Cold War Events.

The era from 1956 to 1963 during the Cold War was the closet America ever existed in terms of being close to a war with the Soviet Union. Tensions were extremely high back then. There was the Bay of Pigs Crisis, the growth of the Civil Rights Movement, the Berlin crisis, and the Presidency of John F. Kennedy. That era was a transitional period after the Suez Canal Crisis and before Operation Rolling Thunder during the Vietnam War. Speaking of Vietnam, this era saw a gradual, overt involvement of American forces in the Vietnam Civil War. There are constant debates about JFK's role in increasing American involvement in the Vietnam War, but it is true that JFK didn't start the Vietnam War. American funding of South Vietnam existed since the days of Eisenhower. Also, JFK would never have expanded the Vietnam War to the same extent as LBJ have done. LBJ and JFK had disagreements with American policy involving the Vietnam Civil War (as explained by Robert McNamara). The Cold War wasn't just about international affairs. It influenced the expansion of various social movements like the Civil Rights Movement, the Women's Rights Movement, the Beat Movement, etc. Dwight D. Eisenhower was a paradoxical center-right President. He criticized the military industrial complex, and he oversaw an expansion of cities plus the suburbs. He defended Social Security and many New Deal programs. The issue with Eisenhower was that he took a very soft approach in terms of civil rights issues, and he was slick to advance Western imperialism overseas. He sent in the National Guard to help black children to integrate in white schools, but he never promoted immediate equality and justice for black Americans overtly. He said that he was forced to follow federal statues that desegregated schools. This era ended with the evil assassination of President John F. Kennedy. To this every day, we haven't completely gotten over his passing. Many of the events that we witness in 2020 came from the political changes and social changes are related to the events after November 22, 1963. JFK was an eloquent, inspirational capitalist politician. He had his strengths and weaknesses. His aspirations and idealism captivated Americans. That is why his era was called Camelot which had a dream vision of what society could be, but that dream didn't equate into the reality of how racism plus injustices in general harm the lives of black people, poor people, people of color, and all oppressed people. JFK's strength was his capability for intellectual curiosity and growth. He grew to be more militant in terms of advocating for civil rights, in signing the Nuclear Test ban Treaty with the Soviet Union, and standing up to Big Oil. Many of his policies behind the scenes from supporting Lumumba, refusing to support Israel having nuclear weapons, and allying with the Indonesian Nationalist Sukarno are not known by many people. Therefore, we have to look at the nuisance of history and be better people in general.


To understand Dwight D. Eisenhower's legacy fully, you have to look at the events of the 1950's chronologically. Eisenhower allowed John Foster Dulles to be the Secretary of States. Dulles was a war hawk and was militantly anti-Soviet. JFK would later fire Dulles because of his actions involving the Bay of Pigs fiasco. By February 28, 1953, the Balkan Pact was signed by Yugoslavia, Greece, and Turkey. The pact wanted to deter Soviet expansion. After Stalin died on March 5, 1953, NATO debated on a fresh start. The Soviet troops ended the Uprising of 1953 in East Germany on June 17, 1953. By May of 1954, the Hukbalahap revolt in the Philippines was defeated. July 22, 1954 was when India annexed the Portuguese territories of Dadra and Nagar Haveli. On February 25, 1956, Nikita Khrushchev criticized Stalin on the speech, "On the Personality Cult and Its Consequences." It was delivered at the closed session of the 20th Party Congress of the CPSU. The speech marks the beginning of the De-Stalinization. Violence happened in Poznan, Poland after anti-communist protests on June 28, 1956. By July of 1956, the United States and the UK cancelled offers of aid on the construction of the Aswan Dam in Egypt due to its arms purchases from the Eastern Bloc. Nasser retaliated by nationalizing the Suez Canal. The October 23, 1956 Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was made up of socialists and progressives who wanted to end the Soviet domination of Hungary. They were crushed by the Soviet military that reinstated a Stalinist Communist government. On October 29, 1956, the Suez Canal existed. This was when France, Israel, and the UK attacked Egypt with the goal of removing Nasser form power. International diplomatic pressure forced the attackers to withdraw.

