20th Century Articles

Article / Updated 05-22-2017

President Richard Nixon's involvement in the infamous Watergate scandal is a controversial issue, even today. Nixon's role in Watergate has been under discussion and clouded in suspicion for years. In a nutshell, here’s what happened in the greatest presidential scandal in U.S. history: On June 17, 1972, McCord and four other men working for the Committee to Re-Elect the President (or CREEP — really) broke into the Democratic Party’s headquarters in the Watergate, a hotel-office building in Washington, D.C. They got caught going through files and trying to plant listening devices. Five days later, Nixon denied any knowledge of it or that his administration played any role in it. The burglars went to trial in 1973 and either pled guilty or were convicted. Before sentencing, McCord wrote a letter to Judge John Sirica, contending that high Republican and White House officials knew about the break-in and had paid the defendants to keep quiet or lie during the trial. Investigation of McCord’s charges spread to a special Senate committee. John Dean, a White House lawyer, told the committee McCord was telling the truth and that Nixon had known of the effort to cover up White House involvement. Eventually, all sorts of damaging stuff began to surface, including evidence that key documents linking Nixon to the cover-up of the break-in had been destroyed, that the Nixon reelection committee had run a “dirty tricks” campaign against the Democrats, and that the administration had illegally wiretapped the phones of “enemies,” such as journalists who had been critical of Nixon. In March 1974, former Attorney. General John Mitchell and six top Nixon aides were indicted by a federal grand jury for trying to block the investigation. They were eventually convicted. While Nixon continued to deny any involvement, it was revealed he routinely made secret tapes of conversations in his office. Nixon refused to turn over the tapes at first, and when he did agree (after firing a special prosecutor he had appointed to look into the mess and seeing his new attorney general resign in protest), it turned out some of them were missing or had been destroyed. (They were also full of profanity, which greatly surprised people who had an entirely different perception of Nixon.) In the summer of 1974, the House Judiciary Committee approved articles of impeachment against the president for obstructing justice. The tapes clearly showed Nixon had been part of the cover-up. On August 8, 1974, he submitted a one-sentence letter of resignation, and then went on television and said, “I have always tried to do what is best for the nation.” He was the first and, so far, only U.S. president to quit the job. The Watergate scandal rocked the nation, which was already reeling from the Vietnam disaster, economic troubles, assassinations, and all the social unrest of the preceding 15 years. It fell to Nixon’s successor, Vice President Gerald R. Ford, to try to bring back a sense of order and stability to the nation. And no one had voted for him to do it.

