Chapter 38 Reading Guide
Vocabulary
New Frontier
Peace Corps
Apollo
Berlin Wall
European Economic Community (EEC)
Bay of Pigs Invasion
Cuban missile crisis
Freedom Riders
Voter Education Project
March on Washington
Civil Rights Act of 1964
Affirmative action
Great Society
Freedom Summer
Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party
Voting Rights Act of 1965
Black Panther party
Black Power
Six-Day War
Stonewall Rebellion
Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)
Reading Questions
1. How do Kennedy’s presidential cabinet and programs demonstrate the “New Frontier” spirit?
2. What setbacks does President Kennedy’s New Frontier program face?
3. What steps does President Kennedy take to expand America’s space exploration?
4. Why do the Soviets begin construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961?
5. Describe the steps taken by the United States to expand trade with Europe.
6. How does Charles de Gaulle thwart American efforts to create an “Atlantic community?”
7. How does the civil war in Laos cause a shift in Kennedy’s foreign policy? What is that shift?
8. Describe how the United States becomes increasingly involved in South Vietnam from 1961-1963.
9. Describe the Alliance for Progress and its level of success.
10. What was the result of the Bay of Pigs invasion?
11. Describe the Cuban missile crisis and the actions of both Kennedy and Khrushchev. What is the end result of this conflict?
12. What was the goal of the Freedom Riders?
13. Describe the steps taken by the Kennedy administration to support the cause of civil rights in 1962 and 1963.
14. What was the significance of the campaign to end discrimination in Birmingham, Alabama?
15. Why was the summer of 1963 so significant for the civil rights movement?
16. Even as gains were being made, what two events from June-September 1963 demonstrated the violence of southern whites against African Americans?
17. Describe the events of the Kennedy assassination.
18. What law does President Johnson get passed, partially as a tribute to Kennedy’s legacy? What does this law do?
19. Describe the Tonkin Gulf incident in 1964. What Resolution does this lead Congress to pass, and what does that resolution do?
20. Even though Goldwater is crushed in the Election of 1964, what is significant about the states he does win?
21. Describe how Congress escalates the War on Poverty in the first year of Johnson’s presidency.
22. Describe the laws passed to achieve each of the following goals in the Great Society: aid to education, medical care for the elderly and poor, immigration reform, voting rights.
23. According to the textbook, how successful was the Great Society?
24. Describe each of the following and their significance to increasing black voting rights:
- 24th Amendment
- Freedom Summer
- March on Selma
- Voting Rights Act of 1965
25. How does the Watts riot in Los Angeles lead to a change in the civil rights movement?
26. Describe how each of these people/groups like Malcolm X, the Black Panthers, and Stokely Carmichael shift the goals of some blacks in the civil rights movement.
27. Even as gains were made in the civil rights movement, how and why were urban areas in the North becoming a new battleground in the movement?
28. What happens in response to the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.?
29. What steps does LBJ take to stop the supposed Communist takeover of the Dominican Republic?
30. What steps does the United States take in response to the Viet Cong attack on an American airbase in South Vietnam in 1965?
31. What does the escalation of the war in Vietnam mean for the United States in terms of money and manpower by 1968?
32. What is the significance of the Six-Day War? What happens as a result of this war?
33. Describe the increase in opposition to the Vietnam War within the civilian population and within the government.
34. What dramatic step does LBJ take with the CIA in 1967?
35. Why is the Tet offensive such a blow to President Johnson? How do American military leaders respond to Tet?
36. Who challenges LBJ in the Democratic primaries in 1968? What is the significance of LBJ’s speech on March 31, 1968?
37. What happens at the Democratic national convention in Chicago in 1968? Who ends up getting the nomination?
38. Who runs for the Republicans, and who is the American Independent candidate in the election of 1968? Who wins?
39. In the section titled “The Obituary of Lyndon Johnson”, what is Johnson’s legacy?
40. What are the changes to American society in the 1960s? Look at religion, the Free Speech Movement and other youth movements, the sexual revolution, gay rights, and the Students for a Democratic Society, and later the Weathermen.