Civil Rights and Vietnam

Early Civil Rights

• Segregation had long been part of the American way of life

• Civil Rights movement seen as attack on pillar of Southern society: un-American, un-Christian, and imported to region by outside agitators

• Many believed that outside Northern agitators were coming in to disrupt the local way of life in the South. Such controversies played into paranoid Cold War rhetoric that demonstrated a stand off between the free world and the Soviet bloc.

Civil Defense Efforts in America: The government publicizes safety manuals to both ignite

and allay America’s fears

• These publications helped families determine where they could build a “safe haven” that would protect them from a nuclear fallout. These items would educate people about how to survive a nuclear war. A sign originally located in the TSLA building, designed as a nuclear fallout shelter.

The U.S. government prepares its citizens for what to do in case of nuclear attack

The Cold War moves into Space: Sputnik and the Origins of the Space Race

• On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched Sputnik I, the world’s first artificial satellite

• Because of Sputnik, American leaders feared that the Soviets could launch ballistic missiles with nuclear weapons

• The United States launched the Explorer in 1958; the U.S. authorizes the creation of NASA that same year.

• Apollo 11 reaches the moon in July of 1969; from 1970-1971, an exhibit memorializing the successful mission travels throughout the country, including Nashville

A 1959 Georgia Department of Education Publication linked the Highlander School with

Communism and racial integration

TVA and the growth of the Military-Industrial Complex in Tennessee

• TVA becomes the postwar provider of electrical power for the Department of Defense and Oak Ridge

TVA becomes the largest provider of nuclear power in Free World

1963-1973 The Vietnam War: Conflict abroad and unrest at home

• LBJ and the escalation of the Vietnam War after 1964

• “Domino Theory” as the dominant rationale of American foreign policy

Drug Use and Vietnam• In 1969, a Defense Department

study showed that 20 percent of US soldiers in Vietnam were using marijuana either occasionally or frequently. By 1969, military police were arresting 1,000 soldiers per week for possession. Heroin use also spread within a small group of soldiers and was readily available for only 2-3 dollars per dose. Drug urine analysis tests were performed on some soldiers before returning home. However, the majority of the soldiers did not use drugs as popular myth may suggest.

Protesting within Vietnam• Passers-by stop to watch as flames

envelope a young Buddhist monk, Saigon, October 5th, 1963.

The man sits impassively in the central market square, he has set himself on fire performing a ritual suicide in protest against governmental anti-Buddhist policies. Crowds gathered to protest in Hue after the South Vietnamese government prohibited Buddhists from carrying flags on Buddha's birthday. Government troops opened fire to disperse the dissidents, killing nine people, Diems government blamed the incident on the Vietcong and never admitted responsibility. The Buddhist leadership quickly organized demonstrations that eventually led to seven monks burning themselves to death.

Vietnamese children flee from their homes in Trang Bang June 8th, 1972. A South Vietnamese air force plane has accidentally dropped a napalm bomb on the village 26 miles outside of Saigon. This is without

a doubt one of the most remembered images of the war

Gulf of Tonkin• The Gulf of Tonkin Incident was an alleged pair of attacks -- the

second of which did not occur -- by North Vietnamese gunboats on two American destroyers, the USS Maddox and the USS Turner Joy, in August of 1964 in the Gulf of Tonkin. Later research, including a report released in 2005 by the National Security Agency, indicates that the second attack did not occur, but also attempts to dispel the long-standing rumor that U.S. President Lyndon Johnson had knowingly lied about the existence of the incident.

1960s Antiwar Protests and Youth Counterculture

• Antiwar protests during the 1960s, largely because of conscription

• Radicalization of college campuses• San Francisco/Berkeley as an epicenter of youth

counterculture• The Pill approved by the FDA in 1960; Women’s

Liberation movement• Widespread experimental drug use• Hippie culture amongst younger generation

Protestors against the War

The Farm as a microcosm of Sixties counterculture

• Hippie commune established near Summertown, Tennessee (still exists today)

• Founded by in 1971 by Steve Gaskin and 250 followers

• Focus on cooperative living, self-sufficiency, pacifism, organic farming, vegetarianism, midwifery, etc.

Kent State• The Kent State shootings, also known as May 4 or the Kent State

massacre, occurred at Kent State University in the city of Kent, Ohio, and involved the shooting of students by members of the Ohio National Guard on Monday, May 4, 1970. Four students were killed and nine others wounded.

• The shooters may have been angered by four days of increasingly agitated demonstrations by members of the student body. The students were protesting the American invasion of Cambodia which President Richard Nixon launched on April 25, and announced in a television address five days later.

Kent State

• Unarmed Kent State University student Alan Canfora faces the Ohio National Guard on the Kent State campus on May 4, 1970. Moments later they opened fire into the crowd of students, firing 67 shots in 13 seconds. Four students were killed, nine were injured. Alan dove behind a tree but was still shot in the hand. Photo: John Filo.