Collision on Route 40: Cold War Tensions & Civil Rights

Speaker: Mike Dixon

Suitable for Schools · Grades 9–12

This presentation explores how Route 40 in Delaware and Maryland became an unexpected battleground for Cold War tensions and civil rights. On this corridor between Baltimore and the Delaware Memorial Bridge, international diplomacy, African decolonization, Jim Crow, Soviet propagandists, and Freedom Riders collided, forcing a confrontation for the Kennedy administration that involved global tensions and domestic policy.