The 1960

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The 1960S
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U.S. History in the 1960s

• Some say the true spirit of the 60s was
  reflected in the rise and fall of President John
  F. Kennedy.
• His youthfulness and passion for grand ideas
  epitomized the growing influence of youth
  culture.
• Other views declare that Kennedys assassination
  was the beginning of the 60s with the resulting
  despair and conspiracy theories foreshadowing the
  many social movements that were deeply critical
  of government and traditional economic, social,
  and religious institutions.

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• It is clear that both themes are clear in these
  chaotic time youth culture presented itself more
  forcefully than ever, and social movements became
  more vigorous, critical, and violent.
• The music of this timerevealing and heightening
  these trendsprovided the appropriate soundtrack.
• Among the issues that divided Americans, none
  loomed larger than the Vietnam War and civil
  rights movement.

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• The intensity and organization of the civil
  rights movement increased greatly in the 1960s.
• 4 young African-American students sat in at a
  segregated lunch counter in 1960 at Woolworths
  in Greensboro, NC. Other major protests occurred
  in Birmingham and Montgomery, AL.
• On August 28, 1963, 250,000 Americansblack and
  whitetook part in the March on Washington. At
  this historic event, Martin Luther King Jr.
  delivered his I Have a Dream speech, which
  vocalized the movements goals and spirit to all
  Americans.

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• Following the March, congress passed the Civil
  Rights Act (1964), making discrimination based on
  race illegal.
• Race riots erupted in Los Angeles in 1965, in
  Newark and Detroit in 1967, and in many cities
  following the assassination of King in 1968.
• As the decade moved on, the movement became more
  militant, and earlier calls for integration and
  nonviolence gave way to Black Powerpromoted by
  the Black Panthers, among others.

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• The antiwar movement paralleled the civil rights
  movement. By mid-decade, America had combat
  troops in Vietnam and the number of American
  casualties began to increase.
• Many young Americans questioned the wisdom of the
  war, and dissent became increasingly vocal and
  organized, especially on college campuses.
• Studentswhite and black, rich and poorsat in
  and burned their draft cards some even escaped
  to Canada to avoid the war.

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• At the 1968 Democratic National Convention, an
  antiwar demonstration turned violent.
• In 1970, four students were killed at Kent State
  University in Ohio, and two more at Jackson State
  College in Mississippi.
• In addition to the civil rights and antiwar
  movements, many other movements familiar to us
  today first appeared in the 1960s.

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• The feminist movement was nurtured significantly
  by Betty Friedans book The Feminine Mystique,
  which argued that women were constrained by the
  traditional role of homemaker.
• In 1966, the National Organization of Women (NOW)
  was founded with Friedan as its first president.
• Environmentalism grew when Rachel Carsons Silent
  Spring drew the countrys attention to the
  dangers resulting from the indiscriminate and
  persistent use of pesticides such as DDT.

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• Similarly, the consumer protection movement got
  its spark from Ralph Naders book Unsafe at Any
  Speed, which accused automobile companies of
  placing profits and style ahead of safety in the
  design of their vehicles.
• All of these causes raised serious doubts about
  previously accepted beliefs concerning American
  life and culture, taking on the status quo
  (current state of being) with militant passion.

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• The entertainment business was also going through
  important, and in some cases, turbulent changes.
• Network programming had almost entirely migrated
  from radio to television.
• Driven by advertising demographics, AM radio
  continued to be mostly a regional or local
  affair, devoted to hit records and old favorites
  FM radio, however, at first a kind of undeveloped
  wilderness of college lectures, religious
  programming, and classical music, began
  developing into the musical home of the hippie
  counterculture after 1967.

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• In television, ideas of 1950s normalcy
  reinforced by shows such as Leave it to Beaver
  continued in the 60s, typified by inoffensive
  shows like My Three Sons.
• The first show to challenge this sense of
  domestic normalcy was The Beverly Hillbillies in
  1962, which placed a Tennessee backwoods family
  in the center of Beverly Hills. At first, the
  hillbillies seemed to be the target of the shows
  humor, but then it became clear that a better
  strategy was to use the hillbillies to make the
  normal folks look foolish.

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• This soft critique of 1950s normalcy continued
  in My Favorite Martian, Bewitched, and I Dream of
  Jeannieall shows based on the idea that unique,
  supernatural powers needed to be concealed from
  public view, lest the one who had them be
  considered abnormal.
• The youth counterculture of the second half of
  the 1960s would be far less playful in its
  critiques of 1950s values.

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• Movies in the 1960s reflected the pressures of
  the Cold War as well as the emergence of the
  elegant jet set. Beginning with Dr. No in
  1962, James Bond fought communist secret agents
  in a continuing series of feature films, jetting
  around the globe.
• While James Bond might represent the Wests
  confidence in foiling its Cold War enemies, some
  filmmakers were much more skeptical. Stanley
  Kubrick offered a stinging critique of the Cold
  War arms race in his Dr. Strangelove or How I
  Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.

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• The 60s drew to a close the same way they
  began with a mixture of hope and fear.
• On July 20, 1969, the United States was unified
  in celebration astronauts Neil Armstrong and
  Buzz Aldrin realized President Kennedys
  challenge to put a man on the moon by the end of
  the decade.
• However, this brief moment of unity did nothing
  to heal the countrys wounds over Vietnam and
  civil rights. Wars and riots were raged on, and
  rock was raging with them.