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The decade that changed the world.
Cost of Living
Cost of Living
1960
1960
Median Income (National Average): $5,620
Median Income (White Families): $5,835
Median Income (Black Families): $3,230
Average Cost of New Home: $12,700
Average Cost of a New Car: $2,600
Cost of US Stamp: $0.04
Cost of a gallon of milk: $0.95
Cost of a gallon of gas: $0.25
Unemployment Rate*: 5.5%
Buying Power of $1.00 USD (in 2017): $8.42
1969
1969
Median Income (National Average): $9,867
Median Income (White Families): $10,236
Median Income (Black Families): $6,279
Average Cost of New Home: $15,500
Average Cost of a New Car: $3,270
Cost of US Stamp: $0.06
Cost of a gallon of milk: $1.10
Cost of a gallon of gas: $0.35
Unemployment Rate*: 3.5%
Buying Power of $1.00 USD (in 2017): $6.93
*Note about Unemployment Rate - Numbers here depict National average. According to PEW research studies, the unemployment rate for African Americans is consistently twice as high as those for Whites. For example, in 1954 the unemployment rate for Whites was 5% and for Blacks was 9.9%
Federal Government
Federal Government
1960
1960
President: Dwight D. Eisenhower
Vice President: Richard Nixon
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court: Earl Warren
Speaker of the House: Sam Rayburn
Senate Majority Leader: Lyndon B. Johnson
1969
1969
President: Richard Nixon
Vice President: Spiro Agnew
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court: Earl Warren/Warren E. Burger
Speaker of the House: John William McCormack
Senate Majority Leader: Mike Mansfield
Notable Events
Notable Events
1960
1960
-Four black college students from NC A&T stage a sit in at the Woolworth lunch counter sparking a national campaign, waged by 70,000 students for Civil Rights
-Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee is created at Shaw University
-Chubby Checker releases "The Twist" starting a national dance craze
-Elvis Presley returns home from Germany after 2 years of military service
-The US announces that 3,500 American soldiers will be sent to Vietnam
-Cassius Clay wins one and Wilma Rudolph wins four gold medals at the Rome Olympics
-President Dwight D. Eisenhower signs the Civil Rights Act of 1960
-Birth control pill is approved by the FDA
-Sputnik 4 is launched by USSR
-John F. Kennedy is elected president.
1961
1961
- Ham the Chimp is rocketed into space aboard Mercury-Redstone 2
- Bay of Pigs Invasion of Cuba begins
-Hamilton Homes and Charlayne Hunter-Gault are first Black students admitted to the University of Georgia
-Stevie Wonder, The Supremes and The Temptations are all signed to Motown Records
- A Freedom Riders bus is fire-bombed near Anniston, Alabama
- The Vietnam War officially begins – first American helicopters arrive in Saigon
1962
1962
-Navy SEAL Team One is activated
-Ernie Davis becomes the first African American Heisman Trophy winner
-New York City introduces a subway train that operates without a crew on board
-US embargo against Cuba is announced
-First Lady Jackie Kennedy does a television tour of the White House
-Wilt Chamberlain sets the NBA record by scoring 100 points in a single game
-The US Supreme Court rules mandatory prayers in school unconstitutional
-Marilyn Monroe is found dead at age 36
-Cuban Missile Crisis begins and lasts a little over a month
-Former First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt dies.
1963
1963
-George Wallace becomes governor of Alabama, crying “Segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!”
-Sidney Poitier wins Best Actor at the Academy Awards for his performance in Lilies in the Field. He is the first African American to win this award
-Betty Friedan’s The Feminist Mystique is published, reawakening the Women’s Movement
-Alcatraz Federal Penitentiary is closed
- Martin Luther King Jr. issues Letter from Birmingham Jail
-Bull Conner arrests thousands of protesters in Birmingham, uses fire hoses and police dogs on demonstrators
-Marian Anderson and Ralph Bunch become the first African Americans to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom
-After George Wallace blocks the door at the University of Alabama, John F. Kennedy delivers the Civil Rights Address, promising a Civil Rights Bill
-Malcolm X gives his famous Message to the Grassroots speech in Detroit
-Medgar Evers is assassinated in Jackson, Mississippi
-Martin Luther King delivers his “I Have a Dream” speech on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial
-The 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama kills 4 little girls
- John F. Kennedy is assassinated in Dallas, TX.
