African National Congress (ANC) Initially formed in 1911, the African National Congress developed as the main opposition group to South African racial oppression. The party maintained a programme of non-violent resistance until the 1960s, at which point it accepted the necessity of violence to overturn South Africa’s government. Following the collapse of apartheid in 1994, the ANC became the dominant political party in the country.
Bantustans After the creation of apartheid in 1948, the Native Reserves that comprised some 13 per cent of the country were renamed Bantustans, which the South African government sought to identify as independent nations: this was a means of declaring non-whites to be non-citizens of the country.
Cold War This term describes the competition between the United States and the Soviet Union from after the Second World War (1939–45) to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989–91. The term 'Cold War' highlighted that the conflict was more about ideas and political allegiance among allies than about warfare. The Cold War was nonetheless very hot in places such as Korea, Angola and Afghanistan.
ExComm The Executive Committee of the National Security Council (ExComm) was established in 1962 to provide a group of expert advisers to President John F. Kennedy during the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Nation Defined as a political system embodying the will and destiny of culturally homogeneous and geographically bounded population, the idea of the nation became the accepted norm for political organization in the 19th and 20th centuries. Unfortunately, few if any human populations are culturally homogeneous or geographically bounded.
National American Woman Suffrage Association Founded in 1890, this organization was established to advocate for Women’s suffrage in the United States. Along with the somewhat more radical National Women’s Party, the NAWSA campaigned successfully for the passage in 1920 of the 19th Amendment to the US constitution, which guaranteed women's right to vote. The groups would then unsuccessfully pursue the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment.
Non-Aligned Movement Founded in Belgrade in 1961, and building upon the 1955 Bandung Conference, the movement sought to establish a power block of non-aligned states as a counterweight to the Western and Eastern camps created by the Cold War. The countries of India, Yugoslavia, Ghana, Indonesia and Egypt were particularly influential in setting the group’s agenda.
Operation Condor Launched in 1975, this operation was a coordinated plan among Latin American military governments to eradicate left-wing intellectuals and activists from the region. With the knowledge and material aid of the United States, these states pursued programmes of torture and assassination that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of individuals.
Prague Spring This term refers to a brief period of political liberalization that took place in Czechoslovakia in early 1968. Reforms included lifting restriction on travel, free speech and religious worship. After brief negotiations, Warsaw Pact forces invaded Czechoslovakia in August and reversed the reforms.
Townships Under apartheid in South Africa, non-whites were not allowed to live in cities. In order to meet the demand for labour in the cities townships were established outside urban areas where non-whites were allowed to remain so long as they were employed in white areas.
The 19th Amendment, which guarantees American women the right to vote, was first introduced to Congress in 1878. Forty years later, women remained disenfranchised. Seeing an opportunity to further their cause, the National American Woman Suffrage Association made the controversial decision to support President Wilson in taking the USA into the First World War in 1917. Their strategy highlighted the hypocrisy of fighting for democracy in Europe while denying it to women at home. Suffragettes staged demonstrations against Wilson, with members of the more radical National Woman’s Party (NWP) gaining a reputation for being particularly outspoken and using biting satire. A famous photograph shows a woman outside the White House holding a poster calling on ‘Kaiser Wilson’ to support women’s suffrage – a clear dig at the president who, for women, was no more an advocate of democracy than was Germany’s Kaiser. The strategy worked. In his 1918 State of the Union Address Wilson officially announced his support for the amendment, which Congress passed in 1919. Use of wartime propaganda about democracy as leverage to demand the extension of sovereignty in the United States and elsewhere became a theme of the century, with similar tactics used by African-Americans and those under the yoke of colonial rule.
During the First World War, suffragettes used President Wilson’s apparent hypocrisy over democracy as leverage to demand the right to vote for American women.
