Civil rights advocates and others have argued that developing opportunity through adequate funding of education, job training, and other programs is key - along with continued systematic attacks on discriminatory barriers that continue to block opportunity in employment, housing, education, and elsewhere.

CONSERVATIVE CRITICS argue that persistent poverty and income inequality are instead largely attributable to dysfunctional lifestyles among the poor - and that government benefit programs such as AFDC, Food Stamps, and Medicaid actually exacerbate the problem by discouraging the poor from working and otherwise assuming personal responsibility.

THIS DEBATE CONTINUES in the context of child poverty -- some argue that it is attributable to the flaws of parents, such as poor work habits and/or the failure to marry, while others identify the root issues as the lack of basic economic resources and the opportunities they bring.

IN FACTS BELIE CLAIMS that child poverty is due to parents' unwillingness to work. According to the Children's Defense Fund, in 1999 one-third of poor kids lived in households where someone is employed full-time year-round. And 78% of poor kids lived in families where someone worked at least part of the year -- up from 61% in 1993 and the highest rate in the 25 years for which data is available.

Americans became concerned over the environment in several ways. The first area of environmental concern was more traditional sense of preservation. Oil spills, lake fires, and other environmental disasters lead to a push for continued and increased preservation of America’s wilderness and natural landscapes. The book Silent Spring focused on the impact of the chemical DDT and other insecticides on animal populations, in particular that of various species of birds.

Encompasses social movements in the United States whose goals were to end racial segregation and discrimination against black Americans and to secure legal recognition and federal protection of the citizenship rights enumerated in the Constitution and federal law. The movement was characterized by major campaigns of civil resistance. Between 1955 and 1968, acts of nonviolent protest and civil disobedience produced crisis situations and productive dialogues between activists and government authorities. Federal, state, and local governments, businesses, and communities often had to respond immediately to these situations that highlighted the inequities faced by African Americans.

1964 - Presidet Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964 - the 24th amendment abolished poll tax

1965 - Malcom X is shot dead - March in Selma, Alabama to Montgomery for voting rights but stopped at Pettus Bridge - Voting Rights Act of 1965: literacy tests and poll taxes became illegal - Riot in Los Angeles

1968 - Martin Luther King Jr. is shot dead - President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1968

President Johnson also proposed an extensive plan to use the power of the federal government to help the nation's least-advantaged citizens. His "Great Society" program provided funding for public education, work-training programs, college loans, rent supplements for low-income families, and medical care and food for the poor and elderly. Not since Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal had a set of initiatives done so much to help improve quality of life in America and protect citizens from the fear of hunger, unemployment, and old age. Johnson's Great Society also helped narrow the enormous historical divide between whites and blacks in education, employment, and income.

 In early March he commanded Governor George C. Wallace to mobilize the state's National Guard units to safeguard demonstrators, and two weeks later he called for a full federal investigation of the Ku Klux Klan, the white terror organization responsible for bombings and murder throughout the South, including in Alabama. Finally, responding to pressure from civil rights leaders and escalating tensions between voting rights activists and white citizens in the South, President Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act, which prohibited the use of literacy tests, gave the federal government the power to register voters, and forbade changes to voting procedures without explicit federal approval.

Another major aspect of the African-American Arts Movement was the infusion of the African aesthetic, a return to a collective cultural sensibility and ethnic pride that was much in evidence during the Harlem Renaissance and in the celebration of Négritude among the artistic and literary circles in the U.S., Caribbean, and the African continent nearly four decades earlier: the idea that "black is beautiful." During this time, there was a resurgence of interest in, and an embrace of, elements of African culture within African-American culture that had been suppressed or devalued to conform to Eurocentric America. Natural hairstyles, such as the afro, and African clothing, such as the dashiki, gained popularity. More importantly, the African-American aesthetic encouraged personal pride and political awareness among African Americans.^[23]