The year was 1968, one of the most turbulent in America’s history. Anti–Vietnam War protests had been going on for three years. The assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert F. Kennedy were followed by violent demonstrations in many U.S. cities. Hubert Humphrey was running for president against Richard Nixon, with a campaign based on addressing discrimination, poverty, and unemployment.
“People who believe in law and order and social justice must redouble their efforts to provide every American with equal opportunity and a decent place in which to live, work, and play.”
— Hubert Humphrey, 1968
Nixon painted a picture of an America in chaos and in need of “law and order.”
“For the past five years we have been deluged by government programs for the unemployed; programs for the cities; programs for the poor. And we have reaped from these programs an ugly harvest of frustration, violence, and failure across the land.”
— Richard Nixon, 1968
Nixon’s “get tough on crime” approach won out, and would dictate the course of American policy for decades.
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