Suffragette vigils outside the White House provoked often hostile reaction; some of the so-called ‘silent sentinels’ faced arrest. Nonetheless, their tactics and rhetoric drew attention to the issue of women’s rights. Following the 19th Amendment success, the NWP supported the Equal Rights Amendment, which sought to guarantee equal rights for women. Though passed by Congress, it failed to gain enough state support for ratification and has never become law.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON & SUSAN B. ANTHONY
1815–1902 & 1820–1906
American social activists and co-authors of the 19th Amendment
CARRIE CHAPMAN CATT
1859–1947
American campaigner for women’s suffrage and President of the National American Woman Suffrage Association
ALICE STOKES PAUL
1885–1977
American suffragette and leader of the NWP
Sara Patenaude
The Long March changed the course of modern Chinese history, saving the growing communist movement from extinction in a civil war. Faced with the expansion of a revolutionary communist base in remote mountains in Jiangxi province (led by Mao Zedong) China’s conservative, US-backed president, Chiang Kai-shek, had his army blockade the base to keep out essential supplies, forcing Mao to seek a safer base. In 1934 Mao’s 100,000 soldiers and followers broke through the blockade and began the Long March, an epic journey. Mao’s Red Army fought their way 10,000 kilometres (6,000 miles) on foot and horseback through 11 provinces, crossed 18 mountain ranges, forded 24 rivers and slogged through swamps, losing 90 per cent of their people to death or desertion. In late 1935 the ragtag survivors arrived in a poor northwestern province, moving into cave-like homes in hills around Yen’an city. The Long March saved the communists from elimination, making Mao the unchallenged Communist Party leader. But, still vulnerable to Chiang’s larger, better-equipped forces, they would be saved by Japan’s invasion of China in 1937, which forced Chiang to shift his military priorities to fighting the Japanese, allowing the communists to regroup and spread their message in wartime China.
During this epic journey in 1934–35, Mao Zedong’s Communist Red Army fought their way 10,000 kilometres (6,000 miles) to establish a safe base for continuing their revolution.
Revolutions transformed various 20th-century societies, notably China and Russia. The instability following the collapse of imperial China led to chaos and a struggle between conservative, pro-Western nationalists and communist-led left-wing forces for control of China. The Long March and the Japanese invasion ultimately gave the communists the advantage and control of China, making Mao and the Chinese communists models for radicals elsewhere and upending the world’s power balance.
MAO ZEDONG
1893–1976
Leader of Chinese Communist Party and first chairman of the People’s Republic of China between 1949 and 1976
CHIANG KAI-SHEK
1887–1975
Nationalist military leader who led the Republic of China, first in China and then Taiwan, from 1928 to 1975
Craig Lockard
Mao’s leadership sustained the Chinese communists through months of severe hardship. They became an inspiration to radicals the world over.
The Bandung or Asian-African Conference, took place in Bandung, Indonesia, in April 1955. Representatives from 29 nations, many of which had recently gained independence from colonial rule, met to discuss the effects of the growing Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. India’s Jawaharlal Nehru was a vocal advocate of the movement. The attending nations sought to create a non-aligned ‘Third World’ that would side with neither the US nor the USSR in their fight over capitalism versus communism. Instead, they sought solidarity with one another, feeling that their concerns were not being supported by either superpower. Delegates called for an end to the twin forces of colonialism and racism that still affected many African, Asian and Middle Eastern nations. They also sought ways to increase economic development in their countries. At the end of the conference the representatives passed the ten-point ‘Declaration on Promotion of World Peace and Cooperation’, modelled on the United Nations Charter of 26 June 1945, which called for international respect for human rights, an end to racism, and foreign policy that supported national sovereignty and decolonization.
The Bandung Conference of 18–24 April 1955 brought together Asian, African and Middle-Eastern nations in their fight for decolonization, human rights and economic development.
The Non-Aligned Movement put the United States in a difficult political situation. Under Roosevelt the US had condemned colonialism, and had little choice but to support continued decolonization. And yet, the US still needed the former colonial powers as Cold War allies. As a result, the US was forced constantly to balance its stated political ideals against harsh Cold War realities.
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU
1889–1964
First Prime Minister of India (1947–64) following independence from Britain
SUKARNO (SOEKARNO)
1901–70
First President of Indonesia (1945–67) following independence from the Netherlands
Sara Patenaude
More than half the world’s population was represented by the 29 country delegations at the conference.
The legendary status of Eva Perón is confirmed by the many titles – official and unofficial – she has been given: Spiritual Leader of the Nation; Woman with the Whip; Santa Evita; Argentine Wonder Woman.
Born María Eva Ibarguen, she was the youngest child of Juana Ibarguen and a married rancher Juan Duarte, her mother’s employer. Despite her father’s wealth, the family lived in extreme poverty, exacerbated after his death in 1926. This experience influenced Eva’s decision to leave home for Buenos Aires at fifteen to pursue a career in the entertainment industry. There she became known as Eva Duarte. She modelled, acted on stage and had minor roles in films. Despite the charisma for which she became well known in her role as First Lady, she was a weak presence on the screen. Far more successful was her career in radio, in which she capitalized on her ability to express drama and emotion through her voice – a talent that she would later channel into fiery speeches in support of her husband.
