*In the early 1960s, Mississippi was the poorest state in the nation. 86% of all non-white families lived below the national poverty line.  In addition, the state had a terrible record of black voting rights violations. In the 1950s, Mississippi was 45% black, but only 5% of voting age blacks were registered to vote.  Some counties did not have a single registered black voter.  In 1960, the NAACP and SNCC began to work to register black voters in Mississippi and to teach them non-violent methods of protest (such as the sit-in).  Other activists were organised by CORE.

*More and more civil rights workers began to go into rural Mississippi as the 1960s progressed.  As the movement became popular, young, socially conscious white northerners began to go South, too—especially college students on their summer vacations.  They often came in busses with whites and black sitting together and they were called freedom riders.  Some were beaten or threatened, many saw buildings firebombed, but thousands came anyway.

*1964 was Freedom Summer, as thousands of civil rights workers streamed into the Deep South in a massive voter registration drive during the presidential election year.  It was fairly successful—within five years, 66.5% of blacks in Mississippi would be registered to vote (higher than the national average).  Blacks and their white friends formed the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, which sent four delegates to the national convention, two of whom were seated as delegates-at-large as part of a compromise with the white Democrats.  However, in the short run, it was a hard and violent summer.

*In June 1964, three civil rights workers—two white and one black—went to investigate a firebombing at a black church.  They were arrested for traffic violations, and shortly afterwards vanished.  Their bodies were found six weeks later under a dam.  The white workers had been shot through the chest; the Negro had been beaten to death.

*The FBI arrested 21 local whites, including the sheriff, but none were convicted by juries of their peers.

*In 1965, there would be a major voter registration drive in Alabama, where blacks made up 50% of the state population but only 1% of the state’s voters.  In a series of marches, Blacks and white supporters led by Martin Luther King would march the 50 miles from Selma to Montgomery.  On the way, they were attacked by police dogs, sprayed with high-pressure water hoses, beaten by mounted police with nightsticks, whipped, attacked with tear gas, and hundreds were arrested.  In the process, a Unitarian minister from Boston was killed, and a few days later Klansmen killed a white woman from Detroit who was involved in the march.

*In response, LBJ pushed the Voting Rights Act through Congress, and signed it into law on 6 August 1965.  It outlawed the literacy test and sent Federal registrars into the South to make sure everyone had a chance to register to vote.

*Not all blacks were satisfied with the slow pace of non-violent protest, and a few opposed working with white people at all.  In fact, the non-violent period of the Civil Rights Movement ended in 1965.  In 1965, a few days after the Voting Rights Act was passed, riots broke out in Watts, Los Angeles, and blacks looted and burned their way through their own neighbourhoods.  The new slogan was ‘Black Power,’ but when riots began in 1967 in Detroit (leading to 48 deaths) and Newark (with 25 deaths), the rioters chanted ‘burn, baby, burn.’

*Younger black leaders mocked King, saying he was too conciliatory.  Malcolm X was a black nationalist in the Nation of Islam.  Although Born Malcolm Little, he changed his last name to X to reject his ‘slave name.’  Nation of Islam is an extremist Black Nationalist group with teachings based on Islam, but regarded as different by most other Moslems.

*The Nation of Islam and Islam both teach that there is but one God, both teach that there will literally be a resurrection of the dead, and that resurrected souls (or bodies) will be sent to paradise or hell, and both teach that Muslims must fast during daylight hours during the entire month of Ramadan. However they differ in several respects.  Nation of Islam teaches that God became physically incarnate in the form of a black preacher in 1930s Chicago named Elijah Muhammad/Poole. Islam teaches that it is heretical to believe that God would manifest Himself as a human.  Nation of Islam teaches that Caucasians were created by an ancient evil scientist called Yakub. Only black people are considered human by the Nation of Islam. Non-blacks are literally held to be non-human demons—Malcom X called white people ‘blue-eyed white devils.’  Islam teaches that all races are created equal in the eyes of God. Yakub (Jacob) is considered a Prophet of Allah in Islam.  Nation of Islam rejects the Muslim belief that Muhammad was the last prophet. Instead it teaches that Elijah Muhammad (the founder of Nation of Islam) was a prophet of Allah, and that Louis Farrakhan is yet another messenger, sent to deliver a last call to humanity.  Islam holds that Muhammad was the very last of all prophets, and that no more prophets would ever arise.

*Eventually Malcolm X, who would again rename himself (this time El Haj Malik El-Shabazz) and move away from extreme Black Nationalism.  Shortly afterwards, in 1965, he would be shot by men from the Nation of Islam, probably at the behest of Louis Farrakhan.

*Even SNCC moved away from its non-violent roots, taking up the Black Power slogan.  Stokely Carmichael had been a member of SNCC since 1960, had worked on the Freedom Rides since 1961, and in 1966 became chairman of SNCC.  He promised that Black Power would ‘smash everything western civilization has created,’ and promoted the notion that ‘black is beautiful,’ glorifying unique clothing and hairstyles (like the Afro), and eventually becoming ‘honorary prime minister’ of the Black Panthers.  He did vow to continue voter registration drives in Mississippi after James Meredith, the University of Mississippi’s first black student, was murdered in 1966.  Nonetheless, men like Carmichael frightened white and some blacks, while other black people saw this as a rebirth of Marcus Garvey’s separatism.

*Just as blacks were winning legal victories, they were alienating many of their former allies through the actions of a few violent radicals, especially after 1968 when King was assassinated in Memphis (and riots broke out in protest—a sad memorial for a man who preached non-violence).  Despite the turmoil, responsible blacks were quietly succeeding.  Cleveland, Ohio, and Gary, Indiana elected black mayors and by 1972 almost half of Southern classrooms were integrated.

