The Greensboro NC Woolworth and Sit-In Movement

Mar 2, 2011 Michael Streich

The Sit-In Movement at the Woolworth Lunch Counter - Courtesy of International Civil Rights Museum/photo images

In February 1960 four black freshmen at NC A & T University in Greensboro made history by opposing segregation at the F.W. Woolworth store lunch counter.

What was the price of a cup of coffee in the South in 1960? For some African Americans, it was intimidation, violence, and even death. But on a Monday afternoon on February 1, 1960, four black college students attending North Carolina A and T State University defied the segregationist policies at the Greensboro, North Carolina F.W. Woolworth lunch counter and made history. Their courage and humanity contributed to the sit-in movement that involved 70,000 people over the next year.

The Face of Segregation in the American South

The sit-in movement was non-violent protest. The students were told, “We don’t serve colored here.” Ezell A. Blair, Jr., Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil, and David L. Richmond refused to leave. Within a week, the four were joined by four hundred, both black and white, and their protest became a nationwide story. This was the story of “Whites’ only” water fountains and restaurants that refused to serve African Americans. At Southern state capitals whites with placards proclaimed “Race Mixing is Communism.”

By the time A & T students sat down at the Woolworth lunch counter, Rosa Parks had refused to move to the back of a bus in Montgomery, Alabama (1955) and Alabama Governor George Wallace stood at the door of the University of Alabama refusing to admit black students. In Prince Edward County, Virginia, all public schools were closed.

Undoing Almost One Hundred Years of Separate but Equal

Segregation in the South began in the waning years of Reconstruction. The erroneous and immoral notion of “separate but equal” was affirmed in 1896 by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Plessy v Ferguson. Not until the Warren Court issued its ruling in Brown v Board of Education would separate but equal be declared inherently unequal.

Although the courts in various cases issued rulings designed to end segregation and guarantee full social and political equality, the four A & T University freshmen added a new dimension to the Civil Rights Movement: anyone could participate. Segregation would not change solely through judicial action. It would require the efforts of men, women, and children of all races.

Fifty Years after the Woolworth Sit-In of 1960

Woolworth closed early that 1960 Monday afternoon. But the sit-in movement spread throughout the South, in some cases leading to arrests for trespass. In 1960, over three thousand protesters were arrested as part of the South’s response to the movement. Today, Woolworth has closed its doors (as of 1993) and the building at 134 Elm Street in Greensboro, North Carolina houses the International Civil Rights Center & Museum.

NC A & T University students are still actively involved in bringing solutions not just to the local community but to the world. A vibrant international studies program sends students for long and short-term educational experiences to some of the poorest countries in Africa, South America, and Asia. The university offers a Global Studies certificate to qualifying graduates.

In February 2010 three surviving members of the 1960 sit-in group were honored during the dedication of the museum in Greensboro. Part of that lunch counter including four seats had already been displayed at the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, DC. The Greensboro museum functions as a chronicle of the boldness and determination of four college freshmen whose actions in February 1960 helped to change a social system that was un-American and immoral.

Sources:

• Owen Edwards, “Courage at the Greensboro Lunch Counter,” Smithsonian, February 2010
• International Civil Rights Center & Museum, Greensboro, North Carolina
• Smithsonian Museum
• Lucas A. Powe, Jr., The Warren Court and American Politics (The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2000)
• Note: this writer taught Global Studies at NC A & T State University

Copyright Michael Streich. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.

 

The SEATO Treaty Confronts Communism in Asia

Mar 4, 2011 Michael Streich

The 1954 SEATO treaty was a response to Communist aggression in Asia and later used to justify U.S. involvement in South Vietnam.

The early years of the Cold War were defined by the formation of alliances designed to contain Communism and promote prosperity and peace. In his memoirs, President Eisenhower wrote that, “Squalor and starvation worked to the advantage of Communist ambitions.” As leader of the “free world,” the United States forged alliances like NATO that would, in future decades, justify global policing. The 1954 South East Asian Treaty Organization (SEATO) was one such alliance.

