AQA A-level History: The American Dream - Reality and illusion (Truman - Kennedy)

AQA A-level History: The American Dream - Reality and illusion (Truman - Kennedy)

1. Harry Truman

   • African Americans in the North and South during Truman years
     • 'To secure these rights' - A scathing attack on all aspects of discrimination both in the North and especially the south. Citing education, housing, public facilities (e.g Water fountains) and voting rights as key areas of discrimination.
     • February 1948: Radical civil rights speech to congress. Asking for support for measures including federal protection against lynching, protection of the right to vote etc
     • 'Journey of Reconciliation' - April 10th 1947, two-week bus journey through Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and Kentucky. Consisting of a group of eight white and eight black men. Journey done in an effort to end segregation in interstate travel.
     • NAACP, Most successful civil rights group in the Truman years. Won numerous court cases between 1944 - 1950. Many of their cases focused on undermining the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson court case. Key examples: 1954 Brown v. Board of Education case, 1950 - Henderson v. US, 1944 - Smith v. Allwright
     • South
       • Jim crow Laws
         • Education segregated
         • African americans kept from voting using border line illegal methods
       • Lynching threat hung over the black population
       • African Americans lived in small rural towns, working in agricultural occupations or menial service roles
       • Ku Klux Klan
     • North
       • Prejudice not enforced by Jim Crow Laws, but by a combination of economic segregation, social pressure and ghettoisation
       • 'Great migration' of African Americans from the south the rest of america. Brought on by various factors, the KKK, Great depression, and new jobs made from the creation of new factories in the north
       • African americans lived in cramped apartments in the centre of cities. Rent was often High.
       • De facto segregation
       • Justice system far harsher on black defendants than white defendants
   • Faced severe opposition in congress from Dixiecrats and fellow democrats such as James O Eastland, Strom Thurmond - both extreme racists. Covering their racism with defending the rights of their states from federal interference
   • The USA as a superpower
     • Berlin Airlift
       • 25th March 1948 Stalin cut the Allies out of the Eastern Bloc by blockading Berlin citing 'technical difficulties' as a reason.
       • Truman responded with an act of political brinkmanship. With help by the RAF he ordered 1.5 million tons of supplies, in 275000 flights, to be flown into Berlin over the next 324 days
       • May 1949. Stalin lifted the blockade after he realized the only way to stop the airlift was to attack the aircraft directly.
       • Truman's finest hour in foreign policy
     • Occupation of Japan
       • After the surrender of the Japanese. 350,000 US troops poured into Japan and General Douglas MacArthur was given dictatorial powers to transform the country into a modern democracy
       • Between 1949 and 1952: Communists were banned from government posts, Article 9 of the new consititution renounced war as an instrument of policy and a democratically elected government was consitituted with votes for women
       • Within a decade after the occuapation ended