Canadian Lester B. Pearson encouraged the United Nations to send a peacekeeping force (the first of its kind) to the disputed territory. For this, Lester B. Pearson won a Nobel Peace Prize for his actions. Later, he became Prime Minister of Canada. By the year of 1956, the Vietnam Civil War expanded with the forming of the Viet Cong insurgency in South Vietnam (which was sponsored by North Vietnam). The Eisenhower Doctrine was created on January 5, 1957. It wanted America to defend Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan from Communist influence. Israeli forces left the Sinai which they occupied back in 1956. This was on January 22, 1957. The UK detonated its first hydrogen bomb on May 15, 1957. The Strategic Air Command made 24/7 nuclear alert until 1991 to protect from a Soviet ICBM surprise attack. Sputnik satellite from the Soviets flown into space on October 4, 1957 including Avor Arrow was revealed. Sputnik 2 was launched with Laika or the first living being on board by November 3, 1957. Later, America built more fallout shelters to survive a nuclear attack. The military expands in America. Khrushchev claimed that Soviets have more missile capability than America and challenges America to a missile shooting match to prove it. The Djuanda declaration was made. It said that oceans and land in Indonesia are unified. NATO has its first summit in Paris, France by December 16-19, 1957. Mao made his Great Leap Forward on January of 1958. America showed its first artificial satellite called Explorer 1 on January 31, 1958. The 2nd Taiwan Strait crisis happened when China bombs Quemony. Finally , Fidel Castro won the Cuban Revolution by January 1, 1959. He overthrow the dictator Batista via guerrilla warfare.

He inspired similar movements in Latin America. Crisis in Tibet happened in 1959. The Kitchen Debate was when U.S. Vice President Richard Nixon and Premier Khrushchev debated communism and capitalism on July 24, 1959. Explorer 6 from America is in orbit to photograph the Earth on August 7, 1959. Khrushchev visited America for 13 days and goes to Sea World. The NLF was created in December of 1959. It was a Communist insurgent movement that wanted to overthrow the anti-communist South Vietnamese government. North Vietnam and the USSR fund the NLF movement. France tested its atomic bomb on February 16, 1960. By April 1960, Jupiter IRBM missiles were sent to Italy. It was used to be in close range of the Soviet Union.On May 1, American pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot down in his U-2 spy plane while flying at high altitude over the Soviet Union. This was the U-2 incident and it was embarrassing for the Eisenhower administration. The June 1960 split among the Soviets and China was about China accusing the Soviets of a superiority complex. The Chinese Communists believed that their system was superior. the Congo crisis started on July 1960. Communist revolts happened in Laos.

By September 23, Nikita Khrushchev came to NYC to talk to the U.N. General Assembly. He continued to visit America for a month. Dwight D. Eisenhower wanted to overthrow Castro bad despite his warnings about the military industrial complex (which is a real entity that has ruined nations for years via imperialism, miltiarism, economic exploitation, and destruction of so many lives). On January 3, 1961, President Eisenhower ended diplomatic relations with Cuba. The end of Eisenhower's President related to his goal of ending the Cuban Revolution. Dwight D. Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States of America. He was a military veteran as the five star general in the Army and Supreme Commander of Allied Expeditionary Force in Europe. That is why he led in the planning of the historic Normandy invasion of France to liberate millions from Nazi tyranny. He was one of the last of the center-right Republicans that didn't want revolutionary change, but he wasn't so extreme that he wanted permanent austerity either. He was of Pennsylvanian Dutch ancestry. He was a Cold Warrior. He gave economic resources to South Vietnam, he supported the military coups in Iran plus Guatemala, and he sent 15,000 soldiers during the 1958 Lebanon crisis. His more moderate side was when he opposed the Suez war of 1956, he continued New Deal programs, he disagreed with Joseph McCarthy's extremism, he signed the National Defense Education Act, and he expanded Social Security.  Eisenhower had a mixed record on civil rights. He signed the Civil Rights Act of 1957, but that law had no teeth to enforce civil rights policies. He sent Army troops to enforce federal court orders to integrate schools in Little Rock, Arkansas. Eisenhower is heavily admired by many today. We know that Eisenhower was not the worst President. We know who is the worst President in recent history. That's self explanatory. Dwight D. Eisenhower was a man who wanted to use rationality, a stable course, and a stable transition in terms of his personal policy decisions. He was a transitional President that many people don't know, but he was much more engaging on issues than many people realize. Eisenhower was more interested in foreign policy or international affairs than domestic affairs. With him not wanting to outright eliminate New Deal programs, he was popular among liberal Republicans and many conservative Republicans hated his views. From being the promoter of the Interstate Highways system to other policies, Eisenhower was an unique Presidential person.



