The Fabulous Fifties
By Vicki Clark, Fri Dec 9th

The Fabulous Fifties By Vicki Clark ©2005

By the time the Korean War ended, in 1953, fifty thousandAmericans had returned home in coffins. With the end of the Warcame President Eisenhower's promise of a bright future for theUnited States. It was the beginning of an economic boom unlikeany in the history of the Country. For the first time since theGreat Depression of 1929 America was not in crisis. During thelatter part of 1953 mass consumerism was on the rise and moneywas in the bank. Americans moved up to the "middle class" at therate of one million a year and real wages were rising at anunprecedented 4.5% yearly. It was a time of conformity when men,dressed in gray flannel suits and white shirts, went to theirwhite-collar jobs and women kept the home fires burning in theirpastel, "cookie cutter" houses of America's new suburbia. Lifecentered around the stability of home and family and 97% ofmarriageable men and women were married, it was a couplessociety and they were all having children, the baby boom was infull swing.. Americans began their love affair with TV duringthe early part of the decade and by the mid 50s 3/4 of themowned a television set and spent 1/3 of their waking hourswatching I Love Lucy, The Honeymooners, Jack Benny, Queen for ADay, What's My Line, Ed Sullivan and American Bandstand.Consumerism flourished as television ads convinced viewers ofthe need to keep up with the "Jones'" by owning the latestgadgets and goods. For Black citizens, in the midst of this newAmerican prosperity, life remained unchanged but change was inthe air. The 1954 United States Supreme Court decision in Brownv. the Board of Education was among the most significant turningpoints in the development of our country. It dismantled thelegal basis for racial segregation in schools and other publicfacilities by declaring that the discriminatory nature of racialsegregation ... "violates the 14th amendment to the U.S.Constitution, which guarantees all citizens equal protection ofthe laws," The southern states resisted integration. On December1, 1955 Rosa Parks, weary from an exhausting day of work as aseamstress, boarded a bus in Montgomery, Alabama. She sat in theblack section at the back of the bus but when the white seatshad filled she was told to give up her seat to a white man. RosaParks refused and in so doing became the first prominent figureof what became the Movement. The twenty-six year old minister,Martin Luther King, Jr. led the black citizens in a non-violentboycott of the Montgomery buses. During the boycott whiteextremists bombed Kings home. The boycott continued for 381 daysuntil, in 1956, the Federal Supreme ruled to desegregate thebuses. In 1957 President Eisenhower sent in the 101st Airborneto accompany the Arkansas Nine to classes at Central High inLittle Rock. Three weeks earlier the black students wereprevented by white students, teachers and parents from enteringthe school in spite of the Brown v. The Board of Educationruling. There was a change happening in music. A sound that hadits roots in black