1960 A Turning Point In American History--论文代写范文精选

51due论文代写网精选代写范文:“1960 A Turning Point In American History”。1960年在美国历史上是一个重要的转折点，是一个变革的时期。通过民权运动推动了所有美国人的平等。同时，那一年越南战争所引发的一系列情绪，让年轻人打开了全新的说话方式，维护了言论自由的权利。而这一切，都发生在1960年...

The 1960s was a time of immense change for the country of America. During this time, the nation practically reformed itself in its way of life. This startling change was brought about by the people who believed it was time to be vocal about their views and ideals. Among these beliefs was the enforcing and perpetuation of equal rights across the nation, the Vietnam War conflict, and upholding the right to freedom of speech. These are just a few of the many issues the American public wished to address.

Prior to the era of the 60s, the people were conservative in voicing their opinion. Brought about mainly by the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement, the citizens of the United States found it necessary to have a voice that could be heard. People cried out both for and against civil rights. This would be a revolutionary movement in the social workings of the nation. Protests would play an important part in the fight for civil rights. The issue that would have one of the biggest roles in the reform of America—the Vietnam War. This controversial happening helped spark the need to be heard. Finally, Freedom of speech would also be put to the test in this era. Protests once again would function as a main avenue to spread people’s message. While the war in Vietnam was taking lives at a horrific rate, there was a much different war being waged in America. The war at home was one of social standards.

Thought of as one of the most prevalent turning points in American history, the 1960s would change the American way of life forever. The first issue to hit the 60s was equal and civil rights. Prior to the 1900s, segregation was a lawful practice across America. All that was required was that both races were provided with “equal” facilities. If these facilities were made available, then segregation was completely legal. It only took one person to start one of the largest movements in the era.

In 1955 a woman by the name of Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus. Normally this would be fine, except for the fact that Rosa Parks was black, and the man wanting her seat was white. For her refusal to move, she was placed under arrest. Because of her arrest, Rosa would become the starting fuel for the fire of anti-segregation protests. Action was taken without delay once the black population caught wind of her being taken into custody. In their outrage, a bus boycott was put into action. During this boycott, not once single person of color could be found on a bus in Montgomery.

In 1956, a law was passed that deemed any form of segregation illegal and immoral. As could be expected, many were not open to this idea. All over the country public facilities were closed, as opposed to letting colored people inside. Although congress had at last instilled a Civil Rights Act, which abolished segregation, the black populace of America had an arduous journey ahead of them before their civil rights were to be at the same level as every other American. As a result of the seeming non-compliance to the Civil Rights Act, many minority groups were created to assemble rallies and marches to give voice to their cause.

Three main groups were formed, SNCC (Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee), the SCLC (Southern Christian Leadership Conference), and CORE (Congress Of Racial Equality). As there often will be, there are a few notable individuals in this movement. Martin Luther King Jr. and James Farmer were seen as leaders of the anti-segregation movement. Born in 1929, Martin Luther King Jr., was well-known for his means of anti-violent protest. He was a follower and supporter of the methods of Gandhi. He said Gandhi taught him that, “…there is more power in socially organized masses on the march than… in guns in the hands of a few desperate men.” King was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964. He was the youngest person to ever receive the award in its entire history. Tragically, Martin Luther King Jr.’s life was taken on April 4, 1968, when he was assassinated at the age of 39 at his hotel in Memphis, Tennessee. Following his murder, eighty riots broke out that evening. James Earl Ray was arrested and convicted of this shocking crime.

