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The Civil Rights Movement
Black Americans had been granted their freedom after the Civil War only to find themselves denied equal rights with their lighter-skinned fellow citizens. The right of black Americans to vote was hampered by literacy tests, poll taxes, and intimidation by whites. By the 1960s, blacks had long faced segregation in schools, public facilities, churches, and even hospitals. Ignitia.com Editors. :American History: -
The Youth Rebellion.
the "baby-boomers," became rebellious young adults in the 1960s. As a group, they experimented with drugs, rejected traditional morality, and found their cause in opposing the Vietnam War. Protests against the draft and the war defined the "youth movement." Without such a strong common cause, the movement would have been more fragmented and probably would not have affected society the way that it did.( Ignitia.com Editors. :American History:) -
AMERICA IN THE 1960S
The United States in the 1960s was a nation of turbulence. Black Americans organized to challenge segregation laws and work for civil rights. Young Americans staged protests against the Vietnam War and the draft. America lost a President, a Presidential candidate, and a civil rights leader to assassination. Internationally, this was the decade of the Vietnam War, America's longest and most controversial conflict. (Ignitia.com Editors. :American History:) -
The Kennedy Administration
John Fitzgerald Kennedy, the youngest man to be elected President of the United States, was inaugurated on January 20, 1961. Kennedy was the son of a wealthy businessman with a degree from Harvard University. He was decorated for bravery for his service in the navy during World War II. At the time of his election to the Presidency, he was serving as a Senator from his home state of Massachusetts. (Ignitia.com Editors. :American History:) -
The Johnson Administration
Lyndon Baines Johnson became President following the assassination of John Kennedy on November 22, 1963. Johnson had worked his way through Southwest Texas State Teachers' College, earning a degree in 1927. He had a long career in Washington, D.C. serving his home state of Texas. (Ignitia.com Editors. :American History:) -
AMERICA IN THE 1970S
The 1970s were a time of transition for the United States. The war in Vietnam finally ended. The outraged members of the youth movement began having to find jobs in an unstable economy so unlike the prosperous 1960s. Our nation faced one of its greatest domestic scandals, Watergate, which forced a President from office. The Cold War cooled down with detente and then heated back up with the invasion of Afghanistan.( Ignitia.com Editors. :American History:) -
AMERICA IN THE 1980S AND 1990S
The most recent decades in American history have seen the return of more conservative political thinking. The members of the youth movement of the 1960s are entering their 40s and 50s. They are now the "establishment" they opposed so violently in their younger days. Liberal experiments in solving social problems by spending government money have been increasingly viewed as failures.( Ignitia.com Editors. :American History) -
Terrorism
The entire 20th century was punctuated by violent acts against innocent people for political purposes. Such was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand that started World War I. Most of the terrorist attacks against the United States in recent decades have come from Arab Muslims who oppose America's support of Israel and want to create an independent state for the Muslim Palestinians in Israel.( Ignitia.com Editors. :American History) -
Ronald Reagan
. Reagan was an excellent speaker who was nicknamed "The Great Communicator" while in office. He was very conservative in both his economic and foreign policies. He favored less government at home and more traditional, anti-Communist policies abroad. He won reelection in 1984 by a huge landslide against Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter's Vice President, and Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to run for the Vice Presidency on a major party ticket. (Ignitia.com Editors. :American History) -
OUR NATION SAW EVIL. . .
On the morning of September 11, 2001, terrorists launched a surprise strike that took more lives than any other foreign led attack on U.S. soil. The strike was highly organized, and it began when a series of four commercial planes were hijacked by trained terrorists who were suspected members or close associates of an Islamic extremist organization called al Qaeda.Once the terrorists were in the cockpit, the planes became manned missiles that were piloted toward their respective targets.