- Lee Harvey Oswald, assassin of JFK, is killed by Jack Ruby on live television
- “I Want to Hold Your Hand” is released in the US, marking the beginning of Beatlemania
1964
1964
-US Surgeon General reports that smoking may be hazardous to one’s health
-Arthur Miller’s After the Fall opens Off-Broadway
- The Beatles appear on The Ed Sullivan Show, marking their first live performance on American television
-Cassius Clay beats Sonny Liston and becomes the Heavyweight Champion of the World
-SNCC organizes Mississippi Freedom Summer Project
- The first Ford Mustang rolls off the assembly line
- 1000 students march through Times Square to protest the Vietnam War
-Malcolm X publicly leaves the Nation of Islam
- President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act of 1964, abolishing racial segregation
- Martin Luther King Jr. wins the Nobel Peace Prize
-Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party is led by Fannie Lou Hamer
- The stop motion Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer premieres on NBC
1695
1695
-The Moynihan Report "The Negro Family: The Case for National Action" is published
-Lyndon B. Johnson is sworn in for this first full term as president
-Malcolm X is assassinated in Manhattan
-The Watts Riots take place over 5 days leaving 34 dead and 1,000 injured
-The Sound of Music premieres in New York City
-Bloody Sunday happens in Selma, Alabama: 200 Alabama State Troopers clash with 525 civil rights demonstrators. Later that week, Martin Luther King leads 4 more marches from Selma to Montgomery and a demonstration at the Montgomery Courthouse.
- President Johnson orders an increase of US troops in Vietnam, raising the numbers from 75,000 to 125,000 and raising monthly drafts from 17,000 to 35,000.
- President Johnson signs the Social Security Act of 1965, establishing Medicare and Medicaid
- President Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965
- Norman Morrison sets himself on fire outside the Pentagon to protest the Vietnam War
1966
1966
- Public transportation workers in New York City begin a 11 day strike
-The Supreme Court rules that police must read suspects their rights before questioning them
-Robert Weaver is appointed the first Black Cabinet Member, heading the Department of Housing and Urban Development
-Charles Whitman kills 13 and wounds 31 people from atop the UT Austin building tower
-Constance Baker Motely is appointed the first Black female federal judge
-Star Trek premieres on NBC
-Stokley Carmichael becomes the head of SNCC, focusing the organization on Black Power
- Walt Disney dies
-The Black Panther Party is formed in California
-The first Kwanzaa celebrations take place
1967
1967
-Astronauts aboard the Apollo 1 are killed when a fire breaks out. US, Soviet Union and United Kingdom sing the Outer Space Treaty
-The Supreme Court rules in Loving vs. the State of Virginia that it is unconstitutional to ban interracial marriage
-H. Rap Brown becomes the leader of SNCC
-Detroit Riots take place over 5 days leaving 43 dead, 1,200 injured and 7,000 arrested
-The 25th Amendment (presidential succession and disability) to the United States Constitution is ratified
-10,000 people gather for a protest in Central Park
-Albert William Johnson opens an Oldsmobile dealership in Chicago becoming the first African American dealer of a major automobile company
- Thurgood Marshall is confirmed as the first African American Justice on the Supreme Court
1968
1968
- North Korea seizes the USS Pueblo, claiming the ship violated its territorial waters. This began an 11 month crisis that worsened the Cold war tensions in the region.
- North Vietnam launches the Tet Offensive against the US and South Vietnam, which marked the beginning of the end of US involvement in the Vietnam War as many Americans began withdrawing their support for the war.
-Three Black South Carolina State students murdered by police
-Madison Square Garden opens in New York City
-My Lai massacre
-Robert F. Kennedy enters the race for Democratic Party presidential nomination
- Congress repeals the requirement for the Gold Standard
-Martin Luther King is shot and killed in Memphis, Tennessee. Riots erupt across the US, lasting several days.
-Robert F. Kennedy is assassinated in Los Angeles
- Boeing introduces the first 747 Jumbo Jet
-Shirley Chisholm elected the first African American woman in the House of Representatives
- NASA launches Apollo 7
- Tommie Smith and John Carlos protest the National Anthem during the Summer Olympics in Mexico City.
-Arthur Ashe becomes first African American man to win men's singles at the US Open
- President Johnson announces the complete cessation of all air, naval, and artillery bombardment of North Vietnam
- Richard Nixon elected president
- Yale University begins admitting women
- NASA launches Apollo 8 and its crew becomes the first people to see the far side of the moon and planet Earth as a whole
1969
1969
-Elvis Presley begins recording “From Elvis in Memphis”
-In Tinker v. Des Moines Independent Community School District, the Supreme Court rules that the First Amendments applies to public schools
-Sirhan Sirhan admits to assassinating Robert F. Kennedy
-Morgan State, Howard University, Yale and Harvard begin offering African American Studies courses
- James Earl Ray pleads guilty to assassinating Martin Luther King Jr.
-Moneta Sleet Jr. becomes the first Black photographer to receive a Pulitzer Prize
-Fred Hampton and Mark Clarke are killed by Chicago Police
- President Nixon meets with South Vietnamese President Nguyen Van Thieu. Nixon announces that he withdraw 25,000 troops by September
- Apollo 11 Lunar Module Eagle lands on the moon. Neil Armstrong takes his historic first steps on the moon.
-Jimi Hendrix headlines Woodstock Festival
-President Nixon declares the Nixon Doctrine, starting the Vietnamization of the war
-14 Black football players are kicked off the University of Wyoming team for wearing black armbands
- The Manson family commits its first murder
- The first ATM machine is installed in Rockville Centre, NY
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