5
Tips for the Decade
The 1950s are often known as a
conformist
decade.
Pop culture, like TV and music, focused on traditional
male and female roles. But women and other groups
had gained new and more powerful places in
society during World War II. These groups began to
push back.
*
Feminism
and
civil rights
got a new start in the 1950s.
*
Betty Friedan and Dr.
Martin Luther King Jr.
spoke out against racism
and sexism.
*
The Montgomery Bus
Boycott was a protest
against
segregation
.
African Americans no
longer wanted to be
forced to sit in the back
of the bus. They stopped
taking the bus for a year.
*
Television use was rising after the invention of color
TV. There were only four TV channels.
conformist
: accepting of social norms and the established culture
feminism
: the belief that men and women are equal
civil rights
: the rights for people to have freedom and equality
segregation
: the separation of people based on the color of their skin
