For President Lyndon Johnson, the year 1965 began in optimism. He won reelection in a landslide against Barry Goldwater in November 1964, and Johnson seized the opportunity the following year. He signed Medicare into law, revitalized elementary and secondary education, and successfully persuaded Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act in the wake of the bloody march on Selma.
Despite his commitment to civil rights and combating poverty, his legislation seemed insufficient for millions of black Americans living in poverty and in city ghettos like the Watts area of Los Angeles. On August 11, 1965, just a week after Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, Watts exploded with riots, leaving 34 dead, 1,000 injured, and $40 million in damage.
Brown University historian James T. Patterson writes that the rage of African-Americans living in urban ghettos, "stemmed not only from poverty, overcrowding, and racial discrimination, but also from the higher expectations that the civil rights movement had helped to excite by 1965."
As the direction of the civil rights movement changed significantly in 1965, and as Congress approved Johnson's Great Society legislation, he also began to escalate the War in Vietnam. As young American men began their missions in Southeast Asia, their compatriots at home began to rebel, and their music reflected a new attitude. The Rolling Stones's "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" hit number one on the billboard charts that year.
Patterson describes these developments, and how 1965 changed American history, in "The Eve of Destruction: How 1965 Transformed America."
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Comments [6]
Bill from Gowanus, NY
The summer of 1966 was the happiest time of my life. In June I had graduated from college. I went to Oberlin College for Peace Corps training for volunteer service in Cote D'Ivoire, West Africa. I experienced my first real love affair. I felt giddy with freedom & possibility. In December 1968, I returned home to New York plunged into depression & impotent rage, illusions shattered. In 1969, I joined an RPCV friend in Chicago. Shotguns were visible through the rear windows of the ubiquitous patrol cars of the Chicago police. Traveling by car from Chicago to San Francisco, I felt fear. Whereas traveling in West Africa I had not. Living in San Francisco from 1970 to 1975, I witnessed the disintegration of the so-called "New Left" as it succumbed more & more to the intolerance & madness fostered by its enemies. In 1975 I lost my menial job in the psychiatric department at San Francisco General Hospital. Then, as the end of unemployment payments loomed, I broke down & fled to upstate New York to heal. I have heard the opinion that these years were the closest that the United States came to a second civil war. I did not believe it then, but I do now. & while most might consider it preposterous, I believe that I was one of the victims of a civilian PTSD. & I believe that the nation never healed & is engaged still in a political & cultural struggle near the brink of internecine chaos. In my view, 1968 is the year more than any other when the old order lost its legitimacy, & no order has yet emerged to replace it.
For those interested, my book opens with a chapter on some events in 1964, including the Free Speech Movement. Yes, one can see the roots of the greater turmoil of 1965 in 1964.
As for Reagan, please note that I corrected the interviewer, to point out that he won the governorship of California in 1966, not 1965. By the end of 1965, however, it was clear that he would run--and widely predicted that he would win. James Patterson
I believe the world really began changing in 1964 with Surfing Bird...
The free speech movement that began at Berkeley is so often overlooked in history.It was the beginning of college protest movements and is rarely mentioned. Activists like Mario Savio and others opened the door for young people in the 60's to create change.
Wasn't 1965 the year when the Democratic Party traded the system of controlling people through segregation by controlling people through the welfare state which increased poverty and urban blight for minorities and others to this day?
Wasn't it also the year the Democratic Congress started the Vietnam War only to vote to lose the war a decade later?
How about the year 2009 when a Speaker of the House and President forgot their promises of limiting spending and spent more money than any people in human history setting their nation on a course of decline?
Ronald Reagan was elected governor of California in 1966, not 1965. This kind of historical ignorance, shown all too often even on NPR, continues to disappoint.
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