In some ways, the political and social upheavals of the 1960s stood in sharp contrast to the calmer mood of the 1950s. In fact, however, the groundwork for many of the era's reformist causes had occurred during previous decades. Much of the Kennedy-Johnson legislative agenda extended programs launched under the New Deal. The important initiatives taken by African Americans during the 1940s and 1950s prepared the way for the major push of the 1960s. And as Chapter 28 emphasized, a whole series of demographic shifts -- the maturing of the baby boomers, the shift of population to the West Coast, the migration of African Americans from South to North and West, and the increase in the middle class -- all contributed to the ferment of the 1960s.