*Johnson supported Civil Rights, and might have done more to advance the cause, but he was distracted by events taking place on the far side of the world and even by problems right in our backyard.

*Ever since Castro aligned himself with the Soviets, America had worried about his attempts to export the revolution to other Latin American nations.  In April 1965, the people of the Dominican Republic revolting against their military government, and LBJ blamed the Communists.  To keep the hemisphere safe, he sent 25,000 troops to restore order.  He was accused by many other nations of being too aggressive and of returning to gunboat diplomacy, despite American claims that we  had outgrown that.

*About the same time, in February 1965, the Viet Cong attacked an American airbase at Pleiku.  LBJ would order the expansion of American activities in Viet-Nam.  Troops would land—184,000 by the end of the year, and the Air Force would begin Operation ROLLING THUNDER, bombing military targets throughout North Viet-Nam (except those that might hit a Soviet advisor, like Hanoi, Haiphong, the Chinese Border, or North Viet-Namese airbases).  Like many aerial bombardments, however, this one only strengthened the will of the enemy, especially as they quickly discovered what places were safe.

*Increasingly, Americans took over the war, making things easy on ARVN.  It was necessary, according to the hawks, because if American pulled out, we would look weak, indecisive, and like a nation ready to go back on our promises (such as the Truman Doctrine).  Furthermore, without American help, Viet-Nam might fall, and then Laos, Cambodia, Siam, Burma, India, and eventually THE WORLD!  Johnson would ultimately send over half a million troops into Southeast Asia by the end of 1968, and the cost would rise to $30 billion per annum.  Nonetheless, no-one knew exactly how or when the war would end.

*As the war in Viet-Nam dragged on, other nations of the world grew increasingly critical of America’s actions.  Peace Corps volunteers were expelled from other countries.  Charles DeGualle, President of France, removed France from NATO’s military alliance and ordered NATO troops out of France in 1966.  While simultaneously developing France’s nuclear weapons programme (which had tested its first three A-bombs in the Algerian Sahara in 1960).

*With the US busy in Viet-Nam, the Soviets took advantage of the situation to gain increased influence in the Arab world, especially in Egypt.  This was not enough to let Egypt beat Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967, however.  In June, Syria, Egypt, and Jordan attacked Israel after a series of border incidents.  Although the Arabs were armed with new Soviet planes and other weapons, they were unable to take over Israel.  Instead, the Israelis seized the Sinai Peninsula, the Golan Heights, the Gaza Strip, and the West Bank of the Jordan, which they soon began to settle with Jewish farmers.  Although Israel won alone (or, at least, alone with US weapons and funding), the Arabs claimed that the US and Britain sent planes to help.

*In January 1968, the USS Pueblo was operating off the coast of North Korea, in international waters, spying on the North Koreans.  On 22 January, North Korean assassins had attempted (and failed) to kill several South Korean leaders.  On 23 January, Pueblo was attacked, and eventually captured by the North Korean navy.  The sailors were interned, and later released after being starved and tortured.  Pueblo is still held by the North Koreans, and is only the second US warship captured since the Barbary Wars (the other, USS Wake, was captured by the Japanese in WWII).  This was a major embarrassment to the United States, and in the vast propaganda war for the hearts and minds of the world, every embarrassment was serious.

*Anti-war demonstrations were becoming more popular in the United States.  In 1965, perhaps 15% of Americans favoured leaving Viet-Nam.  By 1970, a majority would favour withdrawal. This was in part due to the effective work of the anti-war movement.  This began with ‘teach-ins’ at colleges, where professors and others spoke about the war, its causes, and its problems.  Soon demonstrations against the draft began, as young men decided they did not want to go to war.  They burnt their draft cards and chanted ‘hell no, we won’t go,’ and accused the US Army and LBJ of war crimes, chanting ‘Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill to-day?’

*Of course, the draft was not a problem for everyone.  There were ways out of the draft.  Some doctors would fake medical exams to say that their patients were not fit to serve.  Students in college could get a deferment, meaning they did not have to go then (and usually never did go).  Because this did not apply to dropouts and failures and, after 1966, students with bad grades, many professors, many of whom opposed the war, or at least did not want to see people they knew killed, made it easier and easier to get good grades, thus dumbing down the educational system.  Many people, especially minorities, complained that the deferment was unfair because most college students were middle-class whites.  In 1971, the college deferment system ended, so now the wealthy white kids would have to go to Viet-Nam.  Opposition to the war really increased then.

*Starting about 1967, more and more young men opposed the draft.  Some refused to fight and were locked away in jail.  Thousands ran away to Canada, and stayed there for years.  It is thought that about 100,000 Americans went to Canada to avoid the war.

*Even Congress began to question the war.  A leader of the anti-war movement in Congress was Senator William Fulbright of Arkansas.  As head of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, he held a series of hearings in 1966 and 1967, during which prominent people gave their opinions on the war.  Because Fulbright opposed the war, he made sure most of his witnesses did, too.

*Even the Secretary of Defence began to question the war effort.  Robert McNamara quietly expressed concerns (and worked behind the scenes to undermine the war effort at times), and was eventually eased out of the Cabinet.

*With such opposition everywhere, Americans began to doubt if the war really could be won.  By 1968, American killed and wounded totaled about 100,000.

*LBJ became increasingly paranoid about the war protestors, and in 1967, he had even ordered the CIA to spy on domestic protestors, discrediting them if possible.  The FBI did the same thing, subverting ‘doves,’ blackmailing them, sabotaging their efforts, and gaining the reputation among anti-war groups as a secret police force as bad as that in any totalitarian state.

*As 1968 began, things looked bad for America, but they would soon get worse.

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