The Cold War and Civil Rights (1945-1980) Glossary

The central U.S. Cold War strategy of preventing the spread of communism through military, economic, and diplomatic means, first articulated by diplomat George Kennan in 1947.

The process of ending the legal separation of racial groups in public facilities, schools, and institutions, advanced by court decisions like Brown v. Board and federal legislation like the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

A period of relaxed tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Nixon administration, marked by arms control agreements (SALT I), trade deals, and Nixon's historic visit to China (1972).

President Lyndon Johnson's domestic program (1964-68) that created Medicare, Medicaid, Head Start, and the War on Poverty, representing the most ambitious expansion of federal social programs since the New Deal.

A 1964 congressional resolution granting the president authority to use military force in Southeast Asia without a formal declaration of war, enabling the massive escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam.

The practice of making accusations of communist sympathies without proper evidence, named after Senator Joseph McCarthy. It created a climate of fear, blacklisting, and suppression of political dissent in the early 1950s.

A strategy of challenging unjust laws through peaceful but confrontational methods such as sit-ins, boycotts, marches, and civil disobedience, central to the civil rights movement's approach under leaders like Martin Luther King Jr.

The simultaneous occurrence of economic stagnation, high unemployment, and high inflation in the 1970s, worsened by OPEC oil embargoes and contradicting conventional economic theory.

A January 1968 coordinated surprise attack by Viet Cong forces on over 100 South Vietnamese cities that, despite being a military failure, shattered American public confidence in the Vietnam War.

A political scandal involving the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters and President Nixon's systematic cover-up, leading to his resignation in 1974 and a crisis of public trust in government.