Civil Rights Movements And Vietnam War example essay topic

I feel the three most important issues or developments in US history and culture in the last century were the U. S involvement in WWII, the civil rights movements, and Vietnam War. An important issue in US history and culture in the last century was the United States entering WW II in 1941. Restricted from direct military involvement by the Neutrality Laws of 1937, 1938, and 1939, the United States remained officially neutral, content to serve as the 'arsenal of democracy,' providing Britain and the Soviet Union with arms and money through the Lend-Lease Act of 1941. Under this law, the United States 'loaned' the Allies ships, tanks, and guns to prosecute the war, although payment was no longer expected. However, this official neutrality came to an end in December 1941. Though President Franklin D. Roosevelt regarded Germany as America's chief enemy, the Japanese Empire remained an aggressive adversary, coming into conflict with American interests and rights in the Pacific.

The United States condemned the Japanese war in China and when Tokyo invaded Southeast Asia, Washington threatened to cut off American oil exports to Japan, a possibility that would have ground the Japanese war machine to an immediate halt. After weeks of tense negotiations, the Japanese realized that war with the United States was inevitable if it wanted to satiate its true imperial desires. On the morning of December 7, 1941, Japan struck the American Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, crippling the American navy and its presence in the Pacific Ocean. The next day, the United States declared war on Japan.

Since Japan had, in 1940, joined with Italy and Germany in the Tripartite Pact, Germany honored its obligations and declared war on the United States. Although indignant about Japan's sneak attack, call to 'Get Hirohito First' were pushed aside by Roosevelt who saw Germany as democracy's primary enemy. Taking up a defensive position in the Pacific, the United States converted its giant economy to a total war footing against fascism. In Europe, Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill were not prepared for a major assault on Hitler's 'Fortress Europe' in France. Instead, they focused on North Africa and Italy... In the North African campaign, German General Erwin Rommel had, by June 1942, extended German control into Egypt where, from June to November of that year, he was stopped by British General Bernard Montgomery at the Battle of El Alamein.

American invasion force pushed eastward from Casablanca, Morocco. Facing heavy fighting from Tunisia to Sicily to Italy, it took the Allies until June 1944 to reach Rome. With opposition to Benito Mussolini growing, a coup d'etat in Rome had overthrown the fascists in September 1942, withdrawing Italy from its alliance with Germany. Not willing to allow Italy to become a springboard for an invasion of the Fatherland, Germany occupied its former ally and set up defensive positions across the peninsula.

Josef Stalin could bear this hesitation no longer. In November 1943, Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin met at Tehran, Iran to discuss war strategy. At this Tehran Conference, Roosevelt and Churchill pledged to open the second front in France within six months and Stalin pledged to help the United States in the Pacific War. Though Hitler had always considered the United States an enemy because of its material and financial support of Britain and the Soviet Union, the Fuhrer maintained real hopes that the United States would remain neutral.

After all, Germany had done nothing to provoke the Americans directly. Washington would have involved itself in the war sooner or later for one reason or another -- perhaps its already close connection with Britain, shipping rights on the high seas, interests in the Pacific Ocean, or if only to have its interests cared for in the peace conference to follow. All evidence, in fact, points to American involvement within six months of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In the Pacific, Japanese expansion was coming dangerously close to American islands; in Europe, the collapse of the Red Army and the continued weakness of Britain threatened to make Germany master of Europe, an economic eventuality American capitalists could not accept. Germany did pose a direct threat to the interests of the United States in various forms: morality, for its racial policy; economics, for its control of necessary markets; politics, for its opportunity to master the center of global politics at the time; military, for the eventual clash between the two remaining western powers. A crucial movement to the last century was the civil rights.

More than a hundred years ago the Europeans brought slaves to North America. The blacks found themselves in the midst of prejudice whites with no way out. When the blacks came over Jim Crow laws were incorporated. With these laws it was near impossible for blacks to rise in the white world. Booker T. Washington was the first black to rise to any prominence in this time. In the early 1900's blacks however began to fight back.

In 1909 black advancement organizations began to increase all over North America. Unfortunately with the rise of these groups also came the rise of racist white groups like the Ku Klux Klan and others brutally killing blacks. All blacks coming into N. America were being brought into a very hostile environment. The first sign of blacks becoming more equal was the blacks to fight in the World War.

For the first time they were looked upon as war veterans instead of black slaves. At the coming of the Second World War, blacks participating in the war were being more important positions than ever before. Franklin Roosevelt was the first president to make a strong contribution to the Civil Rights movement. He had signed a declaration that stated no one could be discriminated in the work place and other areas based on race. Also the high court passed a law that enabled black children to have the same education opportunities as white children. The next major struggle of the Civil Rights movement began in Montgomery, Alabama, a year after the Brown vs. Board of Education decision.

In Montgomery, by law, blacks were required sit in the back seats of public buses, while whites sat in the front. If the bus was so crowded that all the seats in front were occupied, blacks were to give their seats to white passengers. On December 1, 1955, an unassuming, well-regarded seamstress named Rosa Parks refused to give her seat to a white man. She was arrested and placed in jail. The local black population was incensed. For several months, civil rights activists had been planning a boycott of the Montgomery bus system, but were unsure of when or how to begin.

With the furor among blacks in Montgomery created by the Rosa Parks incident, they decided that the time was right to strike. The 26-year-old pastor of Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Martin Luther King was nominated to lead the boycott. King was reluctant to lead at first. Other pastors had been urging him for months to get involved with civil rights struggles and he had politely declined, claiming that he was too busy with his church.