Article / Updated 04-26-2016

James Dean was a film actor who remains an icon of both Hollywood and American pop culture — despite that fact that his movies are nearly 60 years old and his career consisted of only three major roles before he died in an automobile accident. James Dean's early life James Dean was born on February 8, 1931, in Marion, Indiana. When Dean was six, he and his family moved to Santa Monica, California. Dean's mother died when he was nine, after which his father sent him back to Indiana to be raised by James' aunt and uncle. In high school, James Dean's grades were average, but he excelled in athletics (baseball and basketball) and he enjoyed acting in school plays. After graduating, Dean returned to California to live with his father and step-mother, and he resumed his study of drama at UCLA — which led to his being alienated by his father. In 1951, James Dean dropped out of UCLA to pursue acting full time. James Dean's films James Dean's first role was in 1955's East of Eden, the film adaptation of the novel by James Steinbeck. Dean portrayed Cal Trask, an emotional and unhappy young man still grieving over the mysterious disappearance of his mother and forlorn by his father's favoritism of Cal's twin brother. The juxtaposition of Cal's troubles with his intuitive business savvy and his deep need to be loved required an actor who could handle complex and varied emotions. James Dean did more than pull this off — he triumphed. Dean immediately followed East of Eden with the film that remains his best known, Rebel Without a Cause. Dean played troubled teenager Jim Stark, a role that set the bar for teenage angst and discontent and created a genre of movies about teenage troubles that's existed ever since. Rebel Without a Cause was released almost one month to the day after James Dean died in an automobile accident. Dean's third movie was 1956's Giant, a Western epic in which he played a supporting role to Elizabeth Taylor and Rock Hudson. Dean played Jett, a poor ranch hand who buys a small plot of land and strikes it rich in oil. The film spans over 25 years and saw James Dean progress from a strapping, ambitious young man to a drunk, vindictive middle-aged man. James Dean's three films demonstrated his superb acting abilities and his ease at portraying nearly every emotion imaginable. James Dean remains the only person to be nominated for two posthumous Academy Awards, both for Best Actor in a Leading Role, for East of Eden and Giant. Credit: Scott Barnes, 2009 Over 50 years after his death, women still don red lipstick to kiss the grave of James Dean in Fairmount, Indiana. James Dean's auto racing — and his death Aside from making movies, James Dean's passion was collecting cars and auto racing. He purchased and traded motorcycles and cars frequently. When not making movies, he participated in auto races around California. He developed such a reputation as a race car driver that the producers of Giant, in order to protect their star, forbade Dean from racing during the film's production. Sadly, on September 30, 1955 (just weeks after the filming of Giant finished), James Dean died in an automobile accident while driving his Porsche 550 Spyder to a race in Salinas, California. James Dean was 24 years old. James Dean is buried in a public cemetery in Fairmount, Indiana. His grave remains a pilgrimage site for movie buffs, fans of 1950s pop culture, and teenagers-at-heart (or some rebels-at-heart).

Video / Updated 03-28-2016

Gain a deeper insight into the majestic of the Titanic, by seeing the people and all encompassing wonder of the "Ship of Dreams."

Cheat Sheet / Updated 03-27-2016

On the night of April 14–15, 1912, the unthinkable happened: On its maiden voyage, the Titanic, the largest passenger ship ever built at that time, hit an iceberg in the North Atlantic and sank. More than 1,500 of the 2,200-plus people on board were killed, including some of the wealthiest and most well-known people in the world. Those who survived told harrowing stories of waiting in lifeboats in the frigid waters for hours, uncertain whether anyone even knew they needed to be rescued. Stories of the Titanic’s sinking still captivate audiences a full century after its demise — stories that remind us of the limits of men’s endeavors and the dangers of their arrogance.

Step by Step / Updated 03-27-2016

From the very beginning, even before she was launched, the Titanic was an object of fascination. At the Harland and Wolff shipyards in Belfast where she was built, workers marveled at the size of the ship. In Southampton, England, the first stop on her maiden voyage, thousands of people came to the docks to see the largest moving object ever constructed by man. And after the Titanic sank to the bottom of the North Atlantic on the sixth day of her maiden voyage — April 15, 1912 — the unsinkable ship began her voyage into time immemorial. These pictures help tell her tragic story.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

