Chapter in Perspective

In some ways the political and social upheavals of the 1960s stand in sharp contrast to the calmer mood of the 1950s, but the groundwork for many of the era's reformist causes had been laid earlier. The Kennedy-Johnson legislative agenda extended programs launched under the New Deal. Initiatives taken by African-Americans during the 1940s and 1950s prepared the way for the major push of the 1960s. A whole series of demographic shifts contributed to the ferment of the 1960s. Most ominously, decisions made to contain communism pointed to deepening American involvement in Vietnam.