Her poor beginnings influenced her political views and her advocacy for ‘los descamisados’ – literally ‘the shirtless ones’, but more generally a reference to poor, working-class Argentines. She was also a strong advocate for women’s rights. She not only founded and served as president of the Female Perónist Party, she was a tireless promoter of women’s suffrage. When women were given the right to vote in 1947, she was the first to cast a ballot in an election. When she died of cervical cancer in 1952 aged 33, the nation came to a standstill.
Her first major ‘reappearance’ was in the rock opera concept album Evita, penned by Tim Rice and Andrew Lloyd Webber and released in 1976 – ironically the same year as the military coup that overthrew the government of Perón’s third wife, Isabel, who had become president after serving as Vice President during Peron’s third presidency. Evita went on to play successfully in London’s West End and on Broadway in the late 1970s and 1980s. In 1996, the show was turned into a movie musical starring Madonna and Antonio Banderas.
Eva Perón has been the subject of books, masters’ theses, doctoral dissertations and special issues of academic journals. There is a monument, a museum and a foundation in her name, and an official website, www.evitaperon.org which houses an extensive archive of photographs. Eva Perón did not elicit neutral opinions in life or in death.
Jonathan T. Reynolds
7 May 1919
Born in Los Toldos, a village outside of the city of Junín, in the province of Buenos Aires, Argentina. Youngest of five children born to Juana Ibarguren and married rancher Juan Duarte
1934
Moves to Buenos Aires to pursue a career in the growing entertainment industry. Works as model, plays minor roles in theatre and film productions, acts in radio dramas
22 January 1944
Meets General Juan Domingo Perón at a gala to benefit earthquake victims
18 October 1945
Marries Juan Domingo Perón in a civil ceremony in Junín
9 December 1945
Couple marries in a religious ceremony
4 June 1946
Becomes First Lady when her husband is elected as president for the first of three terms
1947
As First Lady, Eva tours Europe, meeting numerous dignitaries and heads of state, such as Francisco Franco, Pope Pius XII and Charles de Gaulle. Britain’s King George VI refuses to receive her visit
8 July 1948
Founds La Fundación Eva Perón, a charitable organization created in response to her rejection from the Sociedad de Beneficencia, which was run by women from Argentina high society
9 January 1950
Faints during an official function. Taken to the hospital for an appendectomy and is diagnosed with cervical cancer three days later
1952
Publishes La Razón de mi vida, an autobiography covering her life from when she became First Lady in 1946 to 1952
4 June 1952
Last public appearance
26 July 1952
Dies in Buenos Aires at 33 years of age. Her body lies in view for thirteen days while throngs of mourners wait in lines for up to 15 hours to pass by the casket
In October 1962, the United States and the Soviet Union came close to a nuclear war. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev had deployed missiles in Cuba, directly threatening the United States. Khrushchev hoped the presence of these missiles would protect communist Cuba from a US invasion and strengthen his hand in negotiations over Berlin. President John F. Kennedy was not about to accept missiles so close to the United States. After Kennedy received definitive proof of the missiles in Cuba in mid-October, he formed a special committee in the White House known as ExComm to deal with the crisis. Rejecting military options as too provocative given the potential for nuclear war, Kennedy decided to impose a blockade on Cuba. Then, the world held its breath as it waited to see if Khrushchev would respect the blockade. The Soviet leader did, and both sides were given valuable time to step back from the brink and negotiate a resolution to the perilous situation. The diplomatic breakthrough came when Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the missiles in exchange for Kennedy’s pledge not to invade Cuba. Kennedy also promised in secret to remove US Jupiter missiles from Turkey.
On receiving news that Soviet ships had stopped heading towards Cuba, Kennedy’s Secretary of State, Dean Rusk, remarked: ‘We’re eyeball to eyeball and I think the other fellow just blinked’.
Relations between the Soviet Union and the United States improved in the wake of the Cuban Missile Crisis. In June 1963, Kennedy called for peace between the two superpowers, urging Americans to reconsider their Cold War attitudes and declaring ‘in the final analysis … We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children’s future. And we are all mortal’. In August, the Soviets and the Americans agreed to a nuclear test ban treaty.
