The United States at Home HS922 Activity Introduction Hi my name s (name), and everything s groovy man. Let s go put on some tie dyed clothes, march against something and sing some folk songs. Oh, sorry about that, I got a little carried away with today s topic, the nineteen-sixties. Video 1 - Introduction Before I get too carried away, let s look at one of the major forces of the era, the peace movement. The war in Vietnam was increasingly unpopular, and people organized around the country to speak out. Let s take a look. Video 1 The 1960 s saw a huge change in U.S. society and culture with antiwar protests, the Hippie Movement and the transformation of the Civil Rights Movement from the nonviolence in the 1950 s to the militancy and violence of the 1960 s. Even though there had been some progress in civil rights, the 1960 s saw quite a few race riots in major U.S. cities between 1964 and 1968. The administration of President Lyndon Johnson was committed to the cause of civil rights and L.B.J. pushed through the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. However, the summer race riots started in Harlem in 1964. After the riot in
Harlem, the federal government started an employment program for the youth of Harlem in the summer of 1965 in order to prevent the violence from happening again. In 1965, the Los Angeles neighborhood of Watts was the site of a six day riot in August. This happened in response to a traffic stop in which an African American man was mistreated by the Los Angeles Police Department. In the six days of rioting, over 1,000 people were injured, 35 were killed and over 4,000 arrested. The property damage in Watts was very extensive with over 1,000 buildings destroyed, mostly by fires. The government of California did little to rebuild the neighborhood after the conclusion of the riots. In 1967, both Detroit and Newark, New Jersey also exploded in violence during the summer. Both suffered catastrophic damage to housing, the economy and public image. The largest wave of race riots in the U.S. broke out in nearly 100 U.S. cities after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee on April 4th, 1968. As news of Dr. King s assassination spread, race riots took place in cities throughout the U.S. Baltimore, Washington, D.C., New York, Louisville, Kentucky and scores of other cities erupted in racial violence within days of the assassination. Presidential Candidate, Robert Kennedy gave an unplanned speech about M.L.K. s death in Indianapolis and possibly prevented riots in that city. In Boston, musician, James Brown convinced the mayor to allow his concert to continue as planned. Brown s performance was televised to the city and was in part responsible for preventing riots there.
The year 1968 marked a significant point in the history of the U.S. with the assassinations of Dr. King in April and Robert Kennedy in June, race riots, peace marches and trouble at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago that summer. The presidential election in 1968 also reflected the growing divisions in the country over the war in Viet Nam and over race. Hubert Humphrey, the eventual democratic nominee, was very antiwar. Richard Nixon, the republican candidate, offered a vague plan for Viet Nam, but had no specific proposals. A third party candidate, former Alabama Governor, George Wallace, wanted to continue with segregation and received 46 electoral votes in the Deep South. The wave of racial violence in the U.S. in the 1960 s had numerous causes, including economics, housing, education and police relations. The tension in the late 1960 s did result in some concrete changes though, both by the federal government and by state and local governments. These changes did not address all the problems of the inner cities, however, many of which still exists today. Video 1 Recap It always struck me as odd how angry the peace movement could become. And while they spoke for many people. They didn t speak for everyone. Many people organized to speak out against the war, sometimes with very different goals and ideas. This led people like Martin Luther King Junior, and Abbie Hoffman, two very different men, to be among the leaders of the movement. Reading Passage Introduction Much of the anti-war movement began to be reflected in popular culture. This became known as the counter-culture as many began to rebel against mainstream values.
Let s try to separate the facts from the fiction about the nineteen-sixties, in this next reading. Reading Passage Introduction Well, one of the major points in the history of the counterculture of the nineteensixties was the nineteen-sixty-eight Democratic National Convention. That convention was part of the presidential election of that year. Let s take a look at the facts about the election of nineteen-sixty-eight. Video 2 - Introduction Nineteen-sixty-eight was a unique year in the history of the United States. The presidential election was just the tip of the iceberg. Let s look at what else was going on in that busy year. Video 2 While Americans had protested in some form or another against every major war in U.S. history, the Vietnam War saw an unprecedented wave of protests and a major backlash against both political parties. Young people began to distrust both the public statements of the government and the motivations of the government. The protests against the Vietnam War were just a part of the radical and chaotic decade of the 1960 s, which saw the previously peaceful Civil Rights Movement explode in to race riots and the demonstrations of free speech and counterculture throughout the U.S. Various student organizations had grown up on college campuses throughout the 1960 s, many of which were concerned with supporting the Civil Rights Movement or with democracy and free speech. The Student Peace Union was formed in Chicago in the late 1950 s and became the first U.S. organization to use the peace sign.
Students for a Democratic Society, S.D.S., another antiwar organization, was created in the early 1960 s. It was concerned with democratic reforms to the political process, but its early activities were concentrated heavily on civil rights. By 1965, S.D.S. had become concerned with the Vietnam War and became one of the first groups to organize young people, who were of draft age, to protest the war. They also led one of the first mass protests against the Vietnam War, the first march against the Vietnam War on April 17th, 1965. The march attracted over 15,000 people, mostly college students and marked the first serious attention for the Antiwar Movement in the U.S. The antiwar groups in the U.S. drew inspiration and organization from the civil rights groups that had been active in the U.S. since the 1950 s. Many students and young people had become involved in the Civil Rights Movement, including as freedom writers and in voter registration drives in the South and this involvement carried over for some in to the Antiwar Movement. They also copied the nonviolent strategies of the Civil Rights Movement. As the war effort grew and more young people were drafted, antiwar protests increased. By the end of 1967, there had been three more major protest march on Washington, D.C., as well as major protests in other U.S. cities. As soldiers began to return home from Vietnam, a small minority began to protest U.S. involvement in the war and organized in to Vietnam veterans against the war. Now, the year 1968 was a chaotic and crazy one in U.S. history and included the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert F. Kennedy, as well as the increase of antiwar protests. In January, 1968, nearly 400,000 people marched on Washington to protest the war. Then the Antiwar Movement mounted huge protests around in the 1968 Democratic
National Convention in Chicago. Many protestors were arrested and several were beaten by Chicago police when the protest turned violent. By 1969, with the draft and the war escalating, the Antiwar Movement became even more widespread. Groups organized protests in several major U.S. cities and college campuses. The largest protest was a march on Washington that saw over 600,000 protestors descend on D.C. The newly elected Nixon administration had promised a new strategy of Vietnamization in the war, but in 1969, the war was in fact escalating and so was opposition in the U.S. This opposition was becoming widespread, even within the press and in mainstream society. Journalist and News Anchorman, Walter Cronkite, had issued an editorial on the CBS News calling the war unwinable, as early as 1968. In 1970, following the U.S. Invasion of Cambodia, antiwar protests turned deadly on two U.S. college campuses. This resulted in the deaths of six students. On May 4th, 1970, antiwar protests at Kent State University in Ohio were broken up by Ohio National Guard troops who at one point, fired tear gas and then rifles in to the protestors, killing four students and wounding several others. Ten days later, two African American students at Jackson State University in Mississippi were killed by police during a similar antiwar protest. The Jackson State killings did not arouse nearly as much public protests as did the Kent State deaths. Students throughout the country went on strike following the incidents and college campuses had to close before the end of the semester. Another major march on Washington followed in the summer. The Antiwar Movement in the U.S. continued to mount protests and demonstrations until the end of U.S. involvement in Vietnam in 1975. Video 2 - Recap
Who would have thought so much could happen in one year. It really came to define the nineteen-sixties and set the stage for the nineteen-seventies.