Mujda Mammadli Modern World History Instructor- Peter Turner Lecture A Essay 13 02.05.2016 ‘Do the closing years of the 1960s deserve their reputation as a revolutionary period and if so, how?’ The US started the 1960s as a country with great social and political changes. These changes are considered as a revolutionary change in terms of their impact on American society and the way Americans live in. This paper will be devoted to the discussion of revolutionary changes of American society and political policy of government in the 1960s. To be more specific, this paper will discuss whether the closing years of the 1960s can be estimated as a revolutionary period and if so, how revolutionary were the changes in that decade. The 1960s brought …show more content…
both good and bad changes to the US with itself. The time of great changes characterized by sexual revolution like gay movement for their rights and the pill, women’s movement, protestation to the violation of black people- civil rights, protestation to the war in Vietnam, anti-war demonstrations, movement for environment, drug using and Woodstock festivals that all made that decade and allow us to call it as a revolutionary period.
So, there were both good and bad revolutionary changes that happened. The bad side of the decade is that it brought a lot of new ideas and freedoms that made Americans to live in the worse conditions. For example, the youth got much new freedom and interested in the drug using and spreading it among themselves. However, there were also good changes such as the women’s movement to gain their rights and have the same equal opportunities in working places as the men. Therefore, by taking all aspects into consideration the closing years of the 1960s is supposed to be the revolutionary period. So, while the …show more content…
paper is devoted to the discussion of the great changes in the US, we should look at the impact of those changes in American society in order to know how revolutionary period was the 1960s in the US. Young people were the ones who enjoyed the decade most in the 1960ès. The 1960s were the period of the young people. Main part of the population consisted of young generation. Approximately, 70 million babies born during post war were the young adults and the teenagers of that decade. However, these generations of America were different from their older generations with their way of life and the way of thinking. So, there was a different and new movement that was completely different from the conservative fiftieth. This revolutionary movement brought new thinking to the young people. Now, the youth no longer wanted to follow the conservative traditions, way of thinking and the way of living that their parents or grandparents followed in the 1950s. ‘In the early 1960s and the late of the 1970s something happened to a generation of young Americans that would mark them forever’ (documentary video-years that shaped a generation, 2005). ‘It was a time new generation rebelled and lost its innocence’ (documentary video-years that shaped a generation, 2005). In the sixties the drug use was the revolutionary issue in the US. The decade was the first time that many people popularized drug use, although has negative impact on the people. The young people made their revolutionary time by getting free drug using. The kinds of marijuana, cocaine, LSD and mushrooms were more popular among the youth. After some time, marijuana became the most popular drug in the American society. The interesting fact was that there was positive approach toward the drug usage too. ‘Although most people have a negative view on drug use, the sixties are the first time that drugs were really popularized and have some positive attitudes’ (1960s in America). A Harvard researcher, Timothy Leary claimed that ‘drug use, especially LSD had an impact on the human consciousness’ (1960s in America. It made people to explore themselves more. In addition, there was the Woodstock festival, which characterized the young generation in the sixties mostly. That festival was especially for the youth and it included legal drug use, sexual freedom and the rock music. Approximately, 400.000 people participated in the festival and listen to the rock music, used drugs and enjoyed their 1960s. The guitar players had a main rule in the festival they were like the leader of the festival. There sexual revolution was one of the great changes in the sixties. That decade also characterized by the gay rights and their protest to require their rights and live ant restriction. Stonewall Inn was a place where gays had a bar. However, as their rights violated by their society, that sometimes raided by the police. For example, in 1969, in Stonewall Inn the police entered in the gays’ bar. After this and other same situation, in the closing years of the 1960s, in New York, a lot of gay people came together and started many serious demonstrations in order to be away from the government interaction. So, we can say that the sixties were the period that for the first times there were gay liberation movement in the US. It means people had changed their conservative thoughts a lot and searching for the new freedoms for themselves and also for others. Therefore, this was the revolutionary event both in terms of social life and the opinion of the other people. The women’s movement was one of the most important and the longest lasted movement among the other movement. That movement also different from other movements in terms of the number of people participated in the movements. The aim of the women’s movement was to get the same rights that the men had. Finally, the movements had positive results for the women. So, in 1966, government decided to found National organization of the women. Now, women could work where she wants. Most of them working as the doctors and the lawyers. In 1963, Equal Pay Act was legislated by the Congress. It all made American women believe in her and did changes for the future of the women. In the 1960s the women were in the attention of the government. When their rights were violated they can easily apply to the court and protect women rights. In the 1960s, the Supreme Court accepted decision that devoted to the protection of the civil people who suffered from the crime. Moreover, that decade was the period of struggle for the racial equality.
