During the 50's America faced a tough time. It was time when the country was faced with rooting out communism. "In West Virginia in February 1950, McCarthy stated that he had a list of 205 communists working for the State Department... the demagogic pursuit of communists riding roughshod over civil liberties came to be known as McCarthyism." Senator McCarthy begins this witch hunt for Communist because he believed the country was under attack from its citizens. However he did so with great biased:
"It has not been the less fortunate or members of the minority groups who have been selling this Nation out, but rather those who have had all the benefits that the wealthiest nation on earth has had to offer --- the finest homes, the finest college education and the finest jobs in government we can give."
McCarthy seems convinced that the communists/spies are not motivated by promise of wealth. In his mind because they already have wealth, they act out of opportunity or boredom. Perhaps it is this reason that he is so vehemently accusing people in the state department with little evidence. To accuse them and have them found guilty would prevent the country from being sent down the wrong road.
Sharon Statement (1960)
According to Voices of Freedom, the 1960s was known as a decade of radicalism, but also had a conservative side. Students emerged as a force in politics and issued the Sharon Statement. "In this time of moral and political crisis, it is the responsibility of the youth of America to affirm certain eternal truths."Through this dignified statement, the Young Americans for Freedom (YAF), and the Port Huron Statement of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) were established. These two documents "portrayed youth as the cutting edge of a new radicalism and claimed to offer Americans a route to greater freedom." The Sharon Statement also discussed things such as the free market being underpinned "personal freedom," political freedom rested on a free market economy, government must be strictly limited, and "international communism."
Mike Gralla "Cheerful Robots"
BLOG Redstocking Manifesto
P.O. Box 748*
Stuyvesant Station
New York, N.Y. 10009
Phyllis Schlafly "The Fraud of the Equal Rights Amendment" (1972)
The "I Have A Dream" speech was delivered by Civil Rights Activist Martin Luther King Jr. on August 28, 1963. This speech was known as one of the defining moments for the American Civil Rights Movement. In this speech, King calls for racial equality and a just place where blacks and whites could live happily without segregation or discrimination.
His first point was to mention the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation which was supposed to free all slaves indefinitely. He referred more to the symbolic significance because the proclamation did not automatically free slaves everywhere. The Emancipation Proclamation was a sign that blacks would be able to reach the American dream once they were declared free by Abraham Lincoln.
He then explains how the blacks are still not free. Although they were not officially slaves anymore, the whites found ways to segregate them. These actions were called the Jim Crow laws. Whites and blacks would have different bathrooms, fountains, seats and even schools. This not only degraded blacks but showed them that they were still not equal to whites even being free men and women.
King then goes on to say that both the Declaration of Independence and Constitution were made to protect and guarantee our right's as citizens. "Instead of honoring this sacred obligation, America has given the Negro people a bad check, a check which has come back marked "insufficient funds"", there he says that instead of blacks obtaining equal rights as whites as promised in these documents, blacks cannot figuratively "cash their check" because those rights weren't guaranteed for all men. King urges for the change to happen now and for people to stop putting it off any longer. This movement would not be temporary and it would take people that will not give up easily. If people continued to ignore the injustice then nothing would change. He was not about a violent struggle for freedom. He believed that it could be acquired peacefully. He urged people to fight for equality until it was completely achieved, zero racism, zero segregation. He hopes that one day we could all rejoice in equality just like slaves did when finding out they were free.
Letter From Delano
How the Beats Beat the Man by Joseph Lagalante, Jr.
The post WWII American landscape was certainly an interesting one. Having persevered both world wars and the Great Depression, America began to jockey for position as supreme world superpower with the Soviet Union. Being as “American” as possible became important during this time as the country soon became consumed with paranoia due to the “red scare.” Hollywood quickly became a point of interest in weeding out potential leftist-radicals: Congress had feared the Communists had infiltrated the American film industry, causing Congress to identify these bad red seeds among prominent Hollywood directors, actors and writers.
Ginsberg, however, was able to evade prosecution which served as a major victory for the Beat Generation, the First Amendment and America at large. Although many people would quickly assess the Beat Generation as “un-American,” due to their counterculture nature and their unwillingness to conform to the contemporary “American ideals,” I would argue these brave men were perhaps even more American than those portraying the contemporary American ideals. By directly opposing the American government and combating censorship in the 1950s, these Beat writers embodied the ideals our founding fathers revolted to secure. As Americans we should find the Bill of Rights entirely non-negotiable. These are the rights our founding fathers dictated should never be denied to this country’s citizens. By attempting to censor creative artistic projects, the American government in the 1950s almost successfully denied the first right promised to us. We have seen this right try to be redefined, or reconstructed several times throughout the past hundred years; but I maintain as Americans this should be what we hold and cherish most. When the government tries to take away any of these ten rights, but perhaps most importantly the one which promises us the ability to speak, worship, assemble or protest freely, it is detrimental for us as a society to reaffirm that we are unwilling to forego this promise our country has made to us. I only hope men as strong as Ginsberg and Burroughs will continue to persist throughout time, and this country’s history.