Quiz #8

1. The A&T Four

The A&T Four, also known as the Greensboro Four, challenged
segregation, refusing to leave Woolworth after the white waitress
refused to serve them. These unarmed African American students
made a critical discovery that they could challenge authority and get
away with it. The sit-ins received significant media and government
attention. The Greensboro sit-ins inspired the civil rights activists in
other communities and new national civil rights organizations were
created. This demonstration forced whites to make facilities in
restaurants and other public places also available to African Americans.
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee was formed and
brought together young white and African Americans. They
demonstrated that ordinary people could confront the powerful and the
sit-ins motivated many Americans to confront other problems. In 1964,
the Civil Rights Act authorized desegregation in public
accommodations.
2. George Wallace
The 45th governor of Alabama, George Wallace was a Segregationist
governor. Wallace kept a campaign pledge to stand in the schoolhouse door
to block the integration of Alabama public schools. He defied federal officials
and tried to stop two African American students from enrolling at the
University of Alabama. He opposed the advancement of rights for African
Americans. However, President Kennedy federalized the Alabama National
Guard and helped black students to register for classes. Wallace In 1964, he
ran for president on an appeal to working-class and middle-class whites. He
ran three more times and earned the title of the most influential loser. In
1982, Wallace admitted that he had been wrong about the African
Americans. Thus, he organized labor and forces seeking to advance public
education. An assassination attempt left Wallace on a wheelchair for the rest
of his life.

3. The Feminine Mystique

After the WWII, more women went to college and worked outside the
homes but they were still expected to devote themselves to home and
family. Women still received the second-class status. In 1963, The
Feminine Mystique by Betty Freidan, also known as the book that
started the womens movement and feminism in the United States,
described the growing frustration of educated, middle-class wives and
mothers who had to give up their dreams for the needs of men. The
feminine mystique traps women from freely acting out their rights and

cause women to lose their identity within her family and domesticity.
Freidan wanted equal opportunity for women, in and out of marriage.
Thus, in 1963, Congress passed the Equal Pay Act, which gave men
and women equal pay for the same work but it had little impact. Then
the Civil Rights Act of 1964 prohibited employers from discriminating
on the basis of sex in compensation and hiring. However, the equal
employment opportunity commission did little to enforce the law.
Therefore, women formed the National Organization for Women to
express their liberal values and wrote a womens Bill of Rights for equal
rights and opportunities.
4. The Tet Offensive
In 1968 the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong launched the Tet
offensive. More than 100 cities and towns in South Vietnam were
attacked. The Tet Offensive became the turning point the United States
participating in the Vietnam War. The Tet offensive was enforced to
lead the South Vietnamese population to rise up against the regime in
Saigon and convince American leaders to give up their defense of
South Vietnam. The Tet Offensive made Johnsons increasingly troubled
administration worse. It also weakened the U.S public support for the
war in Vietnam. President Johnson declared to limit bombing in North
Vietnam and called for negotiations to end the war. More American
soldiers were killed due to peace talks and Johnson marked the end of
his presidency.
5. Black Panther Party for Self Defense
The Black Panther Party was an armed organization founded in 1966 by Huey
Newton and Bobby Seale. The party created the Ten-Point Program, which
was a set of guidelines to their ideals and ways of operation. It was a
combination of the Bill of Rights and the Declaration of Independence. It
consisted of two sections of what they want and what they believed. Dressed
in black clothes and black berets; they protected black neighborhoods from
white police officers. They believed that through violence they would gain
their desired goals of equality in education, housing, employment, and civil
rights. They were also designed to alleviate poverty and improve health
among the black community. Both whites and African Americans criticized the
group because of their violent image. However, the panthers helped bring
social change and reform for the African Americans. Black Panthers founded
schools and promoted civil rights activism. The group was the model for
Native American Red Panthers. The Ten-point program was overall
unsuccessful but some of the rights they demanded were slowly given to the
African American people through the civil rights movement.
7. Watergate

The Watergate scandal was the cause of Richard Nixons fall as president. In
Watergate, five men with ties to Richard Nixon's Committee to Re-Elect the
President (CREEP), broke into the headquarters of the Democratic National
Committee to repair an electronic eavesdropping device that had been
already planted. At first, the Watergate had no impact on Nixon but when
two reporters, Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein revealed payments linked
with Nixons White House staff and CREEP, they were captured put on trial.
Congress pressured Nixon to hand over the audiotapes but he continued to
deny their existence. However, when they were revealed, majority of the
content linking to Nixons crime had been deleted. Discovery of illegal
activities led to the resignation of President Nixon. The Watergate changed
the view of political figures for Americans and redefined the role of media in
politics. It also strengthened the Freedom of Information Act and allowed
people to get easier access to government related documents. This scandal
showed that even the most powerful person is not above the law. Gerald Ford
replaced Nixon and democrat Jimmy Carter became the next president,
promising to the people in the US never to lie.
8. Roe v. Wade
In Roe v. Wade in 1973, the Supreme Court ruled a Texas antiabortion law
unconstitutional because it violated the right to privacy of the Ninth and
Fourteenth Amendments. It legalized abortion in the first trimester of
pregnancy and the fetus does not have a legal status as a citizen for at least
the first three months. With this decision, unsafe abortions declined as
abortion began to become legal, widely available, and lower crime rates. It
allowed women to make their own decisions about their own life and the
government does not have the right to interfere with their personal health
decisions. However, there was an argument that a fetus is also a US citizen
and entitled to legal protection under law, therefore has a Right to Life.
9. Deindustrialization
In the 1970s, the economic decline began to reshape life in the United
States. Factories started to close and Americans were able to witness
deindustrialization, seen as the reverse of the Industrial Revolution. Factory
shutdowns decreased the size of manufacturing sector and huge steel plants
stood empty. Unions and organized labor lost power and influence and the
loss of unionized industrial jobs lowered workers income. Spendable income
started to drop thus, more women took full time jobs outside the house in
order to support their families. The percentage of women in the workforce
rose from 36 percent to 50 percent. Unemployment rate increased from 2.8
percent to 9 percent. During the winter, the people in the North could not
afford high energy prices, becoming a less attractive place for people to live
and do business, becoming to be known as Americas Rustbelt. Thus, people
moved to the south and west, also known as the Sunbelt, to start businesses.