Another key individual in the civil rights movement was James Farmer. He was the first black man in the history of the United States to earn a Ph.D. Farmer was also the originator of CORE. He believed that the blacks in general would be thought of as ignorant and substandard until they had equal education and job training. He commanded that the government make available programs that could educate and provide job training. In support of his argument he stated, “When a society has crippled some of its people, it has an obligation to provide the requisite crutches”. Both Farmer and King were essential individuals in the anti-segregation movement. Playing a very important role in the anti-segregation fight were protests. Mainly protests of a non-violent nature. Martin Luther King Jr. pushed for protests of only a peaceful nature. His policy for the non-violent protest was the most admired one at the time. One of the most commonly used methods of peaceful protest was the sit-in. Demonstrations of this type were first seen in 1960, in Greensboro, North Carolina. In spite of being doused in condiments and viciously beaten by violent onlookers, four black students refused to vacate a Woolworth’s lunch counter until they were served. The students wrapped their ankles around the stools and grasped the edges of their seats, defiantly resisting all attempts to remove them.

Yet a more efficient way of protest was marching. In 1964, a march was held that traveled from Selma, Alabama all the way to Montgomery. Because of this march, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 was passed. Proving how significant this movement actually was, another march took place on Washington in 1963. The crowd easily numbered two-hundred and fifty thousand individuals. Amazingly, sixty-thousand of the protesters were white. The march on Washington was also the day of Martin Luther King’s famous “I have a dream” speech, in which he proclaimed, “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character…that one day down in Alabama…little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers…and when this happens and when we allow freedom to ring… from every village…from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all God’s children, black men and white men, Jews and gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing… ‘Free at last. Free at last. Thank God Almighty, we are free at last.’”

Unfortunately, the non-violent attitudes of protesters did not always coincide with the attitudes of the people opposing them. A bomb was set off during a Sunday school class held in Birmingham, and four young girls fell victim to its blast. Bull Conner, who was ironically the public commissioner of safety, ordered the arrests of hundreds of non-violent student protestors. He also ordered high-pressured fire hoses and police dogs to be turned on the marchers. His orders resulted in numerous injuries to the protestors. Even the reporters who coved the events more often than not found themselves on the receiving end of the violence. Many were beaten, and sometimes their cameras destroyed. The feeling amongst white supremacists was that the media encouraged the movement for equal rights, and this feeling proved to be true. “Without the…media… the movement might not have succeeded, for the rest of the nation… would not have seen in action the violent racism practiced by southern whites.” The battle between white supremacists and those in support of equal rights would not be short lived. But while the war for anti-segregation was taking place in the southern United States, a different kind of war was being waged in Vietnam.

The Vietnam War can trace its beginnings to the early 1950s. The Viet Minh, who controlled North Vietnam, and the French, who controlled South Vietnam, both wished to unite the country. The only problem was that neither party wished to release their control of it. After some fighting, France finally abandoned their effort in 1954. This left Ngo Dinh Diem in charge of the south, but he lacked the resources to put up a fight against the Viet Minh. Instead of surrendering to the North, Diem put in a plea for help to the United States. President Kennedy decided to send a small number of troops to South Vietnam to provide assistance. Initially, the American public was in agreement with this decision. Soon after, in 1963, Diem was assassinated, this would be an event that would start the beginning of a drastic change in the involvement of the United States in Vietnam. No able government was fashioned after Diem’s death, so the U.S. was forced to “shoulder… more and more of the burden of the war.” By 1967, the Vietnam War was costing America seventy million dollars a day, and by the war’s end, twenty-three million Vietnamese and fifty-eight thousand Americans were dead. This was a hefty toll of American life, and the public began to voice their displeasure. To make matters worse, changes were made to the draft.

Before 1966, no student could be pulled into the draft. However, following 1966, students with below average grades were eligible to be sent to war. This resulted in a negative attitude towards the draft amongst America’s youth, and this in turn helped form the beginnings of the Peace Movement. Due to the turn of events in the Vietnam War, protests become a prevalent part of American life. Fortunately, most demonstrators of the war observed the law during their protests, seeing violence as a method that would only hurt their cause. Teach-ins were used as an early method of protesting. Speakers would travel around the country to debate. On May 15, 1965, a national teach-in took place in Washington D.C. The purpose of this protest was to inform numerous people of the issues pertaining to Vietnam. Another regular form of protest was by the use of pamphlets. Pamphlets were used because there was a widespread distrust of the newspapers during that time. Speculations have been made that the quantity of pamphlets distributed during the 1960s rivaled the figure of pamphlets circulated during the period of the Revolutionary War. Although the majority of protests sat well within legal bounds, there were numerous illicit forms of protest taking place. One of the more popular ways to protest in an unlawful manner was to avoid the draft. Men would run away to Canada or Europe, declare that religious beliefs prevent them from fighting, or burned their draft cards, all in an effort to evade the draft.

The young men of America were not the only ones who contended that their country should not meddle in the affairs of Vietnam. They were backed by support from a number of the general public as well. In an extreme example, an eighty-two-year-old woman named Alice Herz protested in a way disturbingly alike to that of the Buddhist monks in Vietnam. On March 16, 1965, in protest of the war, the Quaker woman took her life by the means of immolation. In 1973, caving to the widespread disapproval of the war, President Nixon ordered the withdrawal of troops in Vietnam. Almost two years after the order was issued, the last of the American servicemen finally returned home. Sadly, the return home for the servicemen who served their country was not warm due to the anti-war sentiment that ran rampant throughout the nation. A large part of this attitude was due to student movements, but at the same time, the war was not the singular focus of these student groups.

One of the side effects from the war protests was that the young adults of America learned that they too had a voice. Since the baby boom, the population of colleges in the United States had more than doubled. This generation “…felt power of their numbers, and they felt also that they should have more say in the issues that affected their lives…” The flexing of these newfound muscles can be unmistakably seen through the events that took place at Berkeley. In 1964, officials at Berkeley University passed regulations that forbid the use of a popular sidewalk in front of school to protest. The students declared that the ban was withholding their right of free speech. Over a thousand people took part in a rally and sit-in the subsequent day in which more than eight hundred people were arrested. However, the administration eventually backed down, and after a thirty-two-hour standoff , the regulation was revoked. The success of this movement marked the first of its time, and it provided a model for others to follow.

Unfortunately, the occurrences at Kent State in 1970 brought this form of protest to an abrupt halt. When Nixon ordered troops into Cambodia, the ROTC building on campus was set ablaze as a way of protesting. The National Guard was called in because it was thought that things were getting out of hand. The guard proceeded to throw tear gas into the crowd, and the demonstrators threw them right back into the soldiers. Disregarding direct orders, the soldiers fired into the crowd. As a result, ten students were injured and sadly four were murdered. Most of those shot were hit in the back, thus proving they were fleeing, not attacking the soldiers. The nation was livid upon hearing the news of the events that took place at Kent. Over half of the students across the nation partook in strikes and demonstrations, at least a million of which were demonstrating for the first time. Just over five-hundred campuses cancelled classes, and close to fifty had to close for the whole semester due to demonstrations. Because of these actions, the legal voting age was changed from twenty-one to eighteen in acknowledgment of the impact of student opinion. The young people of America were finally starting to be recognized.

The era of the 1960s was a period of change. The change was mainly political in nature. Through the civil rights movement, some people were mentally assaulted by this radical new train of thought. These people tried to resist, but they quickly became the minority as the nation as one, over powered them. The civil rights movement resulted in the equality of all Americans, not just whites. This was a catalyst for the major transformation the country was about to go through. The Vietnam War was one of those controversial events that spurred a slew of emotions. Those feelings were made very public; something not done much in the past. The war opened up a whole new doorway for young adults who in the past believed themselves to have been outspoken. This led into the right of upholding the freedom of speech. Young people over the nation took a stand to say that they would not be silenced. They had a message, and it must be heard.

The period of the 60s was a time of love and war. It was this struggle by both sides that shaped the United States into what it is at the present. Ironically, many who seemed to favor peace—President John Kennedy, his brother Bobby, Martin Luther King, to name a few—were themselves murdered. These monumental events affected every single person. These events changed the way people thought. The 60s started off as a political movement that transformed into a movement creating social change. This change is what leaves an irreversible mark in our history books today.-H

5.Hakim, Joy. A History of US: All the People: 1945-1999. Book 10. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

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