Television changed the culture of the United States, homework help

• “An individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for the law.”

These words from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., capture his philosophy of nonviolent civil disobedience. He believed this was the best, the only, way to achieve the goals of the civil rights movement. Choose at least two events or incidents between the end of World War II and the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Explain how each exemplifies Dr. King’s message.

• Television changed the culture of the United States and later the world. Americans began buying televisions in the 1950s, and by the end of the decade, 90% of families owned one.

In the early 1960s Newton Minow served as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission. Later, he was chairman of the board of PBS. He once described television as a “vast wasteland.” He also said, “When television is good, nothing is better. When it’s bad, nothing is worse.”

Reflect on this idea as you describe the changes television brought to America during the 1950s, how TV influenced society, and the implications TV would have for the future.