The Presence of Communism in Asia after World War II

Just as Winston Churchill’s “Iron Curtain” had divided Europe, so also a “bamboo curtain” in Asia separated vulnerable “free nations” from those under Communist control such as mainland China, North Korea, and North Vietnam. In other nations, like the Philippines, insurgent groups, supplied by Communist powers, sought to ferment revolution.

Most every former colonial possession in Asia faced an internal threat from pro-Communist elements. Immediately after World War II, Josef Stalin, the Soviet leader, even demanded a partition of Japan similar to the one in Korea. The expansion of Communism in Asia was viewed as a voracious attempt to control a number of struggling nations.

Although Eisenhower ended the Korean War, he agreed with his predecessor Harry Truman about the role the U.S. should play in world affairs, specifically in confronting Communism. To the extent that the American public also agreed is evident by Eisenhower’s victory in 1952.

As the commander of U.S. forces in Europe during World War II and the supreme commander of NATO forces, Eisenhower exuded confidence and leadership. The Communist threat in Asia impacted U.S. commercial interests while subverting legitimate governments struggling to develop into free societies.

Collective Security and Assurance of Sovereign Integrity

The pivotal clause of the SEATO treaty was found in Article IV, Section 1. Although a military response is not mentioned, the clause refers to “aggression” committed against “any of the Parties” in the treaty area. The presumption was that each member, after unanimous consent, would collectively respond to the aggression “in accordance with…constitutional processes.”

Neither Vietnam nor South Korea was a full partner in SEATO which was dominated by the former Asian colonial powers Britain, France, and the U.S. In many ways SEATO was an extension of both NATO and the Truman Doctrine. The U.S. Senate ratified the SEATO treaty with only one dissenting vote after being guaranteed by Secretary of State John Foster Dulles that treaty obligations would not lead to a ground war involving American soldiers. Vietnam disproved that guarantee.

SEATO and the Coming of the Vietnam War

In terms of Southeast Asia, Dulles had not only opened a Pandora ’s Box, but was responsible for its construction. The Johnson administration, for example, not only acted on the 1964 Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, but used the SEATO protocols for authority to wage war in South Vietnam.

In response, Senator J. William Fulbright told Secretary Dean Rusk that, “I do not believe the SEATO treaty ever contemplated such action.” Rusk reminded Fulbright that it was the Senate that passed the measure.

In his memoirs, Undersecretary of State under Johnson, George W. Ball, quotes a memorandum by Rusk and Secretary of Defense McNamara in which they point out that, “We now take the decision to commit ourselves to the objective of preventing the fall of South Vietnam to Communism…we recognize that the introduction of United States and other SEATO forces may be necessary to achieve this objective.”

Appraisal of SEATO and the Impact of the Treaty on U.S. Foreign Policy

After the war, Senator Fulbright concluded that the world and specifically the U.S. might have been a different place had Dulles been encouraged to support the Geneva Accords of 1954 regarding Vietnam and never introduced the SEATO treaty. Although South Vietnam was not an initial partner to SEATO, a separate protocol tied it to SEATO objectives.

A noticeable absence in the organization was the inclusion of Asian nations other than the Philippines and Pakistan. It was, as one scholar noted, a “white man’s” attempt to preserve former colonial possessions from Communist influences. This paralleled the prevailing belief regarding Communism versus the free world in the early years of the Cold War.

Sources:

• Stephen E. Ambrose and Douglas G. Brinkley, Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 (Penguin Books, 1997)
• George W, Ball, The Past Has Another Pattern: Memoirs (W. W. Norton & Company, 1983)
• Dwight D. Eisenhower, The White House Years: Mandate for Change 1953-1956 (Doubleday, 1963)
• J. William Fulbright, The Price of Empire (Pantheon Books, 1989)
• Text of the SEATO treaty (Department of State Bulletin, September 20, 1954)

Copyright Michael Streich. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.

 Harvey Milk's Legacy

Michael Streich October 25, 2011

Shortly before he was assassinated on November 27, 1978, San Francisco City Supervisor Harvey Milk stated that, “If a bullet should enter my brain, let that bullet destroy every closet door.” Harvey Milk was the first openly gay political candidate to win an election at a time homosexuality was misunderstood by the general public and fear still kept many gays and lesbians in the closet. Writing in Time magazine over a decade later, John Cloud observed that, “…he had to adjust to a new reality he embodied: that a gay person could live an honest life and succeed.”