NIKITA KHRUSHCHEV
1894–1971
Russian of humble origins who became premier of the Soviet Union (1958–64)
JOHN F. KENNEDY
1917–63
American politician and 35th US President (1961–63)
FIDEL CASTRO
1926–
Cuban communist leader during the Cold War and beyond
Kristopher Teters
On 28 August 1963, Dr Martin Luther King, Jr. stood on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., and delivered his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech to close to a quarter of a million people. This was the climax of the civil rights movement’s March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. In his speech, King reminded Americans of the long history of injustices that African-Americans had faced. He called on the country to end racial discrimination and segregation and promote the freedom and equality of all citizens: America needed finally to live up to the words of the Declaration of Independence. Those fighting for civil rights would not be satisfied until these objectives were achieved. King powerfully declared: they would not be content ‘until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream’. The most memorable part of the speech was when King discussed his ‘Dream’ for the future. He envisaged a country in which blacks and whites could live together in harmony and racism would be a thing of the past. King’s soaring rhetoric, particularly his ‘Dream’, inspired many Americans and helped awaken the moral conscience of the nation. In this single speech, King dramatically crystallized the hopes and goals of the civil rights movement.
‘I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin but by the content of their character.’
Martin Luther King’s ‘I Have a Dream’ speech was so significant that the United States commemorated its fiftieth anniversary in 2013. The ceremony, which was held at the Lincoln Memorial, featured speeches by President Barack Obama, former presidents Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton, and King family members. Around 100,000 people attended the commemoration.
MARTIN LUTHER KING, JR.
1929–68
African-American leader in the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 60s whose non-violent protest campaigns helped end segregation and regain voting rights for African- Americans
JOHN LEWIS
1940–
Leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, who spoke before King’s Dream speech
Kristopher Teters
The year 1968 saw a worldwide wave of protests, primarily staged by student organizations of the New Left. These students rejected what they saw as the acquiescence by the ‘Old Left’ to the status quo of capitalism, bureaucracy, militarism and political repression. Action took many forms. In France, month-long protests in May united students and labour unions in demonstrations and a general strike. In West Germany, protestors focused on the nation’s history in the Second World War, calling for the removal of all government officials with ties to the former Nazi Party. Czechoslovakia’s Prague Spring began with liberal reforms and ended with the invasion of the country by Soviet troops. The United States saw massive riots fuelled in part by disillusionment in the face of several major assassinations, most recently that of Senator Robert F. Kennedy on 6 June 1968. Protests against the Vietnam War took place in Japan, Germany and the United States, including five days of violent demonstrations at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. Protests before the Summer Olympics in Mexico City resulted in the Tlatelolco Massacre, when government troops killed at least dozens, if not hundreds, of students. By the end of the year, hundreds of students had been killed or injured.
The Year of the Barricades shook the world with student-led protests and demonstrations across four continents.
Prior to the 1960s, universities in the United States acted in loco parentis—that is in place of the parents. Students were expected to abide by university rules regulating speech, dress, curfews and association with members of the opposite sex. The 1961 Supreme Court case Dixon v. Alabama rejected university claims of control, establishing that university students were entitled to their constitutional rights of free speech and association, opening the door to an age of student protests and radical free expression.
ALEXANDER DUBČEK
1921–92
Leader of Czechoslovakia (1968–69), whose attempted reforms set off the Prague Spring
ABBOTT ‘ABBIE’ HOFFMAN
1936–89
American activist who founded the Youth International Party (‘Yippies’)
EDSON LUÍS DE LIMA SOUTO
1950–68
Brazilian student killed by military police in Rio de Janeiro, sparking wide protest in Brazil
Sara Patenaude
Soviet tanks crushed the Prague Spring, but in France students and workers brought the economy briefly to its knees.
In the early morning of 28 June 1969 plainclothes police officers entered the Stonewall Inn, a popular gay club in New York City’s Greenwich Village. In the 1960s raids on establishments that welcomed homosexuals were routine in the US but this time the police were unprepared. While officers waited for patrol vehicles to arrive, the crowd outside the bar swelled and tension mounted. As the police attempted to leave the scene, spectators began to riot. The officers retreated into the Stonewall Inn, barricading themselves in until reinforcements arrived. In the ensuing confrontation 13 people were arrested. The crowd was dispersed but the following night, a throng gathered outside the Stonewall Inn that included homosexuals, neighbourhood residents and curious visitors. Initially jovial, the mood quickly changed as police arrived. Protests continued for several nights, reportedly drawing crowds of 500–1,000 people. Though not the first events of the gay rights movement, the Stonewall Riots marked an important turning point in the movement, serving as a rallying cry for homosexuals and their allies. Activist groups sprang up across the United States, vocally demanding rights for gays and lesbians, and a year later the first gay pride marches marked the anniversary of the Stonewall Riots.
A week of protests in 1969 transformed the Mafia-run Stonewall Inn from a local homosexual hotspot to the catalyst of the modern gay rights movement.
