Wednesday-Thursday, March 24-25, 1965: Teach-in, University of Michigan

The first teach-in was almost an afterthought. The original plan, formulated by thirteen Michigan professors opposed to United States policy in Vietnam, was to cancel classes on March 24 as a protest measure. Their idea was roundly denounced by the University administration, Governor George Romney, and the state senate, which expressed its displeasure in a resolution. As the date of the scheduled "work moratorium" approached, moderates on the faculty proposed a compromise and the teach-in was born. Some 200 members of the Michigan faculty supported it, and 2,000 students attended night-long rallies in four campus auditoriums. Encouraged by the response, Michigan professors called colleagues at other institutions, and the movement was under way.

     -- From "Revolt of the Professors" (Erwin Knoll, The Saturday Review, June 19, 1965): @

     -- Photo from "Teach Your Children Well: 50th Anniversary of U-M Teach-In" (Alumni Association of the University of Michigan): @

* Summary ("Encyclopedia of the Sixties," 2012): @

* Summary ("The Spirit of the Sixties: The Making of Postwar Radicalism," James J. Farrell, 1997): @
* Summary (Bentley Historical Library, University of Michigan): @

* Summary (The Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, University of Toronto): @
* "Origins of the Teach-In" (College of Literature, Science, and the Arts, University of Michigan): @
* "40 Years Ago, the First Teach-In" (Rabbi Arthur Waskow, The Shalom Center, March 2005): @
* "Reflections on Protest" (Kenneth E. Boulding, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, October 1965): @

* "Students in a Ferment Chew Out the Nation" (Life magazine, April 30, 1965): @ 

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1965: The miniskirt

Sensitive to the youthful revolt against established values, two designers in particular produced clothes which epitomized the 1960s look for women: Courreges in France and Mary Quant in Britain. Both expressed the spirit of the age and its desire for physical and social freedom in deceptively simple, pared-down garments with abbreviated skirts (christened by the British press "the mini") and, in Courreges' case, pants suits. Both created a complete look, with tights (essential with the mini), shoes, boots, hairstyles and even sunglasses and make-up. Quant appealed directly to the very young; Courreges, possibly because he was in essence a couture designer (having worked with Balenciega for eleven years before opening his own house in 1961), to a slightly more mature woman.

     -- From "Fashion in Costume, 1200-2000" (Joan Nunn, 2000): @

     -- Image from an advertisement for an Indiana department store in August 1965, showing just how quickly the look took hold throughout the United States

* Mary Quant page (Victoria and Albert Museum): @

* "Why Mary Quant's Swinging Sixties London Look Still Holds Sway" (Vogue, 2015): @
* Andre Courreges article (Victoria and Albert Museum): @
* "Andre Courreges: The Couture's Space Captain" (House of Retro): @
* Jacques Tiffeau article (Fashion Designer Encyclopedia): @
* "Skirts for Fall To Be Shorter" (United Press International, July 1964): @

* "Up, Up, Up Go the Skirts: The new look is the knee look -- but there's controversy" (Life magazine, December 18, 1964): @
* "The Lord of the Space Ladies: Andres Courreges is the new powerhouse of Paris Fashion" (Life magazine, May 21, 1965): @
* "Negro Women have the prettiest knees" (Jet magazine, July 8, 1965): @

* "The man who launched the miniskirt remains aloof" (Sydney Morning Herald, August 1969): @
* "On June 4, 1965, Puritan Fashion Co. launched Youthquake" (On This Day in Fashion): @

* "On September 1, 1965, Mary Quant introduced the miniskirt" (On This Day in Fashion): @
* Excerpt from "Fifty Years of Fashion: New Look to Now" (Valerie Steele, 1997): @

* Excerpt from "Tim Gunn's Fashion Bible" (2012): @ 

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Thursday, March 18, 1965: First spacewalk

A Soviet cosmonaut squeezed out of history's highest orbiting manned satellite today and took man's first slowly somersaulting, free-floating swim in outer space. Then he returned to the cabin of his two-man spacecraft, the Voskhod 2, as the Soviet Union took another giant stride in the race for the moon. ... It was the second Soviet team flight in one space capsule, following a three-man, 16-orbit trip last October. It came only five days before America's first planned attempt to orbit a spacecraft with more than one man aboard. ... Alexei Leonov, 30, a chunky lieutenant colonel and a gifted artist, became the first man in history to step into outer space. 

     -- Associated Press: @

     -- Photo from www.spacephys.ru

* "Learning to Spacewalk" (Leonov, for Air & Space magazine, January 2005): @
* " 'Our Walk in Space': The Russian Cosmonauts' Story of their bold first step" (Life magazine, May 14): @
* "Alexei Leonov: The artistic spaceman" (European Space Agency): @

* Short biography (International Space Hall of Fame): @
* Russian news report: @
* Black-and-white footage (French audio): @
* Black-and-white footage (no sound; from www.britishpathe.com): @
* Color footage: @

* Universal Newsreel (from www.criticalpast.com): @ 

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Monday, March 15, 1965: LBJ and MLK speeches

WASHINGTON -- President Johnson took the rallying cry of American Negroes into Congress and millions of American homes tonight by pledging that "we shall overcome" what he called "a crippling legacy of bigotry and injustice." In his slow Southern accent, Mr. Johnson demanded immediate action on legislation designed to remove every barrier of discrimination against citizens trying to register and vote.