The mid to late 1950's Civil Rights Movement had new developments all over the place. It was about grassroots working class and poor black Americans standing up for their human rights in opposing tyranny found in Jim Crow apartheid. Many mainstream civil rights leaders had links to the middle class bourgeois circles, but the vast majority of the black freedom movement always included grassroots, working class, and poor black human beings. By January 7, 1955, Marian Anderson was the first African American to perform with the New York Metropolitan Opera. The executive Order 10590 was signed by President Eisenhower on January 15, 1955. This formed the President's Committee on Government Policy to enforce a nondiscrimination policy in Federal employment. Protesters from CORE and Morgan State University (or an HBCU) staged a successful sit in to desegregate Read's Drug Store in Baltimore, Maryland. On May 7, 1955, NAACP and Regional Council of Negro Leadership activist Reverend George W. Lee was killed in Belzoni, Mississippi. Brown II was established by the Supreme Court on May 31, 1955 to desegregate public schools with all deliberate speed. Many states continue to desegregate schools for years to come. Teenager Emmett Till was killed in Money, Mississippi on August 28, 1955. Tills's death inspired more people to fight for black freedom. By November 7, 1955, the Interstate Commerce Commission bans bus segregation in interstate travel in Sarah Keys v. Carolina Coach Company, extending the logic of Brown v. Board to the area of bus travel across state lines. On the same day, the U.S. Supreme Court bans segregation on public parks and playgrounds. The governor of Georgia responds that his state would "get out of the park business" rather than allow playgrounds to be desegregated. On December 1, 1955,  Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a bus, starting the Montgomery Bus Boycott. This occurs nine months after 15-year-old high school student Claudette Colvin became the first to refuse to give up her seat. Colvin's was the legal case which eventually ended the practice in Montgomery.

It is important to note that Rosa Parks was a revolutionary. She allied with Malcolm X and Dr. King, she fought police brutality, she worked with the Black Panthers, and she opposed the prison industrial complex.  Roy Wilkins was the executive secretary of the NAACP by the end of 1955. 1956 saw more developments of social activism. Georgia Tech president Blake R Van Leer stands up to Governor Marvin Griffin threats to bar Georgia Tech and Pittsburgh player Bobby Grier over segregation on January of 1956. The end of segregation of schools happened in Wilmington, Delaware.  Ninety black leaders in Montgomery, Alabama are arrested for leading a bus boycott on February 1956. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Southern preacher back then who supported the Montgomery Bus Boycott. The boycott was made up of men, women, and children who got tired of injustice and oppression.  The Tallahassee, Florida bus boycott began on May 28, 1956. On June 5, 1956, the Alabama Christian Movement for Human Rights (ACMHR) is founded at a mass meeting in Birmingham, Alabama. The Montgomery Bus Boycott was successful by December 20, 1956. By May 17, 1957, the Prayer Pilgrimage for Freedom in Washington, D.C. is at the time the largest nonviolent demonstration for civil rights, and features Dr. King's "Give Us The Ballot" speech. 1957 saw more events. The Little Rock Nine students were escorted to Little Rock Central High School in 1957 by Federal and National Guard troops on September 24, 1957. Sit ins were in Oklahoma City by 1958. Paul Robeson's autobiography called Here I stand was released in 1958. In 1959, desegregation existed in parts of Virginia. Motown was born in 1959 too. A Raisin in the Sun, a play by Lorraine Hansberry, debuted on Broadway on 1959. On April 18, 1959, King spoke for the integration of schools at a rally of 26,000 at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, DC. The 1961 film version will star Sidney Poitier.


