Essential Question: How did the fight against discrimination raise new issues during the 1950�s and early 1960�s? What foreign policy did Kennedy champion?
I. The Fight against Discrimination
A. Brown v. Board of Education (1954)
1. Supreme Court case on the constitutionality of segregated schools
a. Found that state- mandated segregated schools violated the
constitutional right of African American students
-Overturned Plessy vs Ferguson (1896)
2. Brown II decreed that school desegregation would not go into effect
immediately but �with all deliberate speed�
a. Some southern members of Congress intended to resist
B. The Montgomery Bus Boycott and Martin Luther King, Jr.
1. Began when Rosa Parks, an active member of the local NAACP
chapter, defied a local segregation ordinance
2. Local blacks mobilized and instituted a total boycott of the bus system
a. Financial losses to the company finally forced desegregation
3. Boycott vaulted Martin Luther King, Jr., to prominence
a. Went on to found Southern Christian Leadership Conference
b. Embarked on campaign of civil disobedience to show people the
moral evil of racial discrimination
II. The Kennedy Years: Foreign Policy
A. Kennedy�s foreign policy goals
1. Strong administration support for military assistance programs,
propaganda agencies, and covert action plans
B. Cuba
1. Worst fiasco of Kennedy presidency was a daring but ill-conceived
mission against Cuba
a. CIA plan to oust Castro from Cuba
b. U.S.-backed and -trained forces landed at Bay of Pigs in April 17, 1961
c. Kennedy refused to provide promised air cover, and invaders
were quickly captured
2. Cuban missile crisis Oct 62 over construction of Soviet missile bases
a. Kennedy favored of quarantine of Cuba to prevent actual arrival
of missiles
b. Soviets decided to dismantle missile sites in exchange for
withdrawal of US missiles from Turkey
C. Southeast Asia and flexible response
1. Geneva Accords in 1954 temporarily divided Vietnam at 17th parallel
a. Created anti-communist government in South under Ngo Dinh
Diem, and a communist government in the North under Ho Chi
Minh
2. Eisenhower Administration articulated domino theory to justify US
backing of noncommunists in South Vietnam
a. Ike�s strategy was to thwart communism around the World
3. Administration committed military advisors, aid and national prestige to
South Vietnam and tied US honor to Diem�s political position
4. JFK continued Ike�s policy of creating a viable, noncommunist state in
South Vietnam
a. Kennedy�s flexible response policy proposed a variety of
methods for combating communist movements around the globe