Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks - was a seamstress from Montgomery, Alabama. On December 1st 1955 she refused to give up her seat on a bus to a white man. She was arrested and charged with violating a local segregation ordinance. Parks' act was not a spur of the moment decision that it seemed. A women of a perfect reputation and long NAACP member, she had been chosen to play that part. Once the die was cast the black community turned to Reverend MLK for leadership. This act inspired the Civil Rights movement.

Ngo Dinh Diem

Ngo Dinh Diem, an anti-Communist Catholic who had been living in America, returned to Vietnam as a premier. The next year, in a rigged election, Diem became president of an independent South Vietnam. Facing certain defeat by the popular Ho Chi Minh, Diem called off the reunification elections scheduled for 1956. March 1956 France left Vietnam and USA took over - American battle to contain Communism - in South East Asia. To prop him up, Eiesenhower administration sent Diem 200 Million a year in aid and 675 American Military advisors. Few Americans and even Eiesnehower had no idea where this lead. Nov. 1. 1963 Diem is overthrown and assasinated.

March Against Death

March Against Death - Antiwar protesters announce that they will organize a 36-hour "March Against Death" to take place in Washington in November; there will be a simultaneous rally in San Francisco. This effort was led by Dr. Benjamin Spock and 10 other representatives of the New Mobilization Committee to End the War in Vietnam. (1969)

Port Huron Statement

The Port Huron Statement is the manifesto of the American student activist movement Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), written primarily by Tom Hayden, then the Field Secretary of SDS, and completed on June 15, 1962 at an SDS convention at what is now a state park in Lakeport, Mich., a community north of Port Huron.

The Port Huron Statement challenged what it viewed as most Americans' complacency with the status quo, though it blamed much of such complacency upon the efforts of an entrenched power elite to maintain its status,

"The apathy here is, first subjective — the felt powerlessness of ordinary people, the resignation before the enormity of events. But subjective apathy is encouraged by the objective American situation — the actual structural separation of people from power, from relevant knowledge, from pinnacles of decision making. . . . The American political system is not the democratic model of which its glorifiers speak. In actuality it frustrates democracy by confusing the individual citizen, paralyzing policy discussion, and consolidating the irresponsible power of military and business interests."^[11]

Although some critics have accused The Port Huron Statement of espousing Marxist beliefs,^[12] the statement itself strongly condemned communism.

Henry Kissinger

Henry Kissinger served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. After his term, his opinion was still sought out by many following presidents.

A proponent of Realpolitik, Kissinger played a dominant role in United States foreign policy between 1969 and 1977. During this period, he pioneered the policy of détente with the Soviet Union, orchestrated the opening of relations with China, and negotiated the Paris Peace Accords, ending American involvement in the Vietnam War. His role in the bombing of Cambodia and other American interventions abroad during this period remains controversial.

Kissinger is still a controversial figure today.^[2] He was honored as the first recipient of the Ewald von Kleist Award of the Munich Conference on Security Policy and currently serves as the chairman of Kissinger Associates, an international consulting firm. Kissinger was the "most frequent visitor" to the George W. Bush White House as an unofficial political adviser on Israel and the Middle East—including the Iraq War

Betty Friedan

Betty Friedan is a leading figure in the "Second Wave" of the U.S. Women's Movement, her 1963 book The Feminine Mystique is sometimes credited with sparking the "second wave" of feminism. Friedan co-founded National Organization for Women in 1966 which aimed to bring women "into the mainstream of American society now [in] fully equal partnership with men". She also wrote the book Our Wayward Sons.

In 1970, after stepping down as NOW's first president in 1969, Friedan organized the nation-wide Women's Strike for Equality on August 26, the 50th anniversary of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution granting women the right to vote. The national strike was successful beyond expectations in broadening the feminist movement. The New York City march alone attracted over 50,000 women.

Oliver North

Oliver North is best known for his role in the Iran-Contra scandal. North was at the center of national attention during the Iran-Contra affair, a political scandal of the late 1980s. North was a National Security Council member involved in the clandestine sale of weapons to Iran, which served to encourage the release of U.S. hostages from Lebanon. North formulated the second part of the plan: diverting proceeds from the arms sales to support the Contra rebel group in Nicaragua. North was charged with several felonies and convicted of three, but the convictions were later vacated, and the underlying charges dismissed due to the limited immunity agreement granted for his pre-trial public Congressional testimony about the affair.