TIMELINE Post-War America

TIMELINE Post-War America

: It was realised the Marshall , four-fifths of Europe was reconstructed by Usa.

: Usa accessed to economic markets and stipulated political alliances.

: NATO was created (attack against one country means attack against the organisation).

: First signs of ht for desegregation (Rosa Parks) and the Bus Boycott. Birth of NAACP (national association for advancements of coloured people).

: McCarthyism: the Cold War had negative effects in Usa, some people believed that they were victim of a communist conspiracy existing inside the institutions. It started a sort of witch-hunt particularly by the Senator Joseph McCarthy who used mass-media to accuse officials of treachery. Finally he was condemned.

: The years of Korean War: North K (USA), South K (URSS).

: The Warsaw Pact was signed and communist countries were united, it created lots of diplomatic tensions.

50's: The Beat Generation (tired, sad) that expressed the dissatisfaction of a group of people who were against the capitalism and puritan values and preached the gospel of freedom in all his forms. 

: Cuban Revolution.

: Vietnam War (involved 4Presidents: Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon); North Vietnam (supported by URSS), South V (USA). At first Usa supplied only money, technical support and military advisors but, in .

: troupes and hundreds of thousands of American Soldiers were sent in Vietnam to ht also using chemical products that destroyed the Country; the public opinion was against the War.

In 1863, Abraham Lincoln proclaimed the Emancipation Act but Freedom and Equality were never respected because of Segregation Policies (a legal institutional separation).

2 people in particular fought against this segregation are Malcolm X and Martin Luther King.

1) Malcolm X: he too was the son of a pastor but contrarily of Martin, he never finished college because he lived a very difficult life in poverty. He was born in 1925 during the great Depression and he was the last of seven brothers. Before becoming a black Muslin (like others black people, as Cassius Clay, who refused to go to War and burned the military letter) he was a hustler.

He refused his last name and renamed himself X because slaves had no name, only a X given by their owner. He was assassinated in 1965 by Black killers. In his opinion, it was legitimate to use the violence against discrimination. His autobiography was published after his death.

The passage "The Angriest Negro in America" is Malcolm X's defence of his religious beliefs, his commitment and political ideals, at the risk of his own life. He said that:

During the hot summer in 1964, he was constantly accused of stirring up Negroes and inciting violence. In his opinion, the conflicts had origins from the unemployment, bad conditions and inferior education already in the ghettoes.

People called him "the angriest Negro in America" and he didn't deny that charge because he always said exactly as he felt. He was also called "Teacher and instigator of violence" but this was a lie because he was for justice. Malcolm X felt that if white people were attacked by Negroes, they should protect and defend themselves from those, using arms if necessary.

The problem was that Malcolm X was a black man talking about physical defence against the white man. In real life, Whites could lynch, burn, bomb and beat Negroes and he couldn't accept that brutality without doing something to defend himself.

He knew that any moment could brought him death. Even before he was a Muslim he would die a violent death. It was a characteristic of his family: his brothers died by violence and his father because of what he believed in (reverend Little was one of the organizers of UNIA who exhorted black people to return to their ancestral African homeland).

2) Martin Luther King: he was born in 1929 as the son of a Baptist pastor; but soon, after graduating at college, he became an activist, a Civil Rights leader. He was shoot in 1968. it's important to say that he was on Ghandi's line: no use of violence.

An important event in the history of black people happened in 1956, when Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on the bus to a white and for this reason she was indicted. As a result, it started a Bus Boycott: niggers, that were the most important customers for Bus companies, stopped to use public transport so they brought in bankrupt the system.

In 1963 there was the March to Washington (250000 people) with the famous speech of Martin Luther King against segregation for justice. It was structured in three parts:

1°part: talked about negative things.

2°part: imperatives (exhortations).

3°part: the metaphor of the dream.