     -- Story by The New York Times: @

     -- Photo by Cecil Stoughton

* Video and transcript (from LBJ Library): @

At Brown Chapel AME in Selma, Alabama, the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. speaks at an interfaith service for the Rev. James Reeb, who died March 11 from a beating two days earlier.
     -- Photo by Flip Schulke

* Audio (from www.uuworld.org): @

* Transcript (www.beaconbroadside.com): @ 

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March 1965: Vietnam

Tuesday, March 2: Rolling Thunder

     Operation Rolling Thunder was a 44-month-long aerial bombardment campaign carried out against North Vietnam by the U.S. Air Force and Navy and the South Vietnamese air force. The operation was initiated by President Johnson on 2 March 1965 as a continuation of Operation Flaming Dart. The principal aims, the relative significance of which shifted over time, were to improve the morale of the South Vietnamese, persuade North Vietnam to end its aid to the Viet Cong, destroy North Vietnam's industry and transportation, and cut off the flow of men and supplies from North to South.

     -- From "Historical Dictionary of U.S. Diplomacy during the Cold War" (Martin Folly, 2014): @

* The Air War in North Vietnam: Rolling Thunder Begins, February-June 1965" (The Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, 1971): @

* "The Air War Against North Vietnam" (U.S. Air Force, 1984): @

* "Rolling Thunder 1965: Anatomy of a Failure" (Col Dennis M. Drew, Air University, 1986): @

* "An Uncommon War: The U.S. Air Force in Southeast Asia" (Bernard C. Nalty, Air Force Historical Studies Office, 2015): @

Monday, March 8: Combat troops

     DA NANG, South Viet Nam, Monday -- Two combat-trained battalions of U.S. Marines began moving ashore today to defend vital U.S. jet air bases at this strategic seaport 80 miles from Communist North Viet Nam. The force of 3,500 Marines began debarking from ships lying off the coast under strict security measures to discourage any Viet Cong interference. They came ashore through pounding surf 10 miles north of Da Nang. ... The landing operation began at 9 a.m. (8 p.m. EST) after a delay of about an hour because of rough seas offshore. The air was hot and humid. ... The Marines are the first American ground troops to be ordered into potential direct combat positions against Viet Cong guerrillas and troops infiltrating from North Viet Nam.

     -- From United Press International: @

     -- Photo from "U.S. Marines in Vietnam: The Landing and the Buildup" (History and Museums Division, U.S. Marine Corps, 1978): @

* "Marines Land in Vietnam" (The Age; Melbourne, Australia): @
* "American Troops Enter the Ground War, March-July 1965" (The Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, 1971): @

* "The Third Division in Vietnam" (Third Marine Division Association): @
* "50 Years Ago: Boots on the Ground in Vietnam" (The Saturday Evening Post, 2015): @

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1965: Selma, Alabama

Chronology from "Centers of the Southern Struggle" (University Publications of America, 1988): @

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March 1965: Portraits of Selma and Montgomery

Links to the work of some of the photographers who chronicled the events of March 1965 in Alabama.

Note: The above photo comes from the website of the National Voting Rights Museum and Institute in Selma. I'm trying to find out who took it. Any information would be appreciated.

Update (April 2016): The photo at left was taken by the Alabama Department of Public Safety (link to story: @). The vantage point is similar to that of the above photo, and two of the protesters lying on the ground look to be the same. The department's Photographic Services Unit said the photo above was probably from their files.


Photographers

* Bob Adelman: @

* Archie E. Allen: @

* James Barker: @
* Morton Broffman: @
* Dan Budnik: @ 
* Frank Dandridge (search Getty Images for his name): @
* Bruce Davidson: @ 
* Bob Fletcher: @
* Matt Herron: @ and @ and @ (www.takestockphotos.com) 
* Dennis Hopper: @
* James Karales: @
* John Kouns: @ and @ (Syndic Literary Journal) and @ (Veterans of the Civil Rights Movement)
* Spider Martin: @
* Ivan Massar: @
* Charles Moore: @ (Kodak) and @ (The Red List)
* Glen Pearcy: @ and @
* John F. Phillips: @

* Steve Schapiro: @ (The New Yorker) and @ (Monroe Gallery) and @ (Schapiro's website)

* Flip Schulke: @
* Charles Shaw: @
* Robert Abbott Sengstacke: @

* Stephen Somerstein: @

* Allen Zak: @
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* Alabama Department of Archives and History: @
* Al.com: @
* Houston Chronicle (slideshow): @
* Getty Images (search for "Selma to Montgomery March" or similar terms): @
* Library of Congress: @ 

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March 1965: 'The Negro Family: The Case for National Action'

Few pieces of social science research have stirred as much controversy or had as great an impact as 1965's "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action." The U.S. Department of Labor report, more commonly referred to as the Moynihan report after its author, Daniel Patrick Moynihan, focused on the deep roots of black poverty in the United States. Moynihan argued that the decline of the black nuclear family would significantly impede blacks' progress toward economic and social equality. Over the ensuing decades, the report has been hailed by some as prophetic and derided by others as a classic example of blaming the victim.

     -- "The Moynihan Report Revisited" (Urban Institute, June 2013): @

* Full text of report (U.S. Department of Labor): @

* PDF (Stanford University): @

* "Moynihan Report: The Negro Family Revisited" (project website): @

* "Moynihan of the Moynihan Report" (Thomas Meehan, New York Times, July 1966): @
* "A Troubled National Turns to Pat Moynihan: Idea Broker in the Race Crisis" (Life magazine, November 3, 1967, page 72): @
* "Freedom Is Not Enough: The Moynihan Report and America's Struggle over Black Family Life, from LBJ to Obama" (James T. Patterson, 2010): @
* "What the Left and Right Both Get Wrong About the Moynihan Report" (Peter-Christian Angier, The Atlantic magazine, 2014): @ 
* "Revisiting the Moynihan Report On Its 50th Anniversary" (EducationNext; 2015): @
* Beyond Civil Rights: The Moynihan Report and Its Legacy" (Daniel Geary, 2015): @

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