RIELY CLARK, NISHIKI MAREDIA, LAUREN RIZZI , KENDALL MEYERTONS, ERIN

HAWLEYBONNECARRERE, 4TH

1968: Turning Point of The United

States

Prompt

“1968 was a turning point for the United States.” To what extent is this an accurate assessment? In your answer, discuss TWO of the following:

National politics Vietnam War Civil Rights Movement

Introduction

During the 1960s, the United States was dragged through many crucial and influential events. From the Vietnam War to national politics, and even civil rights, the nation experienced stressing changes and evolved accordingly. In particular, the year 1968 demonstrated such extent of the impact of the period of social and political unrest, with events such as the a major the “Tet Offense,” violent protests, passing Civil Rights Act, and other failures accomplishments related to the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights Movement.

1967

Stokely Carmichael, leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), coined the phrase "black power" in a speech, defining the powerful term as "the coming together of black people to fight for liberation by any means.“ In the court case Loving v. Virginia, Supreme Court ruled that prohibiting interracial marriage unconstitutional and race riots take place in Newark and Detroit. A march on the Pentagon demonstrated the Civil Rights Network.

Meanwhile, Operation Cedar Falls was designed to disrupt insurgent operations near Saigon and later discovered to destroy massive tunnel complex in the Iron Triangle, the head quarters for guerrilla raid and terrorist attacks. American protest against the US policy in Vietnam continued and Martin Luther King, Jr. and others called for draft evasion. The United States Secretary of Defense, Robert McNamara, admitted to US bombing raids had failed to meet their objectives.

1968: Vietnam War

The beginning of January of 1968 marked small operations Niagara I and II. However, on January 31st, the turning point of the war rocked the small southeastern nation of Vietnam, as well as the United States. Almost 90,000 Viet Cong guerrillas launched the Tet Offensive, with the assault on Khe Sanh acting as a mere diversion while elsewhere hundreds of cities and towns throughout the Southern half of the country suffered attack.

1968: Vietnam War

Horrendous video footage of the attack on the US embassy in Saigon by Viet Cong commandos and other similarly horrible scenes during Tet shocked and enraged the American public. Although the United States emerged the official victor of the military engagement, clearly the American offensive suffered a great injury as the American population effectively communicated to the president of its desire to end the conflict. Further, on March 28, 1968, the My Lai massacre, in which nearly seventy Viet Cong soldiers are killed and untold amounts of civilians murdered, occurs but is successfully suppressed for a year. The little surviving evidence of the carnage committed by American soldiers haunted the nation.

1968: Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement received a horrific blow when its famed leader, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968. The death of Dr. King resulted in a period of mourning and the eruption of both violent and peaceful riots. In Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Detroit, Kansas City, Newark, Washington, D.C., and more than 100 other American cities, riots threatened to turn Dr. King’s inspirational masterpiece of nonviolent protesting into violent turmoil. President Johnson pressed for rapid action in order to mollify the nation. Shortly after, the House of Representatives passed the Fair Housing Act of 1968, which prohibited discrimination concerning the sale, rental, and financing of housing based on religion, race, national origin, and sex. This act stands as the last major legislative achievement of the Civil Rights era. 

1969

In January of 1969, President Nixon became the President of the United States. His ostensible goal was to negotiate a settlement that would allow the half million U.S. troops in Vietnam to be withdrawn without harming South Vietnam. Later, in February, President Nixon authorized Operation Menu, the bombing of North Vietnamese and Vietcong bases within Cambodia. Over the following 4 years, U.S. forces dropped more than half a million tons of bombs there. In April, U.S. combat deaths in Vietnam exceed the more than 33,000 men killed in the Korean War. June 8, 1969 President Nixon met with the South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Theiu on Midway Island in the Pacific, and said 25,000 troops would be withdrawn immediately.

Between April and May, African-American students held protests at universities, including Cornell University and North Carolina A & T University in Greensboro, asking for changes such as a Black Studies program and the hiring of African-American faculty. On December 4, Fred Hampton, chairman of the Illinois Black Panther party, was shot and killed by police during a raid. A federal grand jury refuted the police's assertion that shots were fired upon Hampton only in self defense, but no one was ever indicted for Hampton's killing.

Operation Menu Theiu and Nixon

Fred Hampton

Conclusion

1968 illustrated the conflicting influences of past conservative policies and the youth’s rejection of everything previously assumed. The oft violent reaction to the then military conflict of the time, the Vietnam War, demonstrated this social dissonance, especially after the devastation of the Tet Offensive. At home, the United States was torn apart by social unrest, culminating in President Johnson’s signature on the Civil Rights Act. Despite peaceful rhetoric by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 1968 was still rocked by violence and passionate defense of both sides’ philosophies.

Works Cited

Bailey, Thomas Andrew, David M. Kennedy, and Lizabeth Cohen. The American Pageant. 12th ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2002. Print.

"Battlefield: Vietnam 1969." PBS. Public Broadcasting Service, n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2013.

Rosenberg, Jennifer. "1968 - Tet Offensive." About.com 20th Century History. About.com, n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2013.

"Vietnam War 1965-1968." The History Place - Vietnam War 1965-1968. N.p., n.d. Web. 22 Apr. 2013.

Vox, Lisa. "Timeline of the Civil Rights Movement, 1968-1969." About.com African-American History. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2013.