 

Harvey Milk’s Early Life and Influence

 

There was no “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy when Milk served in the navy. Being gay in the 1950’s simply meant that you didn’t tell. In high school, Harvey Milk was on the junior varsity basketball team. He worked as a Math and history teacher and campaigned for Senator Barry Goldwater. But Milk didn’t hide from being gay, championing gay rights as he became politically involved after moving to San Francisco with his lover.

 

Harvey Milk built a political club that enabled his election victory but also demonstrated that the gay vote was important. After his death, politicians took a more proactive stance in courting this voting group. Normalization in terms of heterosexual perceptions years after Milk’s assassination played a large part in the legalization of same-sex marriages and the general acceptance of so-called civil unions. Milk’s election as an openly-gay man and his subsequent murder forced observers to react, and in doing so brought issues into the public sphere that had never been openly discussed.

 

After his death, San Francisco Mayor Dianne Feinstein observed that, “The fact of his homosexuality gave Harvey an insight into the scars which all oppressed people wear…He believed that no sacrifice was too great a price to pay for the cause of human rights.” (Quoted in New York Times, December 3, 1978) Over three decades after Milk and Mayor George Moscone were shot by Dan White, same-sex marriages are allowed in several states and homosexuality is no longer viewed as a mental disorder or perversion.

 

The Fight for Civil Rights

 

Although there were many heroes within the gay community in the latter decades of the twentieth-century, especially during the first years of the AIDS crisis, Harvey Milk established a precedent and became a political role model. In his biographical account, The Mayor of Castro Street, Randy Shilts observes that Harvey Milk “…remains frozen in time, a symbol of what gays can accomplish and the dangers they face in doing so.”

 

During his brief tenure as a Supervisor, Milk shepherded a Gay Rights ordinance toward passage that protected gays from being fired from their jobs because of sexual orientation. Had his life not ended prematurely, Milk might have brought the leadership and energy needed in the early years of the AIDS epidemic to confront the disease much sooner than it was, saving lives and promoting awareness. Milk fought for civil rights for all groups, including senior citizens.

 

Harvey Milk’s Battle Continues

 

Harvey Milk has been referred to as an “unlikely populist.” KQED/PBS correctly assessed that, “…If a gay man can win, it proves that there is hope for all minorities who are willing to fight.” Thirty years after Milk was gunned down in his office, homosexuality is still a moral issue and part of political debate. GOP candidate Herman Cain believes that homosexuality is a sin (Jonathan Capehart, Washington Post, October 20, 2011). Michele Bachmann, during a Meet the Press interview with David Gregory (August 14, 2011) dodged any direct questions put to her about homosexuality, although her husband runs a clinic that “cures” gays.

 

Harvey Milk directed critics to see gays as people that deserve full equality with every other American. Keeping differences a secret, as Shilts notes in his biography of Milk, was learned early in life as a survival mechanism. Harvey Milk, however, soon determined that the fullness of acknowledging one’s humanity is determined by self-honesty. For Milk, that meant embracing who he was.

 

References:

 

John Cloud, “The Pioneer HARVEY MILK,” Time, June 14, 1999

John M. Crewdson, “Harvey Milk, Led Coast Homosexual-Rights Fight,” New York Times, November 28, 1978

Larry Kramer, “Gay ‘Power’ Here,” New York Times, December 3, 1978

Randy Shilts, And The Band Played On: Politics, People, And The AIDS Epidemic (St. Martin’s Press, 1987)

*Copyright owned by Michael Streich. Republishing in any form requires written permission from author.

 

Matthew Shepard Tragedy Remembered

• Oct 31, 2011
• Michael Streich

Matthew Shepard was brutally beaten and left to die in October 1998, but his story continues to challenge men and women battling against homophobia.

