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LM - US society during the 1960s underwent many changes whose nature was unprecedented in US history. Key developments included JFK's approaches to nuclear threats and LBJ's unprecedented pursuit of civil rights. In terms of threats from the Soviet bloc, the US saw a turn of policy. President Kennedy no longer gave primacy to brinkmanship philosophies, and he went further to defy Eisenhower and Dullace brothers policies by defying preemptive strike theories. As the Cold War climaxed during the Cuban Missile Crisis, American fears of nuclear anhilation drew a new response than these fear did during the 1950s. The nations was less swept with concern, and more jaded to the Keynesian concept that the end was near. This precipitated a societal acceptance of nuclear threat, and allowed foreign policy and domestic social policies to broaden their focus from the Soviet Union to other issues, including civil rights.

Begun by JFK, civil rights legislation took on a new assertiveness. The alternation of Blacks' civil rights struggle in the south into a human rights conflict garnered not only national reform but international attention. Violence in the south against MLK protesters and other activists drew international attention. The national reforms and international attention further solidified Congress' motiuvation to end the race based oppression in the south, as they did through the 1964 Civil Rights act and other measures lessening reliance on state authorities to enforce equal rights and increasing federal oversight thereof. Kennedy's approach to nationalizing state National Guard units was the most significant action he took to ensure already legislated civil rights acts were enforced, as they long had not been. Passage of the most comprehensive voting rights bill in US history brought blacks living in the south largely out of the political frey they had been confined to, and some argue shifted the apex of civil rights violations to northern cities which had not been the focus of racial equality insurance. Overall, the absence of widespread concentration on the nuclear threat due to jaded fears allowed the civil rights movement to gain enough prominence to become a successful national movement supported by citizens around the nation.


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