Social Movements of the Vietnam Era

1
Social Movements of the Vietnam Era

• Cold War Culture

2
If you dont talk aboutit doesnt exist!

• Some things were best left unsaid and that
  included discussions about race!
• Jim CrowIn Clarendon County, SC, officials spent
  179 on every white student in 1950 and 43 on
  each black one.
• 14 years later in Mississippi, those figures were
  over 190 for white student and 1.26 for each
  black
• By Texas law, ¾ of federal land grant funds were
  spent at Texas AM while ¼ went to black Prairie
  View AM.
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?v-s-tjc18A5gfeature
  related

3
Race relations in the 1950s

• In both the North and South, most white Americans
  were racist. Popular opinion polls revealed that
  97 percent of southern and 90 percent of northern
  whites opposed interracial dating and having a
  black neighbor.
• Racial slurs and Nigger jokes were common
  throughout the nation.

4
Racial Intolerance was Politically Correct

• To a lesser extent, American society was
  intolerant toward all minorities. In ethnic
  cities, and especially surburban white homes,
  racial slurs were common
• Mexicans greasers
• Puerto Ricans spikes
• Asians chinks
• Jews kikes

5
White Supremacy in the South

• Southern reasons for maintaining white supremacy
  were always the same
• Maintain our Southern Way of Life and Christian
  values
• States Rights (against federal interference)
• Race mongrelization
• Communism (subversive attack)
• Colored folks are really happy
• Colored folks are being manipulated

6
The Calm before the Storm

• Young people growing up in the 1950s who later
  became active in the movement did not view the
  50s as a time of glory or a very creative era.
• Period of conformity, consensus, rules, and
  regulations.
• Many rebelled against double standards and
  lifestyle of parents.
• Period lacked real social conflict.

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Acts of Rebellion

• Acts of rebellion in the mid to late 1950s were
  being embraced by millions of youth. In many
  cities teens formed gangs and conducted warfare.
  In suburbs the young grew restless, and parents
  became increasingly worried about juvenile
  delinquency.
• Movie Rebel Without a Cause
• Rebel Without a Cause that tells the story of a
  rebellious teen who comes to a town, meets a
  girl, disobeys his parents, and defies the local
  high school bullies. It was an attempt to portray
  the moral decay of American youth, critique
  parental style, and exploit the differences
  between generations.
• Movie The Wild One (1953)
• The film starts by showing the Black Rebels
  Motorcycle Club, a group of young and boisterous
  bikers led by Johnny Strabler (Marlon Brando),
  that invade the small town of Wrightsville during
  a motorcycle race. Deemed scandalous and
  dangerous, the film was banned by the British
  Board of Film Censors from showing in the United
  Kingdom for fourteen years.

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Acts of Rebellion

• Rebel Without a Cause (1955)
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vJ_6umw9AXoAfeature
  related
• The Wild One (1953)
• http//www.youtube.com/watch?vXNwC_aJy9igfeature
  related

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Acts of Rebellion

• Rock and Roll Music ( young, vibrant, exciting,
  rebellious)
• Tight blue jeans and ducktail haircuts
• Beatniks (undisciplined behavior)
• Drug use (Marijuana)
• Anti-government rhetoric (Cold War ideology)

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Intellectual Criticism of Cold War Culture

• The Tragedy of American Diplomacy (1959).
• Historian William Appleman Williams challenged
  the contemporary idea that the Soviet Union was
  evil, was attempting to conquer the world, and
  that the US was good, the bulwark of freedom.
• The Other America (1962).
• Michael Harrington exposed the plight of the
  masses of poor in America. Harrington highlighted
  the failure of the federal government to address
  the social epidemic. The book became the driving
  force behind President Kennedys War on Poverty
  programs.

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Intellectual Criticism of Cold War Culture

• The Feminine Mystique (1963)
• Betty Friedan argued that women are as capable
  as men to do any type of work or follow any
  career path, and the mass media, educators, and
  psychologists argued to the contrary.
• The restrictions of the 1950s and the trapped,
  imprisoned, feeling of many women forced into
• these roles, spoke to American women who
• soon began attending consciousness-raising
• sessions and lobbying for the reform of
  oppressive
• laws and social views that restricted women.

12
The American Dream???

• In 1960, Look magazine published a Gallup poll
  that revealed that most citizens were satisfied
  with their home life, work and community.
• The same was true on campus, where students
  embraced apathy. The vast majority of my
  classmates just sat through four years, wrote a
  1960 graduate of Hunter College. They didnt
  challenge any authority, take any risks, or ask
  any questions.

13
The American Dream???

• Most Americans were satisfied with the status
  quo, and they wanted that for their children.
• Phillip Caputo wrote about his parents, their
  vision of my futureconsisted of my finding a
  respectable job after school, marrying a
  respectable girl, and then settling down in a
  respectable suburb.

14
Seeds of Dissension

• There are two groups in the spawning ground of
  the fifties that hatched during the 1960s
• In the North alienated students/professors
• In the South African Americans that were denied
  the American Dream
• In 1960 some young Americans questioned and
  confronted the American Dream, they began to
  crack cold war culture

15
The Spark that lit the Flame

• In 1960, the Student Movement began with four
  students from North Carolina AT University in
  Greensboro, North Carolina with a sit-in
  demonstration at a local five and dime store.