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A Time to . . .
My fellow Americans, our long national nightmare is over. Our constitution works.
Our great Republic is a government of laws and not of men. Here the people rule. (President Gerald R. Ford)
The Sixties were also a time for healing. While some Michigan memories of the 1960s are
of fighting for an ideal and the personal pain of Vietnam and sacrifices that never seemed
adequately honored, other memories are of growing families, triumphs in space, miniskirts,
baseball games and a president from Michigan.
Many new civil rights laws, such as Michigan's Fair Housing Act, were
passed in these years. Because of this era, Michiganians today no longer can plead
ignorance of civil and human rights. They realized that there are many variations of
patriotism and that the responsibility for good government ultimately rests with the
individual.
From the ashes of the Detroit riot of 1967, people tried to revive the spirit and
resources of Detroit. In the early 1970s, a group of businessmen headed by Henry Ford II,
grandson of Henry Ford, launched the Renaissance Center, a $350 million complex that
included a hotel, offices, theaters and stores.
- On July 20, 1969, Neil
Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin planted the United States flag on the moon.
- In 1965, Head Start
began as part of President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty. An early education
intervention program for disadvantaged children, it was intended to improve physical
well-being, to provide social and psychological services, and to enhance intellectual
ability and academic performance.
- The de-escalation of the Vietnam War began in 1968. The last American troops departed in
March 1973. The fall of Saigon in May 1975 marked the end of the war.
 This photograph
from the 1960s gallery is of President Gerald Ford of Michigan when he
pardoned former President Richard H. Nixon, on September 8, 1974. A copy
of his pardon speech appears in this exhibit. Ford was sworn in as
president after the resignation of President Richard Nixon, who faced
impeachment charges for criminal conspiracy, his repeated failures to
carry out his constitutional oath and his unconstitutional defiance of
committee subpoenas. President Ford tried to restore credibility to the
White House. He also extended pardons to military personnel dishonorably
discharged for opposing American involvement in Vietnam. A Michigan Historical
Marker stands at his boyhood home in Grand Rapids, Michigan, where he
lived from age 8 to 17 (1921-1930). - The Detroit Tigers won the American League Pennant in 1967 and 1968. In 1968, they won
the World Series, defeating the St. Louis Cardinals.
The Detroit Tigers' victory in the 1968 World Series helped bring the city together.
Like the Tigers, the city was coming back. The long newspaper strike was over, black and
white began tentatively to reach out to each other, the city tried to shudder free of its
fears and its long night of terror. (Joe Stroud)
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