Somewhere in the clear evening sky there is a star, flickering from a far off universe that knows no hate and feels no pain. Matthew Shepard’s light continues to illuminate a sullen world enmeshed in ignorance and intolerance. Martyrs represent many walks of life and many veins of thought. These are the chosen in history to give their lives in the cause of hope and goodness of human spirit, though they may never live to see an ultimate good rise from the spilling of their innocent blood.

“What passing-bells for these who die as cattle?” Wilfred Owen asked in 1917 as the flower of a generation died in the horrors of war. Doomed youth, however, exist at all times and in all places. Matthew Shepard would have celebrated his thirty-fifth birthday on December 1, 2011, but his young life was cut short one horrific night in October 1998.

Homophobia and Murder in Laramie, Wyoming

Matthew wasn’t perfect. His mother, Judy Shepard, wrote that, “He wasn’t a saint, as the press was trying to make him out to be, but a twenty-one year old with more troubles than anyone his age should ever have to deal with.” Matthew’s life was cut short when two men succumbed to the darkest side of humanity and brutally beat him, leaving him in a remote field, tied to a fence. Matthew was targeted because he was gay, as court transcripts later demonstrated.

Matt was a college student interested in politics and international affairs. Spending his high school senior year at a boarding school in Switzerland, Matthew had the opportunity to travel, meet people that valued diversity, and experience different cultures and traditions. He became comfortable with his sexuality, beginning college in North Carolina before transferring to Wyoming. “He was just like everybody else,” his mother told Neal Conan in 2009, “Same issues, same problems, depression.”

He was lured into a pickup by two young men that had planned to find and rob a gay man. Driving him out of town, one man tied him to a fence while the other repeatedly beat him on the head with a revolver before robbing him. Matthew Shepard died in a hospital intensive care unit several days later.

Hate Crimes and Sexual Orientation

In the months after his death, his life became symbolic of a creeping terror that stalks men and women whose sexual orientations are viewed as suspect and threatening to the ignorant and simple-minded. The FBI’s crime statistics for 2009 (published in late 2010) revealed that sexual orientation hate crime victims ranked third after race and religion. The federal law that includes sexual orientation as a hate crime was signed into law October 28, 2009 and is called the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act.

Sexual orientation was front page news after the murder of Matthew Shepard. In recent years, however, gay rights and questions of equality have again brought to the forefront long-held prejudices and irrational fears. In May 2012, North Carolina citizens will vote on an amendment to their state constitution banning same-sex marriages. The debates over the issue are predicted to be heated and contentious. Homophobia was a motive in October 1998; it is still the silent enemy of equality, roused into action by paranoia and misunderstanding.

The Impact of Matthew Shepard

Every movement has heroes and martyrs. Matthew Shepard, who believed in social justice, never knew that his death would awaken the reservoir of deep emotions felt not only in the United States but around the world. His memory is kept alive, in part, by the Matthew Shepard Foundation as well as scholarship competitions for openly gay and lesbian students. There are Facebook pages dedicated to his life containing messages of transformations in the lives of young and old. But the most profound transformations continue to involve the mood of ordinary Americans willing to embrace unconditional openness and equality that blankets all citizens, including gay and lesbian men and women.

On the day Matthew died, his mother was quoted in a hospital statement: “Go home, give your kids a hug, and don’t let a day go by without telling them that you love them.” Matthew’s death impacted those closest to him, those involved in the prosecution of his murderers, and journalists covering the story. One of those reporters, Heather Feeney, told Peter O’Dowd during an NPR interview that, “…the experience is probably the underlying reason why I’m not a reporter anymore.”

Matthew Shepard’s star is a reminder that imperfect humanity will always be overpowered by unconditional love and that such love is the reconciliation made possible when all men and women are not just tolerated for who they are, but accepted as equals in every aspect of community life.

