The Equal Rights Amendment (E.R.A.)
A major issue of the women’s rights movement was passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). The ERA was first proposed in 1923. Women’s groups worked for its passage for about six decades. It was finally passed by Congress in 1972; however, it was never ratified by the constitutionally required two-thirds (38) of the states. […]
The Sexual Revolution
The sexual revolution (liberated sexual activity) of the 1960s and onward was part, but certainly not the only part, of the Women’s Movement. It was a product of advances in contraceptive techniques such as the birth control pill for women, the availability of legal abortions and the “hippie” revolution, where young women rejected the restraints […]
Abortion and the Right to Choose Wars
Probably the most significant issue of the Women’s Movement, and certainly the most controversial and emotional, was the call for reform of abortion laws. In 1967, only Colorado had liberalized its 19th-century legal statute that made abortion a criminal offense. New York joined Colorado in 1970 and by mid-1971 eleven other states had enacted laws […]
Stonewall Inn Riots
Hostility and prejudice toward homosexuality has deep roots in American society. State sodomy laws criminalized homosexual acts. Federal immigration laws excluded homosexual aliens. The 1873 Comstock Act permitted postal authorities to exclude homosexual publications from the mail. Hollywood’s “Production Code,” adopted in 1934, prohibited the depiction of gay characters or open discussion of homosexuality in […]
HIV/AIDS – not just a “gay plague”
In the early to mid-1980s, the disease Human Immunodeficiency Virus/ Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome, known as HIV/AIDS, became a world-wide medical phenomenon. It had the potential human destructiveness of medieval plagues. It killed by breaking down the body’s ability to fight off other opportunistic diseases, such as pneumonia, tuberculosis, and blood cancers. AIDS was transmitted […]
The AIDS Memorial Quilt
The NAMES Project Foundation AIDS Memorial Quilt, often just called the AIDS Memorial Quilt, is an enormous quilt made as a memorial to celebrate the lives of people who died of AIDS-related causes. Weighing an estimated 54 tons, it was the largest piece of community folk art in the world as of 2016. (http://www.npr.org/2012/06/27/155868611/pieces-of-aids-quilt-blanket-nations-capital) The […]
Watergate and Nixon’s Resignation
As noted earlier, in June 1971, in response to the news that the Nixon administration had expanded fighting in the Vietnam War to Cambodia, Daniel Ellsberg, a former government intelligence officer, leaked the “Pentagon Papers” to the New York Times, which printed the material. The Pentagon Papers “revealed a long history of government lies—of lies […]
The Ervin Committee/The White House Tapes/Nixon’s Resignation
The United States Senate appointed a special prosecutor, Archibald Cox, to investigate the White House shenanigans. The Senate, via The Ervin Committee, headed by Senator Sam Ervin of North Carolina, started hearings related to the Watergate break in and other dirty tricks on May 17, 1973. The hearings were televised and the nation’s citizens were […]
The Watergate Legacy
In the wake of the Watergate scandal, Congress passed a series of laws designed to reform the political process. Disclosures during the Watergate investigations of money-laundering led Congress to provide public financing of presidential elections, public disclosure of sources of funding, limits on private campaign contributions and spending, and to enforce campaign finance laws by […]
America and the Middle East
See related sections: The Arab Oil Embargo The Camp David Accords The Iranian Revolution The Persian Gulf War