Because the scope of U.S. involvement in Vietnam was limited in the late 1950s and early '60s, public opposition was also limited. Yet with the 1964 presidential elections, a large-scale antiwar movement began to take shape. Lyndon Johnson ran as a "Dove" or peace candidate, pledging to not send U.S. boys to Vietnam. By contrast, the Republican candidate, Barry Goldwater, ran as a "Hawk," or war candidate, to the point of even advocating the use of some tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam. The peace movement clearly supported Johnson, and the election was an easy victory for him. Ironically, though, the bombing of North Vietnam and the commitment of U.S. combat troops to Vietnam took place within months of Johnson's election. As a result of this increased role in Vietnam and the perception that Johnson had deceived voters, the antiwar movement emerged for the first time as a national phenomenon with a clear agenda and not just an outgrowth of presidential politics. Spreading the word with teach-ins A primary goal of the antiwar movement in its infancy was to educate national leaders and the American public. The tools to accomplish this education were teach-ins, which began in earnest in 1965. Believing that government policy was based upon ignorance and mistakes, intellectuals sought to educate the public to solve the problems. Teach-ins were informal lectures and discussions given by professors and graduate students and open to anyone interested in the topic. The idea was that exposing people to the facts and raising questions could move people to action. After enough people were motivated, the government would be forced to listen as well. In a May 15-16 teach-in, for example, participants from Yale, Harvard, Columbia, the University of Chicago, and the State Department debated policy over a radio link connecting 122 colleges nationwide. As college professors spoke out about the Vietnam War, President Johnson responded in a speech at Johns Hopkins University on April 7, 1965, stating that he was ready for negotiations regarding a free and independent South Vietnam, yet he wouldn't deal with the National Liberation Front (the political branch of the Viet Cong). Johnson's speech angered many antiwar groups and moved them to action. Throughout 1965, the teach-ins continued at campuses across the nation. Holding early marches and demonstrations On April 17, 1965, ten days after Johnson's Johns Hopkins speech (see the preceding section), SDS held its first march in Washington, D.C., to protest the war. A few thousand protesters were expected, yet some 25,000 people showed up, making it the largest antiwar protest in the city's history. Other large demonstrations soon followed: On October 15, 15,000 people marched in Berkeley, California, and another 20,000 marched in Manhattan, New York. On November 27, another demonstration in Washington drew 25,000 protesters. Though these demonstrations were small compared to those of the late '60s, they were record setting for their day. Public demonstrations were the next logical step to take after the teach-ins, because the teach-ins seemed somewhat like preaching to the choir. Protesters were moving beyond words, reason, and education to place pressure on policymakers who seemed to be ignoring the will of the people, as expressed in the 1964 election. Initiating civil disobedience Many protesters who joined the emerging antiwar movement were veterans of the civil rights movement and understood the value of civil disobedience, particularly in the form of public moral sacrifice. In August 1965, Vietnam Day committee members (a group formed to coordinate antiwar activities in California) began to lie down on railroad tracks in northern California in order to block the movement of troops trains in the area. Another 350 protesters were arrested in Washington for civil disobedience for attempting to disrupt the government. Over the same summer, protesters began to burn their draft cards. Following the lead of the Buddhist monks In 1965, another form of protest emerged — that of public suicide to draw attention to the war. The first suicide occurred on a Detroit street corner on March 16, when Alice Herz, an 82-year-old pacifist, doused herself with cleaning fluid and ignited it. Herz left a note condemning President Johnson for trying to wipe out small nations and explaining that she was protesting in the same way that the Buddhist monks had in Vietnam in 1963. Though this was the act of a single protester the media coverage shocked many into asking questions about the conduct and morality of the war. On November 2, a 32-year-old Quaker made the ultimate sacrifice as an act of moral persuasion. Norman Morrison carried his infant daughter with him to the Pentagon, where he set her down and, standing in front of the office windows of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, doused himself with gasoline and set himself on fire. Like Herz, Morrison was consciously trying to emulate the monks. McNamara, one of the chief architects of U.S. policy in Vietnam, witnessed the suicide. He was shocked by the protest and in his memoirs referred to the incident as a personal tragedy. One week later, a 22-year-old man named Roger La Porte killed himself in the same manner in front of the United Nations headquarters in New York. La Porte, like Herz and Morrison, sought to make a religious statement against the war in Vietnam.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

