The 1960’s: Decade of Disillusionment

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.
African Americans had been struggling to obtain equal rights for scores of decades. During the 1960’s, the civil rights movement intensified and the civil rights leaders entreated President Kennedy to intervene. They knew it would take extreme legislature to get results of any merit. Kennedy was afraid to move forward in the civil rights battle, so a young preacher named Martin Luther King began a campaign of nonviolent marches and sit-ins