Period 8: 1945–1980

Source: President Lyndon B. Johnson, Special Message to the Congress: The American Promise, March 15, 1965:

"Rarely are we met with a challenge, not to our growth or abundance, our welfare or our security, but rather to the values and the purposes and the meaning of our beloved Nation. The issue of equal rights for American Negroes is such an issue... It is not just Negroes, but really it is all of us, who must overcome the crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice. And we shall overcome."

Which of the following was the most direct legislative result of the sentiments expressed in the excerpt?

"We are proposing a new way of living, one that is not geared to the accumulation of plastic goods, television sets, and suburban lawns. Our parents have given us comfort, but they have starved our spirits. We want to build communities where cooperation and creative expression replace the competitive rat race of the corporate world."
— Editorial in an underground youth newspaper, 1967

Which of the following historical developments of the 1960s is most directly reflected in the sentiments expressed in the excerpt?

The table below shows the distribution of the United States population across different residential areas in 1950 and 1970:

Which of the following was a major consequence of the demographic shift illustrated in the table between 1950 and 1970?

“I don't think that unless a greater effort is made by the Government in Vietnam to win the popular support that the war can be won out there. In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisors, but they have to win it, the people of Vietnam, against the Communists.”
— President John F. Kennedy, television interview, September 2, 1963

Which of the following foreign policy goals most directly motivated the United States assistance described in the excerpt?

“We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? ... We found that not only have it been a common practice of our officers to lead us to believe that the Vietnamese were less than human... but we found also that this was a policy which was created from the top down... We are here in Washington also to say that the problem of this war is not just a question of war and diplomacy. It is a question of the nature of the country itself.”

— John Kerry, testimony before the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 1971

Which of the following historical developments was the most direct consequence of the political pressure and public disillusionment represented in the excerpt?

"I was a twenty-two-year-old veteran with a wife and a baby, and no prospect of owning a home. Then came the new government programs. With no down payment and low interest rates, we were able to buy a brand-new house in a suburban development. Suddenly, we had a yard, a modern kitchen, and a community of families just like ours."
—Adapted from a postwar veteran's oral history, c. 1950

Which of the following federal initiatives most directly enabled the homeownership opportunities described in the excerpt?

"Another Negro woman has been arrested and put in jail because she refused on the bus to give up her seat. . . . Don't ride the busses for work, to town, to school, or anywhere on Monday. . . . If you work, take a cab, or share a ride, or walk."

— Montgomery Women's Political Council leaflet, 1955

The protest promoted in the leaflet above was organized to directly challenge which of the following?

"As a Black person, I am no stranger to prejudice. But the truth is that in the political world I have been far more discriminated against because I am a woman than because I am Black. When I ran for the House of Representatives, I encountered more opposition because of my sex than because of my race. . . . Prejudice against Black people is becoming unacceptable although it will take years to eliminate it. But prejudice against women is still acceptable."
— Representative Shirley Chisholm, address to the United States House of Representatives, 1969

Which of the following developments of the late 1960s and 1970s did the sentiments expressed in the excerpt most directly reflect?

"No longer will older Americans be denied the healing miracle of modern medicine. No longer will illness clean out the savings of half a lifetime so that one child may have a hope of entering college. And no longer will this Nation backward look to a time when hope was blasted and when doubt was a constant companion."

— President Lyndon B. Johnson, Remarks on the Signing of the Medicare Bill, July 30, 1965

Which of the following Great Society programs was established by the legislation described in the excerpt?

Source: Sargent Shriver, Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity, testimony before the House Committee on Education and Labor, 1964.

"We are not trying to build a welfare state. We are trying to build an opportunity state. We are not trying to make the poor comfortable in their poverty. We are trying to help them get out of it... The Economic Opportunity Act does not guarantee anyone an income. It does guarantee them a chance to earn an income."

Based on the excerpt, in which of the following ways did the Great Society's approach to combating poverty differ most significantly from the domestic reforms of the New Deal?

"Self-determination for the Chicano community can only be achieved through organization and leadership. Education must be the vehicle for this liberation. The university has historically functioned as an instrument of socialization, designed to assimilate us and maintain the status quo. We must demand that the university open its doors to our youth, establish Chicano Studies programs, and serve as a resource for the Chicano community."

— Chicano Coordinating Committee on Higher Education, *El Plan de Santa Barbara*, 1969

Which of the following historical developments of the late 1960s and 1970s is most directly reflected in the ideas expressed in the excerpt?

