Characteristics Of The 1960's

A defining characteristic of the 1960's political landscape is that of liberalism, which is a political and social philosophy that promotes individual rights, civil liberties, democracy, and free enterprise. President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal was the match that ignited the takeoff of liberal ideals in the 1930s which continued well into the 1960's. Ultimately, the federal policies and court decisions in the 1960's strongly reflected liberal ideals through the Civil Rights policies, the Voting Rights Act, and the Economic Opportunity Act.

The first piece of federal policy in the 1060's that strongly reflected liberal ideals was the Civil Rights Act. The Civil Rights Act was proposed in 1964 under President John F. Kennedy and signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. It was an act that banned discrimination based on race, religion, gender, and national origin in access to public facilities, employment, and federal programs. Under this act, mainly, but not limited to, African-Americans individual rights were given and protected under federal law, a civil liberty, which was an important part of the progressivist liberal ideals in the 1960's. Although the Civil Rights Act did not fully protect minority groups in America due to it not being widely enforced, it was the beginning of an era in which

Johnson in 1965. The Voting Rights Act was the act that ended the use of literacy tests as a qualification for voting. It also gave the federal government the power to send "federal examiners" to the South to register people qualified to vote. This was an important piece of legislation because it was common that states would use literacy tests to prevent African-American from exercising their right to vote guaranteed under the fifteenth Amendment in the Constitution. Although this did not grant any group of people individual rights, it did protect minority groups who were not properly educated or those who were stopped and abused by authorities from