Different from other conservative years, that decade brought revolutionary thinking and the approach for the radical equality. Many people came together to the American streets and demand for the black people’s civil rights. Although Martin Luther King was a black man he was also an important man in the America. After the many protestations, they achieved their aim. So, the black people had the same political power with the white men. The American historian Charles Kaiser mentions the situation like this: ‘White men were no longer able to control everything in America’. Also, in that decade president Lyndon Johnson signed for the equal treatments of black people. It was called as the ‘Civil Rights Acts’. It was signed in the mid of the 1960s.The president shared his opinions about the ‘Civil Rights Acts’ as: ‘This Civil Rights Act was a challenge for all of us. It is for our community, for our state, for our homes and for our hearts. The importance of this act was that it brought actual legislative changes. It made a hope to African- Americans not to be discriminated in public and got minimum wage in employment. So, America would become a peaceful place for all the people. In 1965 the Congress also adopted the law that called. To eliminate the injustice in America’ (documentary video-2005). According to the law, the black people should not be discriminated in employment, education and in all public
places. The another president F. Kennedy also actively supported this act in 1963. The historian Eric Fonner said about the president: ‘Kennedy realized that the United States simply could not declare itself the champion of freedom throughout the world while maintaining the system of racial inequality at home’. Hart Caller Act. Based on that law Asian could immigrants could immigrated to the United States. In the 1960s the Vietnam war took place in the history of the United States. The aim of the US in the war was to protect Vietnam from becoming another Chine. Another aim was to contain the communism. Many Americans fought in the war and also many people died, however, they did not know to why they were fighting. Another problem was that Americans did not know their enemy quite well, therefore had difficulties in Vietnam. One of the differences with Vietnam war was the role of the media in the fighting areas. ‘Vietnam was the first televised war, and many say that the media is what made people think so negatively of the whole conflict. Others say that the media is what made us lose the war, although that opinion is not shared by the majority’ (the 1960s in America.). Every scenario of the war was followed by the show makers and showed disgusting and also real sides of the Vietnam war. So, we can say that the Vietnam war was the first televised war in the worldè history. While the television was spreading the news about the war to all people, it had a huge amount of negative impact on the American society. The proof of the negative impact on people was the antiwar protests that many young people led in the streets. 1960s also characterized by the issues about our environment. In America, for the first time people think about the environment more seriously. People wrote about the protections of the water, air and the ground. This made people know their values more and think about the environment more. Seriously. For example, the Silent Spring was the first book that talked about astonishingly poisons that occurred in an environment, such as water, air and the ground. As the result of people’s movement about the environment, some acts were legislated about the protection of the environment. Some acts were accepted, such as there were Clean Air and Water Acts and Endangered species. These acts were legislated. This was the one of the firsts that had happened in the1960s in the US. It made people aware of their behavior toward the nature. In conclusion, taking all changes into accounts we can conclude that the 1960s were written in the United States history as revolutionary period. It shows itself in the changes of the thoughts of the young generation. The young people were no longer wanted to follow the fiftieth’s conservative ideas like their parents and the grandparents and parents followed. The was a revolutionary movement for the gay rights too. Women got much more freedom, involved in the public work and knew their rights more than the fifties. However, we can say that women were also abusing sexually in the 1960s. The great change We can say that happened in the 1960s was legislation of the the black people. Till that time, there was not any legislative decision in favor of the black people. So, the sixties did its revolution mostly about the black people. Gave their rights after the long time.
Comparing the Books, Destructive Generation: Second Thoughts About the Sixties and The Sixties: Years of Hope, Days of Rage
The 1960s were turbulent years. The United States was unpopularly involved in the war in Vietnam, and political unrest ran high at colleges and universities across the country.
