USA history: 1960s

In 1961, the young and ambitious Democrat John F. Kennedy becomes president of the United States. Kennedy proposes a package of laws to: deal with injustice and inequality in America. His vision becomes known as the New Frontier. But only a few of Kennedy’s laws get passed.

In 1963, he is shot dead. Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson takes over as president. Building on Kennedy’s momentum, Johnson promises to make the United States into a “Great Society” in which poverty has no place. He creates programs that help elderly and low-income people pay for healthcare, called Medicare and Medicaid; a program that prepares young children from low-income families for school, called Head Start; and he establishes training for unskilled workers through the Job Corps.

However, fighting poverty is expensive… …too expensive, it turns out, when the government shifts its attention to war in Vietnam. The communist government of North Vietnam is fighting against the anti-communist government of South Vietnam — who the United States is committed to supporting. Johnson diverts funds from social programs at home to send more troops and weapons to Vietnam. And in 1965, ordinary Americans begin to be called up to fight — drafted. The war drags on.

It divides Americans. Many older people support the war. But tens of thousands of young people flee to Canada to avoid the draft or take to the streets in protest. Students organise massive anti-war demonstrations on college campuses. The Vietnam War is not the only cause of protest during the decade… For many years, people have been protesting against widespread racism in America’s South.

In February 1960, four black students sit down at a whites-only lunch counter in North Carolina and refuse to leave. In the following days, hundreds of demonstrators go back to the lunch counter and tens of thousands clog other segregated restaurants and shops. The federal government has so far stayed out of the civil rights struggle. But in 1964, President Johnson passes a landmark law that forbids discrimination in public places and promises equal opportunities in the workplace: the Civil Rights Act. While the Act signals the government’s support for equality, it does not eliminate racism or poverty in Black neighbourhoods.

Civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr urge people to continue pursuing change through peaceful protest. But other Black leaders, like Malcolm X, encourage Black people to fight for their rights by any means necessary — including violence. As protest movements become larger and more militant over the decade, some people want to separate themselves from all the political unrest and from mainstream society at large. These people develop their own lifestyle based on values of acceptance and love. They are known as hippies.

Hippies grow their hair long and wear colourful clothing. Some live in groups on farms called communes, where they grow food, sing, dance, and make love together. In the final years of the 1960s, the optimism with which the decade opened seems far away. In April 1968, Martin Luther King, Jr. is shot dead.

In August of the same year, thousands of anti-war protestors who gather near a meeting of the Democratic Party in Chicago are tear-gassed and beaten by police. And the Democratic Party is divided over whether the United States should continue to fight in the war. The days of the “Great Society” are far gone and a new era of individualism is approaching.