Ronald Reagan, "A Time for Choosing" speech, 1964

"This is the issue of this election: Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American Revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. . . . You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down: [up] man's old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course."

Based on the excerpt, the ideas expressed by the speaker most directly contributed to which of the following political shifts in the 1970s and 1980s?

Source: Stokely Carmichael, 'What We Want,' 1966

'One of the tragedies of the struggle against racism is that up to now there has been no national organization which could speak to the growing militancy of young black people in the urban ghettos. There has been only a leadership and a rhetoric framed in terms of free integration into the middle class... integration in this country has meant that a few blacks are allowed into the white middle class, while the masses are left behind.'

Which of the following developments within the civil rights movement of the 1960s is best illustrated by the excerpt?

El Plan Espiritual de Aztlán, First National Chicano Liberation Youth Conference, 1969

"In the spirit of a new people that is conscious not only of its proud historical heritage but also of the brutal gringo invasion of our territories: We, the Chicano inhabitants and civilizers of the northern land of Aztlán from whence came our forefathers, reclaiming the land of their birth and consecrating the determination of our people of the sun, declare that the call of our blood is our power, our responsibility, and our inevitable destiny. . . . Nationalist nationalism is the common denominator that unites us. We are a bronze people with a bronze culture. Before the world, before all of North America . . . we are a nation, we are a union of free pueblos, we are Aztlán."

The sentiments expressed in the excerpt represent a shift from the dominant goals of mid-twentieth-century civil rights organizations primarily by which of the following?

"Women are an oppressed class. Our oppression is total, affecting every facet of our lives. We are exploited as sex objects, breeders, domestic servants, and cheap labor. We are considered inferior, as beings whose only purpose is to enhance the lives of men. . . . We identify the agents of our oppression as men. Male supremacy is the oldest, most basic form of domination. All other forms of exploitation and oppression (racism, capitalism, imperialism, etc.) are extensions of male supremacy."
— Redstockings Manifesto, 1969

Which of the following statements best describes how the ideology expressed in the excerpt differed from the goals of mainstream feminist organizations like the National Organization for Women (NOW)?

"All the signs point to a major realignment of the American electorate... The Negro revolution and its impact on the white suburbs and industrial heartland is the major single factor in the destruction of the New Deal coalition... The national Democratic Party has become the party of the black population, the liberal establishment, and the young, leaving the great middle-class majority to find a new home in the Republican Party."
—Adapted from Kevin Phillips, political strategist, *The Emerging Republican Majority*, 1969

Which of the following developments in the late 1960s and 1970s most directly contributed to the political realignment described in the excerpt?

"We, as Young Americans, believe that foremost among the transcendent values is the individual’s use of his God-given free will, whence derives his right to be free from the restrictions of arbitrary government; that liberty is indivisible, and that political freedom cannot long exist without economic freedom; that the purpose of government is to protect those liberties through the preservation of internal order, the provision of national defense, and the administration of justice..."
— Young Americans for Freedom, The Sharon Statement, 1960

The principles expressed in the excerpt most directly contributed to which of the following political developments in the 1970s and 1980s?

"The energy crisis is real. It is worldwide. It is a clear and present danger to our Nation. These are facts and we simply must face them... we must begin a systematic program to develop other sources of energy... and we must conserve that energy which we waste."
— President Jimmy Carter, Address to the Nation on Energy, July 15, 1979

The energy crisis described in the excerpt was most directly caused by which of the following?

"Finally, you have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the 'falling domino' principle. You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly. So you could have a beginning of a disintegration that would have the most profound influences. Now, with respect to the transition of this, if Indochina passes, then several things can happen. It would turn the position of the neighboring nations and make it very difficult for them to remain free or self-governing... So, the possible consequences of the loss are just incalculable to the free world."

— President Dwight D. Eisenhower, News Conference, April 7, 1954

Which of the following developments in United States foreign policy was most directly motivated by the policy concept described in the excerpt?

"In the end, the hippie subculture is a product of our affluent society. Unlike the rebels of the Depression era, who fought for economic security, today's youth have grown up in unprecedented prosperity. Because they take material comfort for granted, they are free to reject it. They see the frantic chase for consumer goods as a spiritual trap. Their rebellion is not against lack of wealth, but against the conformity and emptiness of a life dedicated solely to acquiring it. They seek instead a revolution of consciousness, focused on personal relationships, artistic expression, and a return to nature."

— Time magazine, "The Hippies: Philosophy of a Subculture," 1967

The sentiments expressed in the excerpt most directly reflect which of the following historical developments?