References:

• John Cloud, “The New Face of Gay Power,” Time, Volume 162, Issue 15, October 13, 2003
• Neal Conan, Talk of the Nation (NPR), September 8, 2009 (interview with Mrs. Judy Shepard, discussing her book)
• James C. Hurst, “The Matthew Shepard Tragedy: Management of a Crisis,” About Campus, July/August 1999
• Michael Martin, “Remembering Matthew,” Advocate, Issue 1017, October 21, 2008
• Nicholas J. Pace, “I’ve Completely Changed: The Transforming Impact of the Matthew Shepard Scholarship,” Journal of Advanced Academics, Volume 18, Number 3, Spring 2007
• Judy Shepard, The Meaning of Matthew: My Son’s Murder in Laramie, and a World Transformed (Hudson Street Press, 2009)
• “The Case of Matthew Shepard,” The Atlantic, May 2009
• Weekend Edition Sunday (NPR), October 12, 2008

Copyright Michael Streich. Contact the author to obtain permission for republication.

 Censorship and Book Burning in History

Let History Remain Transparent and Fairly Reported

Michael Streich

January 5, 2010

The phrase, “Give me 26 lead soldiers and I will conquer the world,” has been attributed to both Benjamin Franklin and Karl Marx. It is an affirmation that the pen is mightier than the sword. Throughout history, however, the written thoughts of mankind have been subject to divergent philosophic and religious beliefs that saw existing writings as a threat. Today it is called “book burning” or censorship. At other times in human history it was heresy. Regardless of the reasons given, great works of ancient and modern thought have been lost because new movements strove to eradicate writings deemed dangerous.

 

Destroying Records of the Past

 

Historians of the Ancient Near East point to Nineveh as a repository of one of the first libraries. Nineveh was the capital city of the hated Assyrians. Incessant warfare ultimately led to the destruction of Nineveh at the time the Medes and the Persians ended Assyrian domination of the greater Middle East region. The library was destroyed with the city, perhaps viewed as an extension of Assyrian religion. Scholars believe the library contained over 12,000 texts, many of which have been recovered through archaeological endeavors.

 

Although the Nineveh library was most likely burned because it was a part of the palace grounds, this was not true of the most famous of all ancient libraries located at Alexandria, Egypt. Estimates of the library’s holdings range from 400,000 works to 900,000. The library endured through the early Roman Imperial period but after Christianity became the state religion in the 4^th Century CE, it deteriorated. Part of the reason rests with Egyptian Christians that had a long history of zealotry.

 

When Christians destroyed the temple of Serapis, their anger resulted in the destruction of the Museion or House of Muses. In the process, many library texts were burned. Muslims conquered Alexandria in the 7^th Century, but according to Philosophy of Religion Professor Camden Cobern (deceased), there is no evidence to support the commonly held view that Caliph Omar burned the library in 641 CE.

 

Books Threaten Shared Values and Control

 

Historian Carlo Ginzburg recounts the saga of a 16^th Century miller whose desire to read books caused his eventual execution after a trial by the Inquisition (The Cheese and the Worms, Penguin Books, 1985). Once the Christian Church dominated religious thought and practice in Western Europe, available texts were strictly controlled. St. Jerome’s Vulgate defined the canon of scripture and any conflicting writings were banned. This continued throughout the Middle Ages. At the 16^th Century Council of Trent, Erasmus’ Greek New Testament was burned and the Catholic Church began a more rigid evaluation of books.

 

But book burning was not unique to the Catholic hierarchy. Reformer Martin Luther sanctioned the burning of Jewish sacred writings when Jews refused to convert. In the 20^th Century, the Nazis celebrated their victory of achieving dominance in the German government by burning the writings of Jewish scholars in a Berlin bonfire. This infamous “book burning” has been captured on film and recreated in several movies.

 

The Threat to Religious and Social Values

 

Even in the United States, certain books have been deemed inappropriate, removed from libraries, and banned from public school reading lists. In Meredith Wilson’s “The Music Man,” Marian the librarian is accused of advocating “dirty books” like Rabelais and Balzac. In reality, however, books like Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn and Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye have been censored by local school boards in more recent decades.

 

Historically, evidence suggests that book burning and censorship derives from acute religious convictions of particular societies and communities seeking to preserve a belief system and viewing non-acceptable writings as threats. It is an extension of the debate between Darwin’s Origin of the Species and creationism in Genesis. Like Ray Bradbury’s “fireman” in Fahrenheit 451, book burning is the ultimate way to ensure control and the obliteration of opposing views.

