448 ChApTEr 20 | the BreaKDoWn oF ConsensUs | period eight 19 45 –198 0 seeking the main point^449449B
y the early 1960s, the Vietnam War and the civil rights movement domi-
nated newspaper headlines in the United States and inspired movements
for gender and sexual equality and for African American, Latin Ameri-
can, and Native American rights. These movements for civil rights espe-
cially influenced millions of young Americans who were coming of age
in high schools and colleges. By the end of the decade, the assassinations of Mar-
tin Luther King Jr., Malcolm X, and Robert F. Kennedy and riots in the poor and
predominately African American ghettos of American cities ignited widespread
calls for reform.
These revolutionary sentiments also produced a countermovement of self-
proclaimed conservatives like Ronald Reagan and Phyllis Schlafly who took
inspiration from the (unsuccessful) presidential candidacy of Barry Goldwater
in 1964 and looked back to an unspecified time when American society was at
peace and the American economy in a state of prosperity. These sentiments pro-
vided the seeds of a revitalized conservatism in the 1970s and 1980s, breaking
through on the federal level with the election of Ronald Reagan as president in
1980.Seeking the Main Point
As you read the documents that follow, keep these broad questions in mind.
These questions will help you understand the relationship between the doc-
uments in this chapter and the historical changes that they represent. As youdocument
AP® Ke y
concePts PAge20.11 Weatherman Underground, Communiqué No. 1 8.2 III C 46420.12 American Indian Movement Governing Council, Trail of
Broken Treaties: 20-Point Proposal8.2 II B 46520.13 Ronald Reagan, Address to the First Conservative Political
Action Conference8.2 III B 466Applying AP® Historical Thinking Skills
Skill Review: Historical Causation, Periodization, and
InterpretationThinking Skill 1.1,
Thinking Skill 1.3,
Thinking Skill 4.846821_STA_2012_ch20_447-472.indd 448 16/04/15 6:13 PM