Vietnam Dbq

The Vietnam war brought many changes to the United States in the 1960’s and the 1970’s. Some of the changes were for the better of the country, take the rediscovered Women’s Rights movements and the ever growing Free Speech movements inspired by New Left, while most of the other changes brought on tensions between government and their people. The Domino Theory pushed our leaders to the edge. In order to stop the Domino Theory in Vietnam, the U.S. invaded. The war was useless for the American government to get involved with. Even Robert Kennedy described our presence in Vietnam as ‘... sending a lion to halt an epidemic of jungle rot.’ (Doc E) From new groups forming to rebel, to inflation and loss of trust in the Government, from 1960’s to the 1970’s the Vietnam War heightened social, political and economic tensions in the United States. The Vietnam war caused Social aspects in the United States to rapidly change, from Black rights, Women 's rights and Free Speech to the radical politics of New Left. If the people weren’t upset about the war in Vietnam already, word of the My Lai massacre caused an uproar. It was said that American Soldiers were becoming frustrated by not being able to capture an elusive enemy, so instead, they open fired on innocent women and children. The Government tried to cover this atrocious story for more than 20 months after it occurred, leaving American Citizens to be skeptical to trust in their leaders. In all this upset, the black community was outraged. They, like women, were being treated as second-class citizens and weren’t having it. Martin Luther King Jr. opposed the war by making speeches that appealed to the families of lost soldiers. He talked about the unnecessary slaughter that their people were being led to in Vietnam. (Doc C) In 1966, Stokely Carmichael started ‘Black Power’. The idea that the black people held as much power as whites did. Black groups, such as the Black Panthers, wanted to ‘change the system’. They