The Sixties, by Terry H. Anderson, takes the reader on a journey through one of the most turbulent decades in American life. Beginning with the crew-cut conformity of 1950s Cold War culture and ending with the transition into the uneasy '70s, Anderson notes the rise of an idealistic generation of baby boomers, widespread social activism, and revolutionary counterculture. Anderson explores the rapidly shifting mood of the country with the optimism during the Kennedy years, the liberal advances of Johnson's "Great Society," and the growing conflict over Vietnam that nearly tore America apart. The book also navigates through different themes regarding the decade's different currents of social change; including the anti-war movement, the civil rights struggle, and the liberation movements. From the lunch counter sit-in of Greensboro, N.C. in 1960 and the rise of Martin Luther King, Jr. to the Black Power movement at the decade's end, Anderson illustrates the brutality involved in the reaction against civil rights, the radicalization of some of the movement's youth, and the eventual triumphs that would change America forever. He also discusses women's liberation and the feminist movement, as well as the students' rights, gay rights, and environmental movements.
...ed the rest of his life. My grandfather told me that the sixties were some of the best years of his life. He married the love of his life at the beginning of the decade and by its’ final few years he had three beautiful children that would all go on to live happy lives. The decade had several near disasters but none of them materialized. Overall the sixties was a great time for America. The people were happy, technology was on the move, and the economy was booming. It was also a time where it finally looked like the U.S. was finally pulling ahead of the Soviet Union. We defused a crisis that forced the Soviets to stand down during the Cuban Missile Crisis. They may have beaten us into putting a man into space, but we won the final battle when we landed on the moon. The sixties no doubt had their lows, but they were outweighed by all the highs they brought with them.
When the Government Stood Up For Civil Rights "All my life I've been sick and tired, and now I'm just sick and tired of being sick and tired. No one can honestly say Negroes are satisfied. We've only been patient, but how much more patience can we have?" Mrs. Hamer said these words in 1964, a month and a day before the historic Civil Rights Act of 1964 would be signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson. She speaks for the mood of a race, a race that for centuries has built the nation of America, literally, with blood, sweat, and passive acceptance. She speaks for black Americans who have been second class citizens in their own home too long. She speaks for the race that would be patient no longer that would be accepting no more. Mrs. Hamer speaks for the African Americans who stood up in the 1950's and refused to sit down. They were the people who led the greatest movement in modern American history - the civil rights movement. It was a movement that would be more than a fragment of history, it was a movement that would become a measure of our lives (Shipler 12). When Martin Luther King Jr. stirred up the conscience of a nation, he gave voice to a long lain dormant morality in America, a voice that the government could no longer ignore. The government finally answered on July 2nd with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is historically significant because it stands as a defining piece of civil rights legislation, being the first time the national government had declared equality for blacks. The civil rights movement was a campaign led by a number of organizations, supported by many individuals, to end discrimination and achieve equality for American Blacks (Mooney 776). The forefront of the struggle came during the 1950's and the 1960's when the feeling of oppression intensified and efforts increased to gain access to public accommodations, increased voting rights, and better educational opportunities (Mooney). Civil rights in America began with the adoption of the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments to the Constitution, which ended slavery and freed blacks in theory. The Civil Rights Acts of 1866 and 1875 were passed, guaranteeing the rights of blacks in the courts and access to public accommodation. These were, however, declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court, who decided that the fourteenth did not protect blacks from violation of civil rights, by individuals.
The Civil Rights Act of 1957 was the first serious attempt by the United States government in 75 years to address the racial divide which had consumed the nation. At its core the Act was an attempt to address the suppression of Black American voting rights in southern states. The Act...
Kennedy’s Civil Rights Act, which called for the fair treatment of all races, changed the tone of the Civil Rights Movement. This doesn’t mean that everyone automatically started to change the way they thought about African Americans, but people started to come together and realize that change needed to happen soon. 5 months after Kennedy first announced the bill, he was shot in Dallas, Texas. It wasn’t until 8 months after Kennedy's assassination that Lyndon B. Johnson signed the bill into effect on July 2, 1964. The bill was passed through congress with a 290-130 vote. (History Channel 2010) After the bill was passed, more action was taken to assure equal rights for African Americans. The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was created to prevent discrimination and unfair treatment with African American voters. (Library of Congress) The 1964 Civil Rights Act sent a message loud and clear: no longer was discrimination or racism going to be tolerated. In fact, many people thought that change needed to happen soon, as a 1964 Gallup poll suggests. 58% approved of the bill while only 31% did not. 10% were undecided (Public Broadcasting Service 2015). Not only did those who were black support the bill, but many white national leaders started to support the ideas of the act. The bill became the national pathway to equal rights. However, not all were ready to move towards change. Following the signing of the bill, Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. were both assassinated.