The mystique about John F. Kennedy is still here with us. The truth is that we have 2 extreme lies about JFK. The first lie is that JFK was an reactionary extremist. The other lie is that he was very progressive superhero. The truth is that President John F. Kennedy was a liberal President who wanted to use his intellectual curiosity to establish a better America. He had his strengths and imperfections like all people have. Yet, he had the strength to grow and be more progressive into 1963. The start of President John F. Kennedy started with his family. He was born on May 29, 1917 at Brookline, Massachusetts. He was raised in a wealthy Catholic family. His father was Joseph Kennedy (where his competitive side came from) and Rose Fitzgerald (where his more people person side came from). Back in the day, many Catholic people faced taunts and overt bigotry. Yet, JFK excelled in many areas of his life. He went into many schools to gain education especially in politics and economics. He traveled with then Ambassador Joseph Kennedy into London. Joseph Kennedy was controversial as he was known by his peers as a person who said anti-Semitic comments. Kennedy had a close friendship with Viscountess Astor and their correspondence is replete with anti-Semitic statements (according to the author Edward Renehan). Joseph P. Kennedy told Kennedy told the reporter Joe Dinneen: "It is true that I have a low opinion of some Jews in public office and in private life. That does not mean that I. ... believe they should be wiped off the face of the Earth. ... Jews who take an unfair advantage of the fact that theirs is a persecuted race do not help much. ... Publicizing unjust attacks upon the Jews may help to cure the injustice, but continually publicizing the whole problem only serves to keep it alive in the public mind." Of course, anti-Semitism is wrong and evil period. President John F. Kennedy was a World War II Navy veteran who saved many lives. After the war, he came into the House of Representatives and the Senate. JFK's father wanted him to be President, but first, JFK had to establish political seniority. He did with his experience in the Congress. During that time, he criticized Western or French imperialism against Vietnam during the 1950's which was taboo. John F. Kennedy visited Vietnam in 1951. He criticized colonialism as preventing the fires of nationalism to spread in the world. His wife was Jacqueline Kennedy (whose maiden name was Bouvier). His 1956 book Profiles in Courage was eloquent and outlined the history of famous Senators. He took on the Mafia via the McClellan Committee, he attacked France for its imperial war against Algeria, and he was once the Vice Presidential candidate for the 1956 Presidential election. By 1960, he publicly called himself a liberal, and he ran for President in the Democratic ticket. The 1960 race wasn't easy. He had to defeat Humphrey, LBJ, and others who ran on the Democratic primary. John F. Kennedy also endorsed immigrant rights with his book on immigrants.