But after much urging he finally agreed to lead the boycott, catapulting himself onto the national stage. The boycott lasted for over a year and garnered a great deal of national press and general sympathy. Blacks walked where they needed to go, formed carpools, and utilized the services of a black-owned taxi company that reduced fares for blacks boycotting the buses. The result was a Montgomery public transportation system nearing bankruptcy. Resistance and violence occurred, of course. King's house was bombed, and he and 89 others were indicted for conspiracy to conduct an illegal boycott.

They were convicted and forced to pay $1,000 fines, but the convictions only enhanced their moral credibility. In 1956 a federal court ordered that the Bus system be desegregated. During the two years, 1960 and 1961, non-violent Civil Rights movement hardened its tactics and got the ball rolling for the long battle ahead. The sit-ins, voter registration drives, and purposeful goading of white anger through things like the freedom rides garnered international press and overwhelming sympathy in most corridors of the world. The years of 1960 and 1961 were also instrumental in gaining the support of the masses of black people who had nothing to gain by the violence that civil rights struggles created in their neighborhoods and their lives. The voter registration drives were dangerous for the SNCC workers, but they could return to the North at the end of the summer.

The drives were far more dangerous to the registered black voters who had to remain in their Southern communities. Most blacks who fought for and with the civil rights movement had far more to lose than they could reasonably expect to gain. It is a testament to the energy and dedication of SNCC and CORE workers that they were able to inspire the Southern Blacks to take action, but an even more powerful testament to those Southern Blacks, themselves, who were willing to risk their lives for an ideal. The civil rights movement was one of inspired leaders such as Martin Luther King, Jr. But it was also a movement that found its power in the masses, both black and white; it was a movement of public outcry and public involvement, in which individuals put themselves in harm's way for their beliefs.

The death of Martin Luther King, Jr. effectively ended the ability of the modern Civil Rights movement to bring about further reform. King's comprehensive vision and inherent dignity, not to mention his new crusade, which had it succeeded would have bettered the lives of millions of everyday blacks, were beyond both the ambition and ability of any leader after him. King's death removed the only man who had the respect of both the militant Black Power movement and the non- violent civil rights activists, and his death also hardened feelings between blacks and whites. King was, after all, killed by a white man. The doubled tragedy of the Robert Kennedy assassination just two months later cemented the divide. With the death of these two men, the civil rights movement was thrown into chaos and split into factions from which it would never recover.

After King's death, the only real power in the ranks of civil rights advocates was the Black Power Movement. But this movement was too radical for whites, and in fact seemed to favor a separatist ethic of its own. As it was constituted, the Black Power movement could never inspire type of broad-based support that King garnered, and which was necessary to create change. After the 1965 Voting Rights Act there were no further reforms, with or without King's presence. Still others argue that full equality has not been achieved, and that for this reason the civil right's movement is not over at all. But despite these arguments the vital importance of the civil-rights movement in American history cannot be overlooked.

Through both its successes and the means through which it achieved those successes, the civil rights movement forced the United States, collectively and individually, to acknowledge a tradition of slavery and oppression that it had long ignored, and in doing so redefined the nation. Poverty, education, and racism are still part of today's society and in political battle with each other, but the efforts of all the blacks are paying off for everyone. The world does seem to be getting better. Another important issue in the U. S during the last century was the Vietnam War.

In the Vietnam War (1955-1975), the US and South Vietnam ultimately failed to prevent North Vietnam from unifying both halves of Vietnam under communist leadership. The war had roots in the First Indochina War (1945-1954), in which the Vietnamese communist-nationalists defeated their French colonial rulers and secured the independence of North Vietnam as a communist nation, with Emperor Bai Dao remaining as leader of South Vietnam. In the midst of the Cold War, the US, operating under a belief known as the Domino Theory, feared that with the 'fall' of North Vietnam to Communism, all of Southeast Asia might fall, setting off a sort of Communist chain reaction. Within a year of the North Vietnam victory over the French, the US began to offer support to the anti-Communist Ngo Dinh Diem, helping him to take control of the South Vietnamese government, which he subsequently declared a republic. in his effort to wrest control of South Vietnam from Bao Dai the US supported a series of weak and corrupt proxy governments in South Vietnam in order to prevent the extension of Communist influence in Indochina. The US supplied these South Vietnam governments with military as well as advisory support, and in 1963 went so far as to help organize a coup of Ngo Dinh Diem's government in favor of a regime the western powers felt would be able to withstand communist pressure... American military advisors, technological superiority, massive bombing campaigns and combat troops were unable to crush the Vietnamese communists, whose guerilla tactics proved remarkably resilient.

As the US shifted to a policy of d'e tente in the early 1970's, American policymakers struggled to find a way to withdraw from Vietnam without losing face. By 1973 that process was complete, and in 1975 North Vietnamese armies conquered Saigon, the southern capital. Domestically, the Vietnam War had profound effects in the US. Following the successful Civil Rights movement of the late 1950's and early 1960's, antiwar protest fueled the growth of a vibrant youth counterculture. Public opinion, extremely important in any war, turned decisively against US involvement in Vietnam by the end of the 1960's. Unlike most previous wars, the American media soured public opinion through a highly critical stance.

The Tet Offensive (1968), a devastating tactical defeat for the Vietnamese communists, was portrayed by the press as a loss for the US. Because of this media portrayal, the Tet Offensive ended up being a decisive victory for the Vietnamese communists. In 1971, several prominent newspapers published the Pentagon Papers, top-secret documents that proved the government had lied about Vietnam operations. As a result of the Vietnam War, the relationship between the media and the government changed profoundly, and the government lost a considerable amount of public trust that it may never entirely recover.