1950s
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The Civil Rights Bill
Years of sacrifice culminated in the passage of legislation of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. When the bill was introduced, there was a lengthy debate of its contents. Southern congressmen fought against the bill with every breath. However, the public mode was behind change, and change is what was received with the passage of this bill. The bill was the most significant piece of legislation to date, and it has had a lasting effect in the elimination of discrimination and segregation.
The act included 11 titles that covered a variety of issues. Included below is a sampling of the most significant titles:
I. Outlaws arbitrary discrimination in voter registration and
expedites voting rights suits;
II. Bars discrimination in public accommodations such as hotels
and restaurants;
III. & IV. Authorized the national government to bring suits to
desegregate public facilities and schools;
V. Extends the life and expands the power of the Civil Rights
Commission;
VI. Provides for federal financial assistance to be terminated
or withheld from educational institutions and programs that
practice racial discrimination;
VII. Prohibits private employers from refusing to hire or from
firing or from discriminating against any person because of race,
color, sex, religion, or nation origin.
Title VII was the most significant of all the sections However, when initially introduced by Kennedy prior to his death, it was only to apply to government employ-ment. After much debate and revision before Congress, it was changed to private sector employment only. Federal, state, and local government employment were excluded
from the law.
Southern congressmen tried to sabotage the bill by adding “sex – gender” to the original bill. They thought that this would surely kill the bill. To their dismay, the bill was passed with the gender specification intact.
Political Leaders of the Time
Harry Truman
On April 12, 1945, Truman was sworn in as president after being vice-president for only eighty-two days. The first few months of his presidency was filled with briefings by Roosevelts aides, attempting to educate him about current issues. Truman tried his best to stay informed about World War II. On his sixty-first birthday, V-E Day, Germany surrendered. Next, he issued the Potsdam Declaration to Japan, looking for their surrender in exchange. When Japan refused, Truman authorized the drop of the bomb on Hiroshima, then Nagasaki. Japans casualties were immense and they had no choice but to surrender.
Rosa Parks
Most historians date the beginning of the United States civil right movement to December 1, 1955. That day Rosa Parks took the bus because she was feeling tired after a long day in the department store where she worked as a seamstress. She was sitting in the middle section, very glad to be off her feet at last, when a white man boarded the bus and demanded that her row be emptied because the white section was full. The others in the row moved to the back of the bus, but Parks didnt feel like standing for the rest of the ride, and she quietly refused to move. When word of Parks arrest broke out, it spread quickly. A boycott of the Montgomery bus company was formed by Martin Luther King Jr. About 90% of the blacks that usually rode the buses joined the boycott and found other means of transportation. The bus company lost a vast amount of money because 70% of the people on the buses were blacks.
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhouse Nixon, 37th president of the United States, was born January 9, 1913 in Yorba Linda, California. Nixon was one of the most controversial politicians. He used the communist scare of the late forties and early fifties to catapult his career, but as president he eased tension with the Soviet Union and opened relations with Red China. He was president during the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War.
Entertainer fo the Time
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aron Presley was born to Vernon and Gladys Presley in 1935 in Tupelo Mississippi. Their were supposed to be two boys born that day, but Elvis twin brother Jesse Garon Presley was born still, Elvis would remain a single child for the rest of his life.Growing up in Tupelo, Mississippi was not easy for the Presleys, they made a commitment to bring Elvis up right, and to make him a good member of the church, but as for money, they couldnt provide. For his 12 birthday, he wanted a bicycle, but the Presleys could only afford a $12 guitar. The family moved to Memhpis, Tennessee when Elvis was in junior high, but they were greeted with much of the same. They could barely provide food and clothing for Elvis. However Elvis persevered and came to be known as the King of Rocking roll.
Arthur Miller
A leading American playwright, Arthur Miller, b. New York City, Oct. 17, 1915, has enriched the Broadway stage for several decades. Although Millers dramas take place in familial settings, he has made a reputation for dealing with contemporary political and moral issues. Miller began writing plays while a student at the University of Michigan, where several of his dramatic efforts were rewarded with prizes. In 1937, during his senior year, one of his early plays was presented in Detroit by the Federal Theatre Project. In 1944 his, The Man Who Had All the Luck won a prize offered by New York Citys Theatre Guild.
J. D. Salinger
Jerome David Salinger was born in New York City in 1919. He attended and graduated from a military acedemy, then shortly attended two colleges. He has written some of the most influential
American literature in the twentieth century. Some of his short stories originally appeared in the New Yorker magazine and were later published as in the