The Liberal Consensus, c1945-1963

The “Liberal Consensus”: Containment at home and

abroad(1) “Containment” ruled: the US should in

principle seek better relations with the USSR while keeping its guard up

(2) The economy should be strong, leadership should be strong, America should be strong

(3) Social Security was assured(4) The use of fiscal and monetary measures to

maintain full employment was accepted(5) The federal government should enforce

compliance with the law, but with caution

The Liberal Consensus

“Most of America’s problems are technical problems, are administrative problems. They involve sophisticated judgements which do not lend themselves to the great sort of ‘passionate movements’ which have stirred this country so often in the past.”

John F. Kennedy

Henry Wallace and the Progressive Party, 1948

The “Fair Deal”

Social Security Act (1950)

National health insurance?

Raising the minimum wage?

Public housing? (1949 Act)

…but also Taft-Hartley Act

“Modern Republicanism”

“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history…” Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1952

Eisenhower and Consensus Politics

• Raised minimum wage

• Increased pensions• Oversaw creation

of new Dept of Health, Education and Welfare

• Highway Act (1956)

Harry Truman on Civil Rights

“Our immediate task is to remove the last remnants of the barriers which stand between millions of our citizens and their birthright. There is no justifiable reason for discrimination because of ancestry or religion or race or color.”

• desegregation of the military and federal government by Executive Order (1948)

• Justice Department filed amicus briefs in Civil Rights cases… including Brown

Harry Truman on Civil Rights

• Fair Employment Practices Commission expired in 1946 – Congress refused to renew it

• Congress rejected Truman’s proposal to make lynching a federal crime

Henry Wallace, 1948

The Dixiecrat Revolt

“Dixiecrat” Party: Strom Thurmond

Judicial Activism

“Red Monday”: June 17, 1957Brown decision (1954)

Eisenhower and Civil Rights

“I don’t believe you can change the hearts of men with laws or decisions”

“I personally believe if you try to go too far in this delicate field, that involves the emotions of many millions of Americans, you’re making a mistake.”

Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955)

Rosa Parks Rev Ralph David Abernethy and Rev

Martin Luther King

Frustrations

• “Prayer Pilgramage” at the Lincoln Memorial, May 17, 1957, led by Roy Wilkins of the NAACP and A. Phillip Randolph

• Lack of progress in school de-segregation: who now remembers Clennon King or Clyde Kennard?

Desegregation of Central High School,

Little Rock, Arkansas, 1957

Massive Resistanc

e•Southern Manifesto (1956)•White Citizens Councils•Rise of KKK•Violence•Became central issue in Southern politics

President, first lady and children, 1962

Bobby Kennedy and Civil Rights

JFK and Civil Rights

• Abstract for equal rights but no passion

• Fears that violence would harm US image abroad

• Let Hoover run FBI, failed to provide protection for civil rights workers

• Relied on deal-making with southern politicians, reluctant intervention at University of Mississippi in 1962

“The heart of the question is whether all Americans are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities… If an American, because his skin is dark, cannot eat lunch in a restaurant open to the public, if he cannot send his children to the best public school available, if he cannot vote for the public officials who represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to have the color of his skin changed and stand in his place?”Kennedy TV address, June 1963

November 22, 1963

What Might Have Been?

Aroused liberal expectations but failed to deliver… And yet, in the last six months of his life…

• Recognition of importance of Civil Rights• Called for a new rapprochement with

USSR & proposed outlawing nuclear tests

• A nationwide tour to highlight poverty• Limiting involvement in Vietnam?

“It was a magic moment in American history, when gallant men danced with beautiful women, when great deeds were done, when artists, writers and poets met in the White House and the barbarians beyond the walls were held back… It will never be that way again.”

Jackie Kennedy, December, 1963

Making Sense of the Sixties

The Sixties: a revolutionary decade?

• Sexual, cultural, & social revolutions

• Violence, unrest

• Identity politics

The Sixties: a revolutionary decade?

• Continuity in mainstream culture• “Boomers” grew up in affluence• Prosperity re-shaped American landscape