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CHAPTER 13: DECADES OF CHANGE: 1960-1980OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY“I have a dream that one dayon the red hills of Georgia,sons of former slaves andthe sons of former slaveowners will be able to sitdown together at the tableof brotherhood.”By 1960, the United States was onthe verge of a major social change.American society had always beenmore open and fluid than that ofthe nations in most of the rest of theworld. Still, it had been dominatedprimarily by old-stock, white males.During the 1960s, groups that previouslyhad been submerged or subordinatebegan more forcefully andsuccessfully to assert themselves: AfricanAmericans, Native Americans,women, the white ethnic offspring ofthe “new immigration,” and Latinos.Much of the support they receivedcame from a young population largerthan ever, making its way througha college and university system thatwas expanding at an unprecedentedpace. Frequently embracing “countercultural”life styles and radicalMartin Luther King Jr., 1963politics, many of the offspring of theWorld War II generation emerged asadvocates of a new America characterizedby a cultural and ethnicpluralism that their parents oftenviewed with unease.THE CIVIL RIGHTSMOVEMENT 1960-1980The struggle of African Americansfor equality reached its peak in themid-1960s. After progressive victoriesin the 1950s, African Americansbecame even more committedto nonviolent direct action. Groupslike the Southern Christian LeadershipConference (SCLC), made upof African-American clergy, andthe Student Nonviolent CoordinatingCommittee (SNCC), composedof younger activists, sought reformthrough peaceful confrontation.In 1960 African-American collegestudents sat down at a segregatedWoolworth’s lunch counterin North Carolina and refused toleave. Their sit-in captured mediaattention and led to similar demonstrationsthroughout the South. Thenext year, civil rights workers organized“freedom rides,” in which AfricanAmericans and whites boardedbuses heading south toward segregatedterminals, where confrontationsmight capture media attentionand lead to change.They also organized rallies, thelargest of which was the “Marchon Washington” in 1963. Morethan 200,000 people gathered inthe nation’s capital to demonstratetheir commitment to equality forall. The high point of a day of songsand speeches came with the addressof Martin Luther King Jr., who hademerged as the preeminent spokesmanfor civil rights. “I have a dreamthat one day on the red hills of Georgiathe sons of former slaves and thesons of former slave owners will beable to sit down together at the tableof brotherhood,” King proclaimed.Each time he used the refrain “I havea dream,” the crowd roared.The level of progress initiallyachieved did not match the rhetoricof the civil rights movement. PresidentKennedy was initially reluctantto press white Southerners forsupport on civil rights because heneeded their votes on other issues.Events, driven by African Americansthemselves, forced his hand. WhenJames Meredith was denied admissionto the University of Mississippiin 1962 because of his race, Kennedysent federal troops to uphold the law.After protests aimed at the desegregationof Birmingham, Alabama,prompted a violent response by thepolice, he sent Congress a new civilrights bill mandating the integrationof public places. Not even the Marchon Washington, however, could extricatethe measure from a congressionalcommittee, where it was stillbottled up when Kennedy was assassinatedin 1963.President Lyndon B. Johnsonwas more successful. Displayingnegotiating skills he had so frequentlyemployed during his yearsas Senate majority leader, Johnsonpersuaded the Senate to limit delayingtactics preventing a final voteon the sweeping Civil Rights Act of1964, which outlawed discriminationin all public accommodations.The next year’s Voting Rights Actof 1965 authorized the federal governmentto register voters where localofficials had prevented AfricanAmericans from doing so. By 1968a million African Americans wereregistered in the deep South. Nationwide,the number of African-American elected officials increasedsubstantially. In 1968, the Congresspassed legislation banning discriminationin housing.Once unleashed, however, thecivil rights revolution producedleaders impatient with both the paceof change and the goal of channel-276277