 

Sources:

 

Camden M. Cobern, “Alexandria,” International Standard Bible Encyclopaedia, Volume I, (William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1939).

Tony Perrottet, Route 66 A.D.: On the Trail of Ancient Roman Tourists (New York: Random House, 2002)

*This article was first published in Suite101. The copyright is owned by Michael Streich.

Republishing in any form required written approval from the author, Michael Streich.

 Amusement Parks and Recreation in the 1950s

Palisades Park in NJ Offered a Day of Fun for American Families

© Michael Streich

 Sep 26, 2009

Post War recreation in the 1950s and 1960s included the growth and expansion of amusement parks like Palisades Park and Coney Island at an affordable price.

Americans growing up in the 1950s or 1960s may still recall the radio and television jungle for Palisades Amusement Park that urged people to “come on over.” The post-war years saw average Americans driving more than they ever had and amusement parks like Palisades Park on the cliffs above the Hudson River facing New York City was a favorite destination. For those without cars, fleets of local bus lines brought people from all over New Jersey as well as through New York’s Port Authority bus hub to the magical 38 acres near Fort Lee and Cliffside Park.

The Rise of Amusement Parks in Post War America

Palisades Park was one of many venues that offered a day of fun and escape. Like Coney Island in New York, it had been established for many years, beginning as a “trolley park” in 1898. Years of evolution, new owners, and fresh capital investment turned many such parks into meccas for the everyday working person looking for family entertainment. Vince Gargiulo, executive director of the Palisades Amusement Park Historical Society, writes that the park “was a peaceful place where everyone felt comfortable, safe, and happy.”

The popularity of such parks was evident nationally. Disneyland opened in California in 1955. In 1964, the New York World’s Fair attracted record crowds. Imitators like New York’s short-lived “Freedomland” opened in 1960 but closed four years later, failing to achieve an acceptable profit margin. Parks became “themed,” while snack bars offered hot dogs, hamburgers, and fries, amusement park staples that seemed to taste better consumed in a throng of people. The vinegar used to prepare Palisades' fries made them irresistible. The sweetly enticing smell of cotton candy was everywhere. In Freedomland, a popular ride in the San Francisco section simulated the 1906 earthquake. Urban amusements parks were an extension of rural state and county fairs, but stayed open most of the year.

In addition to the proliferation of amusement parks and theme parks, Americans visited local attractions that offered a day of fun and entertainment. This included zoos and game farms like the Catskill Game Farm in upper New York. Other day trips might be to single themed attractions like Fairy Tale Forest or the Gingerbread Castle in northern New Jersey.

PalisadesPark as an Affordable Day Trip Offering Variety

Palisades Park brought together hundreds of thousands of people, many of them new Americans, immigrants fleeing post-war Europe. Advertisements boasted that ten cents would buy a day of fun at a time postage stamps were selling for four cents (1960). Not only did the park include rides such as the Cyclone Roller Coaster, prominently located in the center of the park, but a swimming pool with wave-making machines that featured a waterfall, beach sand, and salted water. For those unable to travel to Asbury Park, Atlantic City, or Seaside Heights at the “Jersey Shore,” this was the next best thing.

The park that popularized the “tunnel of love,” according to legend, also featured a fun house, a world-class carousel, and a “Kiddieland” with rides for young children. Palisades Park closed in September 1971 after the land was sold to developers for $12.5 million who turned the acreage into high-end condominiums. No longer would the lights of one of the most popular attractions be seen from the shores of New York City.

The Lure and Mystique of Amusement Parks

Throughout the nation in the last two decades, other amusement parks have had to close due to declining attendance, high maintenance and insurance costs, and the willingness of deep pocket developers to turn these sites into high profit producing properties. In the summer of 2009, Six Flags filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

1950s and 1960s Amusement Parks like Palisades Park, as well as many other attractions geared toward weekend family outings, offered an escape as well as a day of fun. They brought people today from all backgrounds and immigrant ethnicities and played a significant role in Americanizing children growing up in immigrant households.

