Outline of US History by U.S. Department of State - HTML preview

CHAPTER 13: DECADES OF CHANGE: 1960-1980

ing African Americans into main- their neighborhoods to achieve ra-

stream white society . Malcolm X, cial balance in metropolitan schools

an eloquent activist, was the most or about the use of “affirmative ac-

prominent figure arguing for Afri- tion .” These policies and programs

can-American separation from the were viewed by some as active mea-

white race . Stokely Carmichael, a sures to ensure equal opportunity, as

student leader, became similarly dis- in education and employment, and

illusioned by the notions of nonvio- by others as reverse discrimination .

lence and interracial cooperation .

The courts worked their way

He popularized the slogan “black through these problems with deci-

power,” to be achieved by “whatever sions that were often inconsistent . In

means necessary,” in the words of the meantime, the steady march of

Malcolm X .

African Americans into the ranks

Violence accompanied militant of the middle class and once large-

calls for reform . Riots broke out in ly white suburbs quietly reflected a

several big cities in 1966 and 1967 . profound demographic change .

In the spring of 1968, Martin Lu-

ther King Jr . fell before an assassin’s

THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT

bullet . Several months later, Senator

Robert Kennedy, a spokesman for During the 1950s and 1960s, in-

the disadvantaged, an opponent of creasing numbers of married wom-

the Vietnam War, and the brother en entered the labor force, but in

of the slain president, met the same 1963 the average working woman

fate . To many these two assassina- earned only 63 percent of what a

tions marked the end of an era of in- man made . That year Betty Friedan

nocence and idealism . The growing published The Feminine Mystique,

militancy on the left, coupled with an explosive critique of middle-

an inevitable conservative backlash, class living patterns that articulated

opened a rift in the nation’s psyche a pervasive sense of discontent that

that took years to heal .

Friedan contended was felt by many

By then, however, a civil rights women . Arguing that women often

movement supported by court de- had no outlets for expression other

cisions, congressional enactments, than “finding a husband and bear-

and federal administrative regula- ing children,” Friedan encouraged

tions was irreversibly woven into the her readers to seek new roles and re-

fabric of American life . The major sponsibilities and to find their own

issues were about implementation personal and professional identities,

of equality and access, not about the rather than have them defined by a

legality of segregation or disenfran- male-dominated society .

chisement . The arguments of the

The women’s movement of the

1970s and thereafter were over mat- 1960s and 1970s drew inspiration

ters such as busing children out of from the civil rights movement . It

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OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY

was made up mainly of members of al years, 35 of the necessary 38 states

the middle class, and thus partook ratified it . The courts also moved to

of the spirit of rebellion that affected expand women’s rights . In 1973 the

large segments of middle-class youth Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade sanc-in the 1960s .

tioned women’s right to obtain an

Reform legislation also prompted abortion during the early months of

change . During debate on the 1964 pregnancy — seen as a significant

Civil Rights bill, opponents hoped victory for the women’s movement

to defeat the entire measure by pro- — but Roe also spurred the growth posing an amendment to outlaw dis- of an anti-abortion movement .

crimination on the basis of gender as

In the mid- to late-1970s, how-

well as race . First the amendment, ever, the women’s movement seemed

then the bill itself, passed, giving to stagnate . It failed to broaden its

women a valuable legal tool .

appeal beyond the middle class .

In 1966, 28 professional women, Divisions arose between moderate

including Friedan, established the and radical feminists . Conservative

National Organization for Wom- opponents mounted a campaign

en (NOW) “to take action to bring against the Equal Rights Amend-

American women into full partici- ment, and it died in 1982 without

pation in the mainstream of Ameri- gaining the approval of the 38 states

can society now .” While NOW and needed for ratification .

similar feminist organizations boast

of substantial memberships today,

THE LATINO MOVEMENT

arguably they attained their greatest

influence in the early 1970s, a time In post-World War II America,

that also saw the journalist Gloria Americans of Mexican and Puerto

Steinem and several other wom- Rican descent had faced discrimina-

en found Ms . magazine . They also tion . New immigrants, coming from spurred the formation of counter- Cuba, Mexico, and Central Ameri-feminist groups, often led by women, ca — often unskilled and unable to

including most prominently the po- speak English — suffered from dis-

litical activist Phyllis Schlafly . These crimination as well . Some Hispanics groups typically argued for more worked as farm laborers and at times

“traditional” gender roles and op- were cruelly exploited while harvest-

posed the proposed “Equal Rights” ing crops; others gravitated to the

constitutional amendment .

cities, where, like earlier immigrant

Passed by Congress in 1972, groups, they encountered difficulties

that amendment declared in part, in their quest for a better life .

“Equality of rights under the law

Chicanos, or Mexican-Ameri-

shall not be denied or abridged by cans, mobilized in organizations

the United States or by any State on like the radical Asociación Nacio-

account of sex .” Over the next sever- nal Mexico-Americana, yet did

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