Although the beginning of the'60s showcased women in frilly white aprons, spatula in hand and crying child on hip, females hadn't been in such a role forever. During World War II (1941–45), women left the sphere of house and home and adopted what had been considered male roles in society. They worked in factories and kept America running as the country's young men headed off to war. The famous image of Rosie the Riveter comes from this period. Other women joined the armed forces, and although they didn't have combat roles, they made great contributions to the war effort as nurses, motor mechanics, weather forecasters, air traffic controllers, and radio/telephone operators. However, when the war ended and the GIs returned home, many women were forced to leave their jobs to make room for the returning soldiers. Fast forward a few years to the 1950s, when the World War II veterans, many of whom had been to college on the GI Bill, were earning good salaries. To accommodate these upwardly mobile families, suburban housing developments were springing up to provide safe and affordable housing. Middle-class white women, lured by white picket fences, new laborsaving appliances, advertising and marketing messages, and the ideals presented on television adopted the roles of mother, helpmate, and homemaker to the exclusion of almost everything else. In fact, this view of the proper role of middle-class women in society became so pervasive that a woman choosing to remain single or to successfully pursue a career was looked on as either a pathetic spinster or a cold dragon lady. The idyllic script for women's roles in society, of course, didn't apply to all women. Working-class and poor women of all races did just what they always did — they worked to survive and provide their families with the necessities. Often the work was backbreaking, demeaning, or mundane, and the pay was much less than a man would receive for the same job. At times, working conditions were brutal and unsafe. Their work was often treated as less than professional, thereby justifying the employers' desire to pay low wages and offer few benefits. For example, in the 1950s, black women often worked as cleaning ladies for more well-to-do families. Though the work was difficult and demanding, the families they worked for didn't even have to provide social security contributions for them. Early in the'60s, suburban white middle-class women supposedly had it all. They didn't have to work, had lovely homes, beautiful children, attentive husbands, new cars, and an increasingly prosperous lifestyle. But even though life seemed heavenly, underneath it all, many of these women had vague feelings of uneasiness and boredom. They couldn't quite put their finger on it, but they had a sense that life must have more to offer than marriage, babies, and a well-ordered house. Many of these women were also well educated and somehow felt vaguely guilty that they'd abandoned their ideals and wasted their educations pursuing a life that would reach no further than the kitchen or the laundry room. They became resentful of the mind-numbing boredom of their daily routines. But how could they complain? They had everything they ever wanted. In 1963 Betty Friedan put those unspoken feelings in print with the publication of her book The Feminine Mystique, bringing to light the dark side of the domestic dream. After the book hit shelves nationwide, nothing was ever the same. According to Friedan, the feminine mystique was the mistaken theory that marriage, homemaking, and childbearing were the ways that women could fulfill themselves. She contended that the media and advertising were the creators and purveyors of that vision as a way of maintaining demand for consumer goods. In preparation for her revitalizing work, Friedan interviewed thousands of women, giving them the opportunity to say what they really felt about their lives. They reported that although they were happy with their families and felt that they'd achieved everything they ever wanted, something was missing. After talking to those women and hearing the same feelings expressed over and over again, Friedan had a title for the book's first chapter: "The Problem that Has No Name." After the book was published, millions of other women recognized themselves in its pages. They remembered who they were in college and in their short-lived careers and wondered where their bright, stimulated, and interesting selves had gone. The Feminine Mystique led women to examine their lives, and the results changed American society. When women reconnected with their less domesticated selves and demanded gender equality in the family, workplace, and government, they instigated social changes that continued into the next millennium.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

