8 America in the 1950s and 1960s In the United States the House Un American Activities Committee HUAC held hearings on suspected Communist subversives people trying to destroy the government and spies Led by Republican senator Joseph McCarthy Red-hunters Red being a common term for Communist accused hundreds of Americans of being Communist sympathizers The careers of many innocent people were ruined when they were accused of having links to the Communist Party often with little or no proof to back the charges Joseph McCarthy served as United States senator from Wisconsin from 1947 until his death in 1957 Some Americans responded to this Red Scare by building bomb shelters to hide in if the Communists attacked the United States Most Americans however just wanted to enjoy the good life of the 1950s moving to the suburbs to build a house and raise children They also watched a lot of television As a consequence of television’s growing influence the most popular programs soon inspired a number of fads By the end of the decade for example there were few middle-class American children who did not own a Davy Crockett coonskin cap or a Mickey Mouse watch Not all Americans were eligible to participate in this life of fun and prosperity however In most places in the South segregation the legalized separation of the races was enforced In the North unwritten gentleman’s agreements and other practices kept African Americans out of white neighborhoods and schools and out of the best jobs Finally in 1954 a landmark Supreme Court decision known as Brown v Board of Education of Topeka ruled that segregation in schools was unconstitutional This paved the way for the nonviolent protest movement that emerged in the years to come This civil rights movement led by the Reverend Dr Martin Luther King Jr sought to end all forms of segregation and to make real America’s promises of justice and equality The civil rights movement led to other social movements in the 1960s including the peace movement the ecology movement and the women’s rights movement In the midst of all this social upheaval some Americans chose to turn on tune in and drop out
America in the 1950s and 1960s 9 A new counterculture of hippies developed its own clothes its own language and music and its own belief system including an advocacy of drug use Long hair acid rock marijuana and LSD long flowing skirts and tattered jeans all were the emblems of the hippies They were young adults who rejected all that their parents generation stood for Among the many changes occurring during this time period were the advances in space exploration This included Neil Armstrong's historic walk on the moon on July 21 1969 Hippies believed in the free expression of peace love and non-conformance Meanwhile there were astounding strides in science and technology ranging from the polio vaccine to the rocket ship The race to the moon spurred advancements in many related fields including computers telecommunications and plastics And running throughout this period was the ever-increasing political tension between the United States and Communist-centered countries such as East Germany Cuba and Vietnam Words to Know subversives sub-VURS-ivs People who try to overthrow or undermine the government segregation seg-ruh-GAY-shuhn The practice of keeping separate Historically the United States has had some laws requiring segregation or separation of the races gentleman’s agreements JEN-tuhl-muhns uh GREE-muhnts Practices in which people agree verbally or with a handshake as opposed to in writing counterculture KOUN-tur-KUHL-chur A group of people whose values are different from and generally opposed to those of a larger group In the 1960s there was a counterculture of young adults who lived in ways very different from the main body of society telecommunications tel-uh-kuh-myoo-nuh-KAY shuhns The methods of using electronic impulses to communicate words pictures and sound such as radio television and telegraph
10 Dwight Eisenhower Dwight Eisenhower Dwight Eisenhower In March 1952 President Harry S Truman announced that he would not run for the presidency again He had served most of Franklin Roosevelt's fourth term and another four years after his own election in 1948 As the Democrats scrambled to see who would be their presidential candidate the Republicans chose a war hero General Dwight David Eisenhower Born October 14 1890 Denison TX Denison Texas Termt From the Wild West to Hero of the Western World Born in Denison Texas on October 14 1890 Dwight D Eisenhower moved as an infant to Abilene Kansas once a rowdy center of the Wild West In 1911 he entered the U S Military Academy at West Point During World War I he trained soldiers After the war in 1932 he became an aide to General Douglas MacArthur January 20 1953 January 20 1961 Partu Republican First Lady Mary Mamie Doud Eisenhower Vice President Richard Nixon Died March 28 1969 Washington D C Vice President Richard Nixon
Dwight Eisenhower 34th President of the United States