Sources:

• Vince Gargiulo, Palisades Amusement Park (Charleston, SC: Arcadia, 2005)
• Palisades Amusement Park Historical Society website
• Family memoirs, pictures, and artifacts

The copyright of the article Amusement Parks and Recreation in the 1950s in Modern US History is owned by Michael Streich. Permission to republish Amusement Parks and Recreation in the 1950s in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

Kiddieland at Palisades Park

 The Marshall Plan of 1947

One of the Most Successful Cold War Initiatives of the Truman Years

© Michael Streich

 Jul 30, 2009

The Marshall Plan infused struggling European economies with billions of dollars to rebuild infrastructure and thwart the efforts of Soviet Russia in Western Europe.

The 1947 Marshall Plan was one of the most successful United States foreign policy initiatives during the Cold War period. Former Secretary of State and Harvard historian Henry Kissinger used it as an example to demonstrate positive outcomes when nations work together out of common necessity and in view of a common foe. Senator J. William Fulbright wrote that the Marshall Plan stopped the Soviet Union from possibly taking over Western Europe “through the manipulation of Communist parties, military intimidation, economic strangulation, and even more direct military action.”

Proposing the Marshall Plan

Speaking at Harvard University June 5, 1947, Secretary of State George Marshall presented the Marshall Plan and the rationale for its immediate implementation. Marshall had been to Europe and witnessed the deprivations still evident from years of war. These were serious problems that could derail European recovery efforts while playing into the hands of Stalin and the emergent Communist parties.

Marshall’s report of the Fourth Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers, April 28, 1947, detailed the cataclysmic nature of the European economies. Marshall used coal production to highlight the problems: “less coal means less employment for labor and a consequent delay in the production of goods for export to bring money for the purchase of food and necessities.”

Coal was also linked to steel production. In short, the industrial infrastructure had to be rebuilt quickly. Production also meant a balance of trade between the United States and Europe, notably Germany. By early 1947, Germany was using precious credits to purchase food imports but not able to produce export goods. The Marshall Plan would change that.

European Participation and the Costs

Representatives of sixteen European nations met to create the proposal that would amount to $28 billion in assistance over a ten year period. The proposals were accepted by Marshall and President Truman, but created a furor in the Congress. The mid-term elections in 1946 had given Republicans control of the Congress and they were financially conservative. A key Republican leader, Senator Taft of Ohio, denounced the Marshall Plan as a “European TVA.”

Despite dire warning from the administration as well as forward thinking Republicans like Michigan’s Senator Arthur Vandenberg, the initially requested amount was significantly lowered. The chief event that caused passage of the Marshall Plan, however, was the early 1948 coup in Czechoslovakia in which pro-democratic, moderate leaders were either removed or murdered and replace by pro-Moscow Communists.

The Marshall Plan and Eastern Europe

The Truman administration did not want to exacerbate the Iron Curtain division between East and West, possibly for a long period into the future, and thus invited all nations – including Russia, to participate. There were enough strings attached, however, to keep Stalin from participating. Historian Stephen Ambrose writes that this was the very intention of the men like George Kennan, who crafted the policy and then invited Soviet participation.

The Poles, Czechs, and Hungarians wanted to participate, but were held back by Moscow. In his report on the Fifth Session of the Council of Foreign Ministers, December 19, 1947, Secretary of State Marshall, pointing to Germany, noted that the Soviet Union had employed “a type of monopolistic stranglehold over the economic and political life of eastern Germany which makes that region little more than a dependent province of the Soviet Union.”

Employing similar economic tactics in other Eastern European economies, Stalin not only made German reunification far more difficult in terms of integrated European economies, but forged a long term policy designed to distance European Communist nations from ever effectively competing with the West or the possibility of future integration.

The Marshall Plan worked. Along with NATO, it transformed Europe into a new society and promoted collective economic and political leadership in the face of a common adversary.