The Tet holiday is revered in Vietnamese society as a series of days to visit with and enjoy family and friends. It has also been a time of great victories over previous foreign invaders in Vietnam. Almost every year during the war, a Tet cease-fire was called and broken. So what made the Tet of 1968 so different? First was the extent of the attack. Most people in South Vietnam expected something to happen, but few expected the massive and coordinated NVA/VC (North Vietnamese Army/Viet Cong) assaults that took place. On January 31, 1968, more than 80,000 NVA/VC soldiers launched the Tet Offensives and simultaneously attacked more than 150 hamlets, district capitals, provincial capitals, and autonomous cities. They attacked Saigon and the old Imperial capital at Hue. While they attacked throughout the country, the NVA/VC hoped and expected that the people of South Vietnam would rise up and join them in overthrowing the government of South Vietnam along with (in their words) their puppet-masters, the Americans. The uprising never happened, leaving the NVA/VC at the mercy of superior American and ARVN (South Vietnamese army) firepower and mobility. Fighting in the streets: The battle for Saigon The fighting in Saigon was intense because the NVA/VC concentrated a significant force there in the hope of capturing the city and ending the war. The American Embassy even came under serious threat when a group of VC soldiers attacked the compound. VC Sappers (personnel who infiltrated the defensive perimeter and threw explosives into bunkers or buildings) killed U.S. Marines and MPs guarding the embassy, but the VC couldn't hold up against the American reinforcements sent in to secure the facility and were eventually all killed. Although the NVA/VC enjoyed some initial successes in Saigon and elsewhere, U.S. and ARVN forces quickly rallied and began turning them back until the hoped-for general uprising turned into a devastating defeat. As more American and ARVN forces entered Saigon and counterattacked, they had to engage the remnants of the NVA/VC in house-to-house street fighting. By the first week of February, the ARVN assumed responsibility for the remaining operations to clean up Saigon. Searching for a moral victory: The battle for Hue The city of Hue is the former Imperial capital of Vietnam, and the fighting there reached an intensity and ferocity not closely matched anywhere else during the Tet fighting. The battle for Hue lasted 25 days and, unlike most of the other city battles, resulted in NVA control over much of the city. The city had been previously off limits to U.S. soldiers, which meant that soldiers were not already in the area, so Americans had to be brought in to help defend the city and help push the NVA out. The fighting for Hue lasted until March when elements of the U.S. 1st Cavalry and 101st Airborne Division, 1st and 5th Marine Regiments, and numerous ARVN units finally forced the NVA/VC out of the city. All sides suffered heavy losses. The NVA lost 5,000 soldiers and had nearly 100 captured. The ARVN suffered more then 380 dead with nearly 2,000 wounded. American casualties were 210 died and 1,360 wounded. Hue itself suffered heavy damage as the battles destroyed and damaged nearly half the city. The most surprising losses, however, didn't occur among the fighting soldiers or in the razed buildings. Americans and South Vietnamese later discovered that, upon entering the city, NVA/VC leaders rounded up South Vietnamese teachers and government officials and killed them. In what became known as the Hue Massacre, the NVA/VC murdered nearly 3,000 residents of Hue and buried them in a mass grave in the jungle outside the city. Unfortunately, such horrific atrocities were not limited to Hue. Two weeks after the battle for Hue ended, U.S. forces committed what has become the most publicized, talked about, and politicized atrocity of the Vietnam War, the My Lai Massacre. Laying siege to marines: The Khe Sanh hill fights, part II While the fighting in Saigon started and ended rather quickly, the longest battle of the Tet Offensive occurred in the mountains overlooking the HCM Trail near Khe Sanh (see Figure 1). Although the initial hill fights had ended in May of 1967, the NVA/VC hadn't given up hope that they could deliver a devastating blow to the American effort by overrunning and capturing the U.S. base at Khe Sanh. During the intervening months, from May 1967 until January 1968, the NVA/VC built up their forces and supplies and prepared for a massive siege to capture this mountain outpost. Figure 1: Khe Sanh. The fighting and subsequent siege began on January 21, a little more than a week before the Tet Offensive began. General Vo Nguyen Giap, the North Vietnamese strategist who planned the attack on Khe Sanh and much of the Tet Offensive, hoped, along with the rest of North Vietnam, to accomplish several goals: The NVA wanted to draw American and ARVN forces from the cities in preparation for the Tet Offensive. If a general uprising did occur during Tet, those U.S. and ARVN forces would be forced to redeploy back to the cities in order to repel