of Racial Equality

20. Malcolm X
• Nation of Islam
• Malcolm Little -> Malcolm X
o once a pimp and drug addict
• Speaker
o influential to younger
Americans
• Autobiography of Malcolm X
o spread his reputation after his
death

21. Diversifying Foreign Policy
Kennedy Administration Foreign
Policies
Wanted to repair relationship with
South America through "An Alliance
for Progress"
Kennedy inaugurated the Agency
for International Development for
foreign aid
BAY OF PIGS

22. Confrontations with the
Soviet Union
Nikita Khrushchev John F. Kennedy
• Created Berlin wall to stop
people from running away to • Bay of Pigs
West Berlin • Quarantine Cuba
• Cuban Missile Crisis
during Cuban Missile
Crisis

23. Johnson and the World
LBJ DETERMINED TO STOP SOUTH AMERICAN COMMUNISTS
• Communism is bad because it is the ultimate redistribution of wealth,
usually making everyone below the poverty level and dependent on the
gov't
• Suspected Pro-Communist regime stopped in the Dominican Republic
after a Coup by 30,000 American troops
• Show's LBJ's strength and intimidation

24. The King and Kennedy
Assassinations
 The King and Kennedy Assassinations
o April 4, MLK Jr. Shot
o July 6, Robert Kennedy (Presidential Candidate and JFK's
brother) Shot
o ("Kennedy Legacy") Gov't Should help the powerless

25. The Conservative
Response
Election of 1968
George Wallace (American Independent)-3rd Party candidate
against segregation
Richard Nixon (Republican)- Won and supported peace in
Vietnam
Hubert H. Humphrey (Democrat)- Tried to win with a last minute
surge in unity the democratic party (Split with 3rd Party)