Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
soul': to realize color-blind justice, racial equality and fairness of economic opportunity
for all.
Beginning in the 1950s, King preached and organized nonviolent resistance in the
form of bus boycotts, marches and sit-ins, mainly in the South. White authorities often
met these protests with water hoses and police batons, and demonstrations sometimes
dissolved into riots, but with the 1964 Civil Rights Act, African Americans spurred a
wave of legislation that swept away racist laws and laid the groundwork for a more just
and equal society.
Meanwhile, the 1960s saw further social upheavals: rock and roll spawned a youth re-
bellion and drugs sent Technicolor visions spinning in their heads. President John F
Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963, followed by the assassinations in 1968 of
his brother, Senator Robert Kennedy, and of Martin Luther King (in Memphis). Americ-
ans' faith in their leaders and government was further shocked by the bombings and bru-
talities of the Vietnam War, as seen on TV, which led to widespread student protests. Yet
President Richard Nixon, elected in 1968 partly for promising an 'honorable end to the
war,' instead escalated US involvement and secretly bombed Laos and Cambodia. Then,
in 1972, the Watergate scandal broke: a burglary at Democratic Party offices in Washing-
ton was, through dogged journalism, tied to 'Tricky Dick,' who in 1974 became the first
US president to resign from office.
The tumultuous 1960s and '70s also witnessed the sexual revolution, women's libera-
tion and other events challenging the status quo. Milestones include the 1969 Stonewall
riots in Greenwich Village, NYC, which galvanized the gay rights movement when pat-
rons of a gay bar called the Stonewall Inn fought back after a police raid, demanding
equal rights and an end to persecution. A few months later, the Woodstock Festival
defined the Vietnam era with its peace-love-and-flowers hippies swaying in the fields to
rock music.
Reagan, Clinton & the Bushes
In 1980, California's Republican governor and former actor Ronald Reagan campaigned
for president by promising to make Americans feel good about America again. The af-
fable Reagan won easily, and his election marked a pronounced shift to the right in US
politics. Military spending and tax cuts created enormous federal deficits, which
hampered the presidency of Reagan's successor, George HW Bush. Despite winning the
Gulf War - liberating Kuwait in 1991 after an Iraqi invasion - Bush was soundly de-
feated in the 1992 presidential election by Southern Democrat Bill Clinton. Clinton had
the good fortune to catch the 1990s high-tech internet boom, which seemed to augur a
'new economy' based on white-collar telecommunications. The US economy erased its
