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Crash Course 39 - The 1950s

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(Period 8) the Fifties

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hi I'm John Green this is Crash Course u.s. history and today we're going to look at one of the most important periods of American Social history the 1950s why is it so important Advent of the greatest invention in human history Play From the Past you're going to have to go to college and watch The X-Files get terrible just like I did the parks but much of the real stories about the thousands of people you've never heard of who fought to make America more inclusive changes that the Civil Rights Movement chain for we should spend a little time looking at this society that they were trying to change the 1950s has been called a period of consensus and I suppose it was at least for the white males who wrote I did and who all agreed that the 1950s were Fantastic Four white males the United States you're being branded a communist and second night affluence increasing Prosperity meant that more people didn't have his much to be critical in the United States between 1946 and 1960 Americans experienced two. Of economic expansion that saw standards of living rise and gross national product more than double and I'm like play previous American economic expansions much of the growing prosperity in the 50s was shared by ordinary working people who saw their wages run old friend Eric foner by 19 need an estimated 60% of Americans enjoyed what the government defined does a middle-class standard of living dishwashers and air travel because they had like indoor plumbing and electricity 1950s was the era of suburbanization the number of homes in the United States double during the decade which of the pleasant side effect of creating lots of struction jobs at town in New York where 10,000 almost identical homes were built and became home to 40,000 people almost over can women further from the city meant that more Americans needed cars which was good news for Detroit where cars were being turned out with the expectation that Americans would replace them every two years 1860 80% of Americans own at least one car and 14% had two or more live in shopping malls drive thru restaurants in the backseat makeout session I mean High School meet and get the back seat make out session but other people did I did get the Burger King drive-thru tho and lots of the American standard of living with its abundance of consumer goods and plentiful Services was established in the 1950s is something of a golden age especially when we look back on it today with Nostalgia but there were critics even at the time of consensus one of the things were saying but there wasn't much room for debate about what it meant to be in America most people agreed on the American values individualism respect for private property and belief in equal Trinity provision of The Good Wife in the celebration of the middle class sound was displacing other conceptions of citizenship like the sociologist C Wright Mills describe the combination of military corporate and political leaders as a power elite who's control over government in the economy with such as to make democracy and afterthought in the lonely crowd sociologist David Rice been criticized Americans from being conformist and whacking the rich in why is necessary to be truly independent and John Kenneth Galbraith question and affluent society that would pay for new cars and new missiles but not for new school making 50s without discussing teenager since this was the decade that gave us rock and roll and rock stars like Bill Haley & the Comets Buddy Holly and the Crickets and Elvis Presley and his skip sing notice something about all those critics of the 1950s that I just mentioned they were all white dudes now we're going to be talking about women in the 1950s and 1960s is there Liberation movement began a bit later but what most people call the Civil Rights Movement really did begin in the 1550 blue and white color can your period of expanding opportunities for African Americans in the South public relations were segregated by law while in the north it was usually Happening by custom or de facto segregation these were almost completely white and this remain true for decades sorting to Eric foner as late as the 1990s nearly 90% of suburban whites lived in communities with non what populations less than 1% need the near White counterparts so their employment with less stable and their educational opportunities were severely limited by substandard segregated schools what is a parks in the Montgomery Bus Boycott or else Brown versus Board of Education but it really started during World War II with efforts like those of A Philip Randolph in the soldiers taking part in the decrease a even before that been fighting for civil rights in the 1950s and it started in California in 1946 Mendez vs Westminster the California Supreme Court ruled that Orange County of all places had to desegregate their school they been discriminating against Latinos in the state who is Chief Justice when the landmark case of Brown versus Board of Education came before The Supreme Court in 1954 legal defense fund under the leadership of Thurgood Marshall have been pursuing a legal strategy of trying to make states of live up to the ruling in Plessy versus Ferguson that required all public facilities to be separate but equal by bringing lawsuits against professional schools like wall schools because it was really obvious that the three classrooms and no library that Texas setup for African-American lost we're not equal to the actual University of Texas's law school with the brown case was about public schools for children it was actually a combination of five cases from four states of which Brown happened to be alphabetically the first Board of Education incidentally was in Topeka Kansas not one of the states of the old Confederacy that did restricted swing by race  the rules here are simple I read the mystery document if I'm wrong I get shocked segregation of white and colored turn in public schools has a detrimental effect upon the colored children the impact is greater when it has the sanction of the wall for the policy of separating the races is usually interpreted as putting the inferiority of the Negro group a sense of inferiority affects the motivation of a child to learn segregation with the sanction of law therefore has a tendency retard the educational and mental development of negro children and to deprive them of some of the benefits they would receive in a racially integrated school system you have given me to extraordinary gifts and I am thankful it is Earl Warren from Brown versus Board of Education who just this one is actually quoting from social research there that shows that segregation itself is psychologically damaging to black children because they recognize that being separated out is a badge of inferiority go to the thought but it didn't lead to massive immediate desegregation of public schools resistance in the sound the resistance got so massive in fact in a number of counties rather than integrate their schools 69 and didn't reopen them again until 1964 because many states to pay for white students to attend academies that they begin to fly the Confederate Battle Flag over there State Capitol Buildings yes I'm looking at new Alabama and South Carolina 1955 Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus in Montgomery Alabama and Todd arrested kicking off the Montgomery Bus Boycott that lasted almost a year average African-American working woman who was tired and fed up with segregation but the truth is more complicated it been active in politics since the 1930s and then protested the notorious Scott number of boys case served as Secretary for the n-double-acp and she had begun her quest to register to vote in Alabama in 1943 she failed a literacy test 3 times becoming one of the very few black people registered to vote in the state is participant in the fight for black civil rights long before she sat on that bus how to organize the boycott from his Baptist Church which reminds us that black churches played a pivotal role in the civil rights movement that boycott would go on to 381 days Indian the city of Montgomery relented reforming the southern Christian leadership conference or Coalition of black civil rights and church leaders who pushed for integration and they needed to fight hard especially in the face of massive resistance and play some Howard ministration that was lukewarm at best about civil rights National Guard to prevent the integration of Little Rock Central High School by 9 black students in 1957 Google Rock Arkansas after that valve is closed the schools but at least the federal government showed it wouldn't allow states to ignore court orders about the constitution in your face John seek who played the court decision and the dispatching of federal troops by the end of the 1950s fewer than 2% of black students attended integrated schools in the south going for civil rights had begun but it was clear that there was still a lot of work to do with the emergence of the civil rights movement in the 1950s clear-cut as its proponents would have us believe yes there was widespread affluence particularly among white people and criticism of the government in America generally was stifled by the fear appearing to sympathize with communist equality and poverty in the decade that shows just how far away we were from living the ideal equal opportunity we have made real progress and we have is a credit to the voices of protest next week we'll see how women Latinos and gay people at in their voices to the pro s and look at what they were and we're not able to change in the 1960s thanks for watching I'll see you then listen to your support through Somerville. are there also great perks thing you can get like signed poster so if you like and value crash course help us keep it free for everyone Forever by subscribing now at 7 will you can just click on my face next movie you can still click on it thanks again for watching crash course and as we say in my hometown don't forget to be awesome

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