The 1960’s was a happening decade. It was a time when many people came together for a common good and stood against injustice. The 60’s is often recalled as the era of the peace sign, one ridden with hippies, marijuana and pacifism. While true of much of the era, some of the movements calling for immense social change began as non-violent harbingers of change and later became radicals. The reason for this turn to radicalism, as seen in the case of the Students for a Democratic Society, and as suggested by the change between this organizations earlier Port Huron statement and the later Weatherman Manifesto, is due to the gradual escalation of the Vietnam war.
In the duration of one year, 1968, the American national mood shifted from general confidence and optimism to chaotic confusion. Certainly the most turbulent twelve months of the post-WWII period and arguably one of the most disturbing episodes the country has endured since the Civil War, 1968 offers the world a glimpse into the tumultuous workings of a revolution. Although the entire epoch of the 1960's remains significant in US history, 1968 stands alone as the pivotal year of the decade; it was the moment when all of the nation's urges toward violence, sublimity, diversity, and disorder peaked to produce a transformation great enough to blanket an entire society. While some may superficially disagree, the evidence found in the Tet Offensive, race relations, and the counterculture's music of the period undeniably affirm 1968 as a turning point in American history.
The documentary “Sixties: Years that Shaped a Generation” illustrates a period in United States history defined by cultural movement. Several citizen led campaigns were developed to challenge long established American institutions and traditions. This age of defiance, cultivated a counter culture which stood against social injustice, racial inequalities, and the war in Vietnam.
The 1960’s and early 1970’s were a time that eternally changed the culture and humanity of America. It was a time widely known for peace and love when in reality; many minorities were struggling to gain a modicum of equality and freedom. It was a time, in which a younger generation rebelled against the conventional norms, questioning power and government, and insisting on more freedoms for minorities. In addition, an enormous movement began rising in opposition to the Vietnam War. It was a time of brutal altercations, with the civil rights movement and the youth culture demanding equality and the war in Vietnam put public loyalty to the test. Countless African-Americans, Native-Americans, Hispanic-Americans, women, and college students became frustrated, angry, and disillusioned by the turmoil around them.
As World War Two came to a close, a new American culture was developing all across the United States. Families were moving away from crowded cities into spacious suburban towns to help create a better life for them during and after the baby boom of the post-war era. Teenagers were starting to become independent by listing to their own music and not wearing the same style of clothing as their parents. Aside from the progress of society that was made during this time period, many people still did not discuss controversial issues such as divorce and sexual relations between young people. While many historians regard the 1950s as a time of true conservatism at its finest, it could really be considered a time of true progression in the American way of life.
Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, segregation in the United States was commonly practiced in many of the Southern and Border States. This segregation while supposed to be separate but equal, was hardly that. Blacks in the South were discriminated against repeatedly while laws did nothing to protect their individual rights. The Civil Rights Act of 1964 ridded the nation of this legal segregation and cleared a path towards equality and integration. The passage of this Act, while forever altering the relationship between blacks and whites, remains as one of history’s greatest political battles.
Although the sixties were a decade in which the United States became a more open, more tolerant, and a freer country, in some ways it became less of these things. During the sixties, America intervened in other nations and efforts were made to stop the progress of the civil rights movement. Because of America’s foreign policy and Americans fight against the civil rights movement, it is clear that the sixties in America were not purely a decade of openness, tolerance, and freedom in the United States.
...or southern blacks to vote. In 1967 the Supreme Court rules interracial marriage legal. In 1968 Martin Luther King Jr. was shot dead at the age of thirty-nine. Also the civil rights act of 1968 is passed stopping discrimination in the sale, rental, and financing of housing. In 1988 President Reagan’s veto was overridden by congress passing the “Civil Rights Restoration Act” expanding the reach of non-discrimination laws within private institutions receiving federal funds. In 1991 President Bush. signs the, “Civil Rights Act of 1991”, strengthening existing civil rights laws. In 2008 President Obama is elected as the first African American president. The American Civil Rights Movement has made a massive effect on our history and how our country is today. Without it things would be very different. In the end however, were all human beings regardless of our differences.