The term affirmative action was coined in 1965 by U.S. President Lyndon Baines Johnson to offer minorities special consideration and outreach in employment and education . Anderson , however , in his 2004 work '' The Pursuit of Fairness '' traces the concept of affirmative action back to the era of legal segregation , when African Americans rebelled at being compelled to pay taxes to support public facilities otherwise closed to their utilization . After being granted civil rights , many of the minorities found the hurdles so high to secure a foothold in education and employment that they favored an approach to compensate them for past discrimination . As time passed , those seeking affirmative action consideration were born long after segregation had been abolished and created what the critics of the program called " reverse discrimination . " Anderson contends that he offers a balanced approach to the subject and avoids excessive legalese and statistics . In his preface , Anderson says that he , a blonde white male , has not been adversely impacted by affirmative action in his own education and employment . " I have no ax to grind , no agenda , just a fascination at how this contentious policy developed and changed over the years . " A reviewer , Timothy J. O'Neill of Southwestern University in Georgetown , Texas , says that while the account " lacks the theoretical insights of other affirmative action treatments such as Peter H. Schuck ’s ' Diversity in America ' , Anderson compensates for this by telling a quick and readable story to a popular audience who often knows little about the history of equal rights , the women ’s movement , the Great Society , let alone the history of affirmative action . " In 2011 , Oxford University Press published Anderson 's book , '' Bush 's War : Iraq '' , referring to the war on terrorism waged by former U.S. President George W. Bush . Anderson is a longtime critic of the Bush administration and the Axis of Evil claim made against Iran , Iraq , and North Korea . Himself a Democrat , Anderson voiced opposition to the appointment of Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state in Bush 's second term . In a public forum in November 2004 , Anderson expressed pessimism about the ongoing war in Iraq : " Bush 's war has devoured the army and American policy . The war has divided America and will drag on for years . " he predicted . Anderson 's '' The Movement and the Sixties '' was released by Oxford in 1995 and in e-book form in 2001 under the shortened title , '' The Sixties . '' Anderson traces the 1960s protest movement from the lunch counter sit-ins in Greensboro , North Carolina to the Indian activists taking the town of Wounded Knee , South Dakota , hostage . Between those events , thirteen years apart , were the Freedom rides , the " free speech " protests at the University of California at Berkeley , the Selma to Montgomery march of 1965 , the agitation against the Vietnam War , Black power , the 1968 Democratic National Convention , the hippies , and feminist rebellions . Anderson examines why so many became activists and took to the streets to make themselves heard by the otherwise " silent generation "
1968 Democratic National Convention
1968 Democratic National Convention
Terry H. Anderson