Then Senator John F. Kennedy gave speeches in favor of a higher minimum wage, unemployment insurance, and a separation of church and state (in ending fears that he would be bounded under the Pope's authority to determine legal policy. JFK gave a speech on this issue to many Baptists, and the Baptists applauded his stance). The separation of church and state is the hallmark of any progressive society. I have my faith in God, but I won't use my religious beliefs in infringing on the human rights of another person who is not of my faith. John F. Kennedy chose LBJ as his running mate to compete in the South. It is no secret that RFK didn't like LBJ, because of many reasons. Yet, JFK wanted to use political wit. John F. Kennedy defeated Nixon in the debates and in the Presidential race. President John F. Kennedy won the 1960 election after allowing Dr. King to leave jail. Dr. King's father inspired many black people to vote for him. JFK spoke in favor of civil rights, but his administration would be tested on civil rights issues. President John F. Kennedy had a civil rights record a million times better than Eisenhower, but civil rights activists had to push him in getting policies established. Many of his policies would be enacted by President Lyndon Baines Johnson. At the very end of the Eisenhower administration, the hero Lumumba was murdered in Katanga with the support of the CIA. JFK expressed sadness over the incident. January 20, 1961 was when John F. Kennedy gave his historic Inaugural Address. It was a masterpiece of oratory and probably the greatest inaugural address of the later half of the 20th century. JFK spoke themes of freedom, and he criticized Communism as an enemy. It had mixed aspirations and a call to arms to defeat Communism worldwide. So, the Kennedy mystique grew into new heights after that speech. We know that Communism is not monolithic, and not all Communists wanted to destroy the whole world (like not all capitalists are in love with economic injustice though capitalism is an imperfect economic system that readily is exploitative. Stalinism also is antithetical to true socialism). Yet, the world back then was in the Cold War era where provocative rhetoric was the order of the day. President John F. Kennedy was immediately tested by world events. On many events, he made mistakes, and JFK rose to the occasion to make great accomplishments (like his June 11, 1963 speech to advocate for racial equality, his support for affirmative action policies, his opposition to invade Cuba, and his speech to promote universal health for the elderly which would later be called Medicare) on other events too. These facts makes John F. Kennedy's legacy very clear that this man was different than many leaders of his day. He had great leadership qualities.


The Golden Era of Hip hop lasted from 1986 to 1994. It had an explosion of not only talent, lyricism, and creativity. It was diverse. That era of hip hop saw conscious hip hop, club music, G-funk, dance hip hop, gangsta rap, hip hop soul, Southern hip hop, underground hip hop, and other forms of hip hop. It was a time of a massive amount of expression. It was a time where both debates about lyrical content and the fight for hip hop recognition existed simultaneously. While opposing authoritarian censorship is good, we have to reject lyrics that celebrate misogyny, the n word, and other evils. You can do both. This era of hip hop wasn't just found in New York City (though NYC had a big role in hip hop's growth). It is also found in Los Angeles, Atlanta, Miami, San Diego, Oakland, Detroit, Virginia, and in other places nationwide plus worldwide. The Golden Era of Hip hop was the first time when there was a combination of hip hop talent, fashion, profits, and innovation including influence that reached into new heights of popularity. Massive, diverse expression of hip hop is found in that era too with the songs from Arrested Development. Some of the greatest hip hop artists of all time flourished during this era. During this time, C. Delores Tucker and other people debated certain hip hop lyrics. These debates continue to this very day. In retrospect, many human beings found that C. Delores Tucker was right to say that black women, black men, and black children shouldn't be called every name under the sun by artists. Dehumanizing black people in music is a vice. When I was in elementary school and early middle school, I witnessed and lived through the Golden Era of Hip Hop. From the sounds of Slick Rick to the philosophy of life shown by Geto Boys, there was never a dull moment. From the women showing empowerment like Queen Latifah, Salt n Pepa, Yo Yo, and MC Lyte to the funnier type of artists like Kid 'n Play, DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince, MC Hammer, and others, you can witness greatness. From the conscious artists like A Tribe Called Quest, Rakim, Paris, Public Enemy, De La Soul, and to early gangsta rap artists like NWA, Ice-T, etc., hip hop expanded greatly. From Nas to Outkast, there was great versatility. You can find lyricism from KRS-One, Erc B and Rakim, Kane, A Tribe Called Quest, the Jungle Brothers, etc. Music was reinvented all of the time. Afrocentric lyrics and a love of blackness was shown. Therefore, the Golden era of hip hop refined the essence of what hip hop is.

By Timothy