Sources:

Stephen E. Ambrose and Douglas G. Brinkley, Rise to Globalism: American Foreign Policy Since 1938 (Penguin Books, 1997)

Documents on Germany, 1944-1961, Committee on Foreign Relations, United States Senate (New York: Greenwood Press, 1968)

J. William Fulbright, The Crippled Giant: American Foreign Policy and its Domestic Consequences (New York: Random House, 1972)

See also: George C. Marshall Foundation for additional information

The copyright of the article The Marshall Plan of 1947 in Modern US History is owned by Michael Streich. Permission to republish The Marshall Plan of 1947 in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.

George C Marshall

 Japanese-American Internment in 1942:

Presidential Executive Order 9066 Uproots Americans of Asian Descent

Michael Streich

August 5, 2009

In February 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, giving the U.S. army the authority to impose curfews on persons deemed a potential internal security threat. On the west coast, the curfew orders were followed by the mandatory evacuation of all Japanese-Americans to relocation centers. Ultimately, sixteen camps operated by the War Relocation Authority housed over 100,000 Japanese-Americans, most of whom were United States citizens.

 

Nativism, Racism, and the Fear of Japan

 

Throughout the 19^th century, Americans viewed immigrants with deep misgivings. Immigrant groups, notably the Italians, tended to avoid assimilation by creating their own ethnic neighborhoods in the emerging urban centers. On the west coast, it was the Chinese and later the Japanese immigrants that gave rise to racist stereotypes, prompting persecution and legislative acts to curb their liberties. In the year FDR was born – 1882 – the U.S. Congress passed one of the first Chinese Exclusion Acts.

 

By the end of World War One, Japan emerged as the one Pacific power able to compete and possibly threaten the interests of the United States. Several successful regional wars, including the 1905 Russo-Japanese War, had established Japan as a rising imperialist power. Within Japan, liberal political trends gave way to more conservative views supported by on-going militarism.

 

The early 20^th century witnessed a plethora of books and articles warning of the Japanese “menace” and even predicting war between Japan and the United States. Americans, on top of their post-war nativist leanings, seemed predisposed to view Japanese expansionism with mistrust. This became even more acute after Japan’s occupation of Manchuria and her refusal to abide by and renegotiate naval treaties designed to limit the production of capital warships.

 

American Isolationism and Inability to Defend Asian Interests

 

After the First World War, Americans refused to become actively involved in the gathering storms of war in both Asia and Europe. Isolationism was the favored policy, particularly after the onset of the Great Depression; domestic considerations superseded foreign entanglements.

 

Congressional and military leaders knew that an adequate defense of American colonial properties, like the Philippines and Samoa, was not possible. Thus, relations with an ever more belligerent Japan were based on diplomatic efforts and concerted responses designed not to antagonize a potential enemy.

 

In the months before Pearl Harbor, however, President Roosevelt had taken a harder line, freezing Japanese assets, embargoing oil and scrap metal. By December 7, 1941, Japan and the United States were at war. Within three months, Japanese-Americans were confined to what Roosevelt himself called “concentration camps” during a November 22, 1944 White House press conference.

 

Court Challenges

 

Hirabayashi v U.S. (1943) challenged the curfew order but attempted to obtain a ruling on the internments. The Supreme Court, however, confined its ruling to the constitutionality of the curfew order. The court ruled that race was an irrelevant issue and FDR’s Executive Order was covered under Presidential war powers.

 

In Korematsu v U.S. (1944) the court held that the exclusion program was a “military necessity.” Justice Roberts used the term “concentration camp” in his opinion while Justice Frank Murphy stated that the action was the “brink” of constitutional power.

 

Japanese Loyalty

 

There was no evidence of disloyalty to the U.S. by the Japanese-Americans. Seditious Japanese – as well as Germans and Italians, were already known to the FBI. Questionable Germans were permitted to defend themselves and prove their loyalties, although several thousand were also incarcerated like the Japanese-Americans. The 112,000 Japanese-Americans, however, never had an opportunity to defend themselves; their property was confiscated and apologies and restitution only came in the 1980s under the presidency of Ronald Reagan.

 

Sources:

 

Alfred H. Kelly and Winfred A. Harbison, The American Constitution: Its Origins & Development 5^th Ed. (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1976)

Greg Robinson, By Order of the President: FDR and the Internment of Japanese Americans (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004)

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