the many attacks throughout South Vietnam. At Khe Sanh, either the U.S. would have to start withdrawing or the remaining NVA/VC forces would be better able to overrun the base camp absent the American and ARVN reinforcements who would have left to protect the cities during Tet. In this way, Giap and other North Vietnamese strategists hoped to repeat at Khe Sanh what they had accomplished at Dien Bien Phu in 1954, the decisive battle that defeated the French and effectively ended the French Indochina War. The analogy between the two battles was apparent to Americans and at the outset of the battle for Khe Sanh, Johnson himself is quoted as saying, "I don't want any damn 'Dien Bien Phu!'" Fortunately for Johnson, Giap and the North Vietnamese overestimated the likelihood of a general uprising among the South Vietnamese people and underestimated the ability of the U.S. and ARVN forces to deploy and redeploy as necessary to deal with all the threats of Tet and still maintain a strong enough presence at Khe Sanh to protect and outlast the siege. The NVA/VC massed 40,000 troops in the hills of Khe Sanh in preparation for the siege and attacks. For their part, the U.S. Marines reinforced the Khe Sanh garrison with more than 5,000 Marines of the 26th Marine Regiment. As the battle and siege continued during January, February, and March, the U.S. and ARVN tried to reinforce the U.S. Marine garrison and brought in massive amounts of artillery, close air, and naval gunfire support. The U.S. Marines also received enough ammunition, food, and other essential materials through aerial resupply to help them outlast the siege. During the siege, the NVA bombarded the Marine base with artillery, mortars, and rocket fire and early in the process detonated much of the fuel depot and ammunition dump. They dug trenches and tried at one point to launch a ground assault, but the U.S. Marines repulsed the attacks. In addition to attacks on Khe Sanh, NVA forces also attacked and overran the Special Forces camp at Lang Vei, just south of Khe Sanh. The siege of Khe Sanh ended on April 8 after the 1st Cavalry Division reopened Route 9 and made contact with the Marines at Khe Sanh. Both sides suffered significant casualties: U.S. forces lost nearly 300 soldiers, more than 1,400 wounded; estimates show that the NVA lost somewhere between 10,000 and 15,000 soldiers. By April, the siege of Khe Sanh and the Tet Offensive officially ended but the aftershocks resonated for months, even years. The Tet Offensives of 1968: And the winners are . . . Without a doubt, the U.S. and ARVN forces won the various battles involved with the 1968 Tet Offensives and repelled every attack except those on Lang Vei and Kham Duc. The NVA/VC lost more than 45,000 men and had nearly 1,000 captured. But the real surprise of Tet 1968 had nothing to do with the attacks throughout the cities, the siege of Khe Sanh, or even the horrific casualties suffered by soldiers and civilians on all sides. What no one foresaw was what became two of the most significant casualties of the Vietnam War: The trust and faith of the American people in their government, also known as the credibility gap, as certain public officials lost their credibility with the American people because it appeared they had been lying about progress in the war. The political and moral will of President Lyndon Johnson to continue fighting in Vietnam. On March 31, Johnson announced a halt to the bombing of North Vietnam north of the 19th parallel, and he told the world that he would not accept the nomination to run for reelection. Johnson no longer wanted to be president of the United States of America. This was so important because, until 1968, the majority of Americans supported the war and believed what the U.S. government told them regarding the war. Today, Americans looking back on the events, remark about how they lost faith in the government when Tet 1968 occurred and it appeared the government had been lying to them about progress in the war. Johnson's decision not to seek reelection was so important because the will of the American people flowed from and through the president, making him the symbolic embodiment of U.S. national will. When Johnson lost faith and gave up, it became difficult for many Americans to continue supporting a war the president no longer supported. Tet 1968 ultimately proved that the communist strategy of a protracted war designed to drain the will of the American people was a much better approach than was the U.S. strategy of attrition. Perhaps the greatest irony of the situation was that the U.S. and ARVN forces succeeded in destroying most of the remaining Viet Cong during Tet. This meant that after Tet, the NVA had to take over nearly all the fighting in South Vietnam. As a result, the U.S. and ARVN forces could put a more concerted effort behind fighting NVA units and building up South Vietnamese political, military, and social institutions. But American attitudes toward the war shifted remarkably after Tet, so the gains that the military netted during Tet 1968 were lost on their long trip across the Pacific to the U.S.

