Page 63 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - USA

HIST OR Y OF THE USA  61

Civil Rights Movement
As black Americans migrated from the rural
south to urban centers in the 1940s and
1950s, whites abandoned city life for the
suburbs, taking their tax dollars with them.
The financial crisis was made worse by the
decline of traditional industries, and
many cities during the 1960s and 1970s
suffered as well. Housing deteriorated,
roads went unrepaired, and poverty, crime,
and racial tension were common features
of many urban areas. Poverty was not
confined to the inner cities; people in
rural areas in the Deep South and the
Appalachians were some of the most
deprived in the country.
The new postwar opportunities
were denied to many African-Americans, Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. delivering a sermon at the
particularly in the still-segregated South. Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta
Aided by a 1954 Supreme Court judgment
that ruled segregation in schools and recession. In the 1980s, computers and
unconstitutional, African-Americans other digital devices began to change the
fought for an end to discrimination. In way Americans communicated. The
1955, a bus boycott initiated by Rosa Internet opened new ways of working and
Parks in Montgomery, Alabama, forced the generated large amounts of wealth. By the
company to end segregation. The success turn of the millennium, the Internet-fueled
inspired similar protests throughout the boom went bust, causing the economy to
South. In 1964 and 1965, Congress passed fall into recession. The controversial
legislation banning racial discrimination. election of George W. Bush in 2001
The 1960s also saw a rise in political dominated the news and showed that the
consciousness among other groups; protests American public was deeply divided over
against the Vietnam War grew in number, crucial issues.
and in the 1970s, the women’s movement The terrorist attacks on New York and
made some progress towards achieving an Washington, DC in September 2001
end to sexual discrim ination. A tide of instigated the launch of the “war against
environmentalism also swept the country, terror” by President Bush. This resulted in a
culminating in 1970 with the creation of the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan in
US Environmental Protection Agency. During 2002 and another to oust Saddam Hussein
the AIDS crisis of the late 1980s, homosexuality in Iraq in 2003. Economic stress from five
became an increasingly accepted aspect of years of warfare combined with deregulation
life, with gay and lesbian couples earning of the financial sector resulted in crisis for
greater legal protections. During his second the economy in late 2008. Barack Obama
term, President Obama supported same-sex won the elections the same year, becoming
marriage and in 2015, same-sex marriage the first African-American president and he
was legalized by the Supreme Court. was re-elected in 2012. In November 2016,
Republican business man Donald Trump won
The Modern Era the general election against Democratic
The postwar boom ended in the early nominee Hillary Clinton. He is the oldest and
1970s, with the Vietnam War and the richest president, with no previous
energy crisis producing prolonged inflation experience in public service, in US history.

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