The Civil Rights Movement, the 1960s, and the Vietnam War
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 Key Concepts Covered in this Unit

Chapter 20: The New Frontier and Great Society
  • The major goals of New Frontier programs (Peace Corps, NASA, campaign against poverty)
  • Johnson's view of the "Great Society" & his political approach
  • Specific goals of Great Society programs regarding healthcare, the environment, and consumer protection (Medicare & Medicaid, War on Poverty, HUD)
  • Great Society Civl Rights Legislation: Civil Rights Act of 1964 & Voting Rights Act of 1965

Chapter 21: Civil Rights
  • The system of legalized segregation built on Plessy and Jim Crow
  • The Brown Decision and its impact on segregation in the schools
  • The Montgomery Bus Boycott, & emergence of Martin Luther King and the SCLC
  • SNCC and the Sit Ins
  • Other key civil rights events, such as the Freedom Riders, Marches in Birmingham, the March on Washington
  • Key Civil Rights Documents, such as the Letter from a Birmingham Jail, I Have a Dream Speech, the Ballot or Bullett speech, and the Black Panther Platform
  • The emergence of more militant civil rights groups, such as the Nation of Islam and the Black Panthers
  • The splintering of the Civil Rights Movement into several groups, including Native Americans, Latinos, and the new Feminist Movement of the 1960s

Chapter 22: The Vitenam War Years
  • The French colonial origins of our involvement in Vietnam
  • The Domino Theory and the reasons for our support of South Vietnam
  • The Gulf of Tonkin incident and the rationale for increasing our involvement in Vietnam
  • Military Operations in Vietnam, including: Rolling Thunder, Pacification, Vietnamization, etc.
  • The nature of combat in Vietnam, including the tactics used by the Viet Cong and the difficulties presented by these combat conditions
  • The protest movement and the variety of reasons they opposed the war (cause, draft, tactics, conditions, etc.)
  • The disproportionate impact of the war on poor & minorities, and the ways that Vietnam kept LBJ from fully pursuing the Great Society

We will take the Unit Test on April 15

Test Essay Question: How did the Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War combine with other factors to continue the postwar transformation of American Society (between 1954-1973)?