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

No period of African American literary history receives as much attention as the Harlem Renaissance, which ranged roughly from the beginning of World War I to the Great Depression. For the first time, African American artists from various realms — literature, art, and music — formed a collective movement. Although Harlem still gets most of the credit, Washington, D.C., specifically Howard University, was another important site, mainly because of the significant role Howard University professor Alain Locke played in the movement. The movement wasn't originally dubbed the Harlem Renaissance. Alain Locke and others referred to it as the New Negro Movement, which reflected the sweeping changes African Americans all over the nation were experiencing. Jacksonville, Florida, native James Weldon Johnson, a writer who became a leader of the NAACP, actually coined the movement the "Harlem Renaissance," and the moniker stuck. A large number of artists representing various parts of the country participated in the Harlem Renaissance. The overwhelming majority were highly educated, hailing from some of the most prestigious black and mainstream universities in the nation. Harlem Renaissance writers embraced a myriad of themes, but middle-class black America figured prominently in many of the works, as did the theme of passing, an expansion of the tragic mulatto theme first introduced in the mid-19th century. Nella Larsen's Passing (1929), about a chance encounter that reunites two childhood female friends, one who is passing for white and another living as a black woman, is a seminal work. Another highly regarded book on the subject is James Weldon Johnson's The Autobiography of an Ex-Coloured Man (1912). The book, written as a fictional autobiography about a man who ultimately chooses to pass as white to free himself from the mistreatment black people receive, achieved popularity when it was reissued in 1927. Ultimately, class tensions created a sizable rift among many Harlem Renaissance writers, with Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston becoming the most famous advocates of the black folk. Both Hughes and Hurston rebuffed arguments that writing about the black middle class would improve race relations by showing white readers that many African Americans were like them. Critics of Hurston and Hughes felt that embracing the black folk would reinforce primitive stereotypes about black people instead of setting the record straight. Others had simply internalized feelings that African American life and culture was inferior to that of white Americans. Jean Toomer Jean Toomer's background was racially mixed, and he didn't identify himself as African American until time spent in Sparta, Georgia, brought him into intimate contact with black rural life. As much a reflection of Toomer's own search for identity, his mixture of poems, short stories, and drama, Cane (1923) presents black Southern culture as well as the black Southerner's adaptation to the urban North before reconciling those two realities in the black South. In critical ways, Cane encapsulated the massive search for black identity that underscored the key debates of the Harlem Renaissance. Many artists and leaders, even those who embraced their racial heritage, weren't quite sure how to incorporate their past into their present. While this tension wasn't a new concern, rendering it in a distinctly artistic mode was unique. Cane demonstrated the artistic potential and merit of these tensions as grounding forces for great literary work. Langston Hughes One of the Harlem Renaissance's first published writers, Hughes's poem "The Negro Speaks of Rivers" appeared in the NAACP magazine The Crisis in 1921. Even though Harlem Renaissance artists were encouraged to depict black life, some advisors championed black middle-class life and values over those of the working class. Hughes disagreed, and in his influential 1926 essay, "The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountaintop," he asserted that the black artist who ran away from himself couldn't be great. Hughes championed black art that reflected black life, not just appropriate black life. Hughes was later known for his seminal 1951 poem "Harlem," often erroneously labeled "A Dream Deferred" for its famous line, "what happens to a dream deferred?" Zora Neale Hurston Zora Neale Hurston never outgrew her Harlem Renaissance fame. A student of anthropology who studied with Columbia University's Franz Boas, Hurston also worked for noted black historian Carter G. Woodson and accompanied Alan Lomax on some of his most celebrated folklore missions. Raised in the all-black town of Eatonville, Florida, Hurston was an outspoken supporter of rural African Americans and black folk traditions. Hurston's white patronage did trouble many of her black contemporaries, who accused her of pandering to whites. Despite winning several contests for impressive short stories like "Spunk" and writing for a number of noted publications during the height of the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston published most of her acclaimed works in the 1930s, during the Harlem Renaissance's decline. After Alice Walker's rediscovery of Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) in the 1970s, the novel became an important text in the African American literary canon and in many Southern literature classes as well. Other noteworthy artists Other important Harlem Renaissance figures include Wallace Thurman, best known for The Blacker the Berry (1929); poet Countee Cullen, noted for his poem, "Heritage"; and poet Claude McKay, known for his poem "If We Must Die" and the novel Home to Harlem (1928).