Being openly gay in the United States during the Cold War was not only illegal, it was considered a threat to America – homosexuality was medically defined as a mental illness. Government officials feared that being gay left people open to the possibility of blackmail by communists. At the same time as Senator Joseph McCarthy’s witch-hunt for communists in the United States government, dozens of homosexual men were forced to resign their government posts.
SYLVIA RIVERA
1951–2002
Founding member of the Gay Liberation Front
CRAIG RODWELL
1940–93
American gay rights activist and organizer of the first New York City gay pride march
Sara Patenaude
After Stonewall, activists took to the streets in support of gay rights;the rainbow flag becoming a symbol of the community’s diversity.
Since declaring independence in 1816, Argentina has endured several periods of violence and rule by authoritarian governments. A military coup in 1976 initiated one of the most ferocious regimes, led by a group of generals known as ‘La Junta’ who dubbed their policy the ‘Process of National Reorganization’. The Junta, tacitly supported by the United States, initially targeted left-wing groups who had waged a guerrilla war against the government since the 1960s. The government’s strategy was known as the ‘Dirty War’ – using kidnapping, torture, rape and disappearances as weapons against rebels, trade unionists, teachers, students, journalists and others who were suspected of holding leftist sympathies: 10,000–30,000 ‘disappeared’ during the seven years the Junta was in power. In 1977, the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo movement, consisting of fourteen mothers of the disappeared, began to hold weekly peaceful protests on the plaza of that name in Buenos Aires. When Argentina lost the Falklands War in 1982, the Junta’s dictatorship ended and democratic elections were held. This resulted in the election of a civilian, Raúl Alfonsín, in 1983. The new President created the National Commission on the Disappeared to investigate the disappearances.
During the Dirty War in Argentina (1976–83), the military government committed atrocities against civilians in the attempt to rid the country of ‘subversive elements’.
Argentina’s Dirty War was not an anomalous event in the region. As part of the broader US-backed fight against communism in the hemisphere, authoritarian regimes came into power in Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Paraguay and Uruguay between the 1950s and 1970s. These governments united efforts in 1975 under the name Operation Condor. In 1977–86, the Argentine military provided training and intelligence to right-wing authoritarian regimes in Central America as part of Operation Charly.
AZUCENA VILLAFLOR
1924–77
Key founder of the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo movement
RODOLFO WALSH
1927–77
Investigative journalist and member of the Montoneros movement
RAÚL ALFONSÍN
1927–2009
First democratically elected president of Argentina following the dictatorship
Caryn Connelly
General Jorge Rafael Videla seized power in the 1976 coup and gave orders for gruesome tactics in the dirty war.
Amandla! ('Power!') This rallying cry symbolizes the combination of domestic passive resistance campaigns and international political pressure alongside economic sanctions that ended apartheid, the South African policy of institutional racism, in 1994. Under apartheid legislation of 1948, Afrikaner Nationalist legally categorized non-Europeans into ‘Africans’, ‘Coloureds’, ‘Asians’ (Indians) and ‘Chinese’. Some would argue that apartheid had begun in 1652, when the first Europeans, the Dutch, arrived, displacing Africans from their land. While the African nationalist movement in South Africa began in the late 19th/early 20th century, the defiance campaign to end apartheid was launched in 1955, when the African National Congress (ANC) ratified the 1955 Freedom Charter. The government, claiming to fight communism, responded to public demonstrations with mass arrests, violence and repression. Two massacres, Sharpeville (1960) and Soweto (1976), shocked the world with images of police shooting civilians, especially children. Mounting world pressure and civil unrest convinced President F.W. de Klerk to release ANC leader Nelson Mandela after his 27 years imprisonment. Apartheid officially ended in 1994, with the first universal suffrage election – one person, one vote – electing Mandela and the ANC to power.
The anti-apartheid movement in South Africa was part of a worldwide nationalist and pan-African movement to overthrow colonialism and institute democracy.
In introducing apartheid, which means 'apart-ness', or 'apart-hood', the National Party sought to prevent Europeans from intermingling with or marrying other ‘races’. To this end the government segregated economic, residential and public social space. It enforced pass laws to control people’s movements, legislated racial categories and economic distinctions – and forced African relocation to Bantustans (homelands) and townships, such as Soweto. Apartheid’s economic legacies still linger.
MOHANDAS GANDHI
1869–1948
Indian nationalist who developed passive resistance tactics adopted by the ANC
NELSON MANDELA
1918–2013
South African leader of the anti-apartheid movement and first universally elected president of South Africa
FREDERIK WILLEM DE KLERK
1936–
South African President (1989–94) who helped end apartheid
Grace Chee
