HIST 2401 Lecture Notes - National Defense Education Act
Document Summary
9 the struggle for civil rights in the 1950s and 1960s. The 1960s saw a wide spread uprising and unrest. Civil rights was triggered by brown v. board of education (1954), civil rights posed profound questions about what the state can do about cultural forms of racism and discrimination. These two things raised the first serious doubts about the morality of the american nation and its ostensible commitment to its own ideals. It also came to be interpreted as a way of seeing the kennedy"s as the american equivalent of royalty. Soviet satellite sputnik, 1957: national defense education act (1958) gave more money to schools for science, kennedy"s youth and manliness offers image of self-sacrifice. Myrdal said that americans have a creed of equality but they have not lived up to the creed. Real challenge would be in the north instead of the south because blacks had more opportunity.