Article / Updated 03-26-2016

Because U.S. President Lyndon Johnson continued to expand U.S. support to South Vietnam, the U.S. military presence continued and took a more aggressive posture in 1964. The American advisory effort remained the same, as did the shipments of American military and economic assistance to the government and armed forces of South Vietnam. Changes in American envoys to South Vietnam occurred when vacancies opened at the American Embassy in Saigon and MACV headquarters. This article discusses the changes that occurred soon after Johnson took office. Militarizing the American embassy: A Taylored response In June 1964, Johnson selected General Maxwell Taylor to take over as U.S. Ambassador to South Vietnam. Taylor had been serving as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and, prior to that, served as a special advisor to President Kennedy. Taylor had made several trips to Vietnam, including one in 1961 and another in 1963. After the first trip, Taylor recommended an increase in the American troop presence in South Vietnam and asserted that a protracted ground war in Vietnam was highly unlikely. Within a year, the U.S. troop presence in Vietnam swelled from almost 700 to more than 15,000. After the second trip, Taylor reported "great progress" in the war against the communists but cautioned against continued U.S. backing of President Diem, who lacked the popular support of the South Vietnamese people. Within weeks, Diem was dead. Although Taylor didn't order the troop increase or coup, himself, they stand as a testament to his influence in the Kennedy administration and, subsequently, in Johnson's. Getting a facelift: Westy takes over MACV Military Assistance Command-Vietnam (MACV) received a boost in June 1964 in the form of a young and vibrant new commander, General William C. Westmoreland. Referred to as Westy, General Westmoreland served as deputy commander of MACV for six months under General Paul Harkin before taking over as commander in June. The appointment of Westmoreland meant that South Vietnam gained a strong ally who had experience as an artillery commander in WWII. Westmoreland came away from his WWII experience as a firm believer in conventional warfare; he ultimately concluded that such strategies and tactics could win in Vietnam. Westmoreland endorsed and implemented a strategy that reflected his military training and WWII experiences and that focused on using firepower and conventional military tactics. How to start a war: The U.S. Navy in the Gulf of Tonkin The U.S. also implemented a strategy of sending American naval vessels to the South China (PRC) Sea and to the Gulf of Tonkin, where they gathered electronic and signals intelligence on North Vietnamese Army (NVA) radar sites and communications systems. U.S. naval forces also supported South Vietnamese military attacks along the coast of North Vietnam as part of OPLAN 34A and The Desoto Missions. These joint U.S. and South Vietnamese navy operations brought North Vietnamese and American boats and ships into close proximity, making a confrontation likely. And that is exactly what happened on August 2, 1964. The USS Maddox, an American destroyer, came under fire from three North Vietnamese PT (patrol torpedo) Boats, four miles off the coast of North Vietnam. The Maddox returned fire and received support from U.S. Navy fighters, forcing the PT boats to flee. Two days later, it was alleged that the North Vietnamese again attacked U.S. ships, which are alleged to have counterattacked. Since then, U.S. personnel who served on those ships have refuted whether this second attack ever took place. Nevertheless, Johnson took this "evidence" to Congress and the American people and requested their authorization and support for taking all necessary means to protect U.S. forces in the area. Although information was readily available at the time, only years after the U.S. started fighting in Vietnam did anyone question the validity of Johnson's claims concerning the second attacks. On August 7, 1964, Congress passed the Southeast Asia Resolution, better known as the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, and Johnson received a blank check to take whatever action he deemed necessary to secure and safeguard U.S. forces in and around Southeast Asia. Ultimately, this meant introducing U.S. ground forces into South Vietnam, and that led to the American escalation of the Vietnam War. At first, taking all necessary action meant bombing targets in North Vietnam to punish them for allegedly attacking the USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy. The American retaliatory air strikes over North Vietnam involved military and industrial targets. From the perspective of the ground war in Vietnam, the increase of American air operations ultimately meant that the U.S. had to expand existing American airfields and create new airfields, and this meant sending American ground forces to provide security for those air bases. But first, Johnson became very preoccupied by a domestic event: the election of 1964.