ing African Americans into main- their neighborhoods to achieve ra-
stream white society . Malcolm X, cial balance in metropolitan schools
an eloquent activist, was the most or about the use of “affirmative ac-
prominent figure arguing for Afri- tion .” These policies and programs
can-American separation from the were viewed by some as active mea-
white race . Stokely Carmichael, a sures to ensure equal opportunity, as
student leader, became similarly dis- in education and employment, and
illusioned by the notions of nonvio- by others as reverse discrimination .
lence and interracial cooperation .
The courts worked their way
He popularized the slogan “black through these problems with deci-
power,” to be achieved by “whatever sions that were often inconsistent . In
means necessary,” in the words of the meantime, the steady march of
Malcolm X .
African Americans into the ranks
Violence accompanied militant of the middle class and once large-
calls for reform . Riots broke out in ly white suburbs quietly reflected a
several big cities in 1966 and 1967 . profound demographic change .
In the spring of 1968, Martin Lu-
ther King Jr . fell before an assassin’s
THE WOMEN’S MOVEMENT
bullet . Several months later, Senator
Robert Kennedy, a spokesman for During the 1950s and 1960s, in-
the disadvantaged, an opponent of creasing numbers of married wom-
the Vietnam War, and the brother en entered the labor force, but in
of the slain president, met the same 1963 the average working woman
fate . To many these two assassina- earned only 63 percent of what a
tions marked the end of an era of in- man made . That year Betty Friedan
nocence and idealism . The growing published The Feminine Mystique,
militancy on the left, coupled with an explosive critique of middle-
an inevitable conservative backlash, class living patterns that articulated
opened a rift in the nation’s psyche a pervasive sense of discontent that
that took years to heal .
Friedan contended was felt by many
By then, however, a civil rights women . Arguing that women often
movement supported by court de- had no outlets for expression other
cisions, congressional enactments, than “finding a husband and bear-
and federal administrative regula- ing children,” Friedan encouraged
tions was irreversibly woven into the her readers to seek new roles and re-
fabric of American life . The major sponsibilities and to find their own
issues were about implementation personal and professional identities,
of equality and access, not about the rather than have them defined by a
legality of segregation or disenfran- male-dominated society .
chisement . The arguments of the
The women’s movement of the
1970s and thereafter were over mat- 1960s and 1970s drew inspiration
ters such as busing children out of from the civil rights movement . It
278
OUTLINE OF U.S. HISTORY
was made up mainly of members of al years, 35 of the necessary 38 states
the middle class, and thus partook ratified it . The courts also moved to
of the spirit of rebellion that affected expand women’s rights . In 1973 the
large segments of middle-class youth Supreme Court in Roe v. Wade sanc-in the 1960s .
tioned women’s right to obtain an
Reform legislation also prompted abortion during the early months of
change . During debate on the 1964 pregnancy — seen as a significant
Civil Rights bill, opponents hoped victory for the women’s movement
to defeat the entire measure by pro- — but Roe also spurred the growth posing an amendment to outlaw dis- of an anti-abortion movement .
crimination on the basis of gender as
In the mid- to late-1970s, how-
well as race . First the amendment, ever, the women’s movement seemed
then the bill itself, passed, giving to stagnate . It failed to broaden its
women a valuable legal tool .
appeal beyond the middle class .
In 1966, 28 professional women, Divisions arose between moderate
including Friedan, established the and radical feminists . Conservative
National Organization for Wom- opponents mounted a campaign
en (NOW) “to take action to bring against the Equal Rights Amend-
American women into full partici- ment, and it died in 1982 without
pation in the mainstream of Ameri- gaining the approval of the 38 states
can society now .” While NOW and needed for ratification .
similar feminist organizations boast
of substantial memberships today,
THE LATINO MOVEMENT
arguably they attained their greatest
influence in the early 1970s, a time In post-World War II America,
that also saw the journalist Gloria Americans of Mexican and Puerto
Steinem and several other wom- Rican descent had faced discrimina-
en found Ms . magazine . They also tion . New immigrants, coming from spurred the formation of counter- Cuba, Mexico, and Central Ameri-feminist groups, often led by women, ca — often unskilled and unable to
including most prominently the po- speak English — suffered from dis-
litical activist Phyllis Schlafly . These crimination as well . Some Hispanics groups typically argued for more worked as farm laborers and at times
“traditional” gender roles and op- were cruelly exploited while harvest-
posed the proposed “Equal Rights” ing crops; others gravitated to the
constitutional amendment .
cities, where, like earlier immigrant
Passed by Congress in 1972, groups, they encountered difficulties
that amendment declared in part, in their quest for a better life .
“Equality of rights under the law
Chicanos, or Mexican-Ameri-
shall not be denied or abridged by cans, mobilized in organizations
the United States or by any State on like the radical Asociación Nacio-
account of sex .” Over the next sever- nal Mexico-Americana, yet did
279