As the 1960s began, Americans were filled with hope and optimism. Their newly elected president, John F. Kennedy (1917–1963; served 1961–63), called on Americans to join him as they ventured into a "New Frontier," one that included the expansion of prosperity at home and democracy around the world and the placing of a man on the moon. Kennedy's optimism, his enthusiastic visions, were emblematic of one side of the 1960s, the side that historian David Farber aptly called "the age of great dreams" in his book of the same title. Others shared Kennedy's tendency to dream: civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. called on Americans to live out their commitment to equality for all; President Lyndon B. Johnson created a set of programs known as the Great Society with the goal of wiping out poverty and ensuring equality; antiwar...