The Enduring Legacy of the 1960s
As the 1960s began, Americans were filled with hope and optimism. Their newly elected president, John F. Kennedy (1917–1963; served 1961–63), called on Americans to join him as they ventured into a "New Frontier," one that included the expansion of prosperity at home and democracy around the world and the placing of a man on the moon. Kennedy's optimism, his enthusiastic visions, were emblematic of one side of the 1960s, the side that historian David Farber aptly called "the age of great dreams" in his book of the same title. Others shared Kennedy's tendency to dream: civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. called on Americans to live out their commitment to equality for all; President Lyndon B. Johnson created a set of programs known as the Great Society with the goal of wiping out poverty and ensuring equality; antiwar protestors called for a just and moral U.S. foreign policy; hippies dreamed of a world where peace and love were all that mattered.
These dreams, and many others, were powerful goals for action in what turned out to be a tumultuous decade. They led mass numbers of Americans into action. Acting ontheir dreams, Democratic presidents dramatically expanded the size of the federal government; civil rights protestors marched and bled in the streets; American soldiers died in Vietnam in order, they were told, to stop the spread of Communism; Hispanic Americans led boycotts in the fields of southern California; Native Americans forcibly occupied land they believed belonged to them; women asserted their equal rights; and peace activists burned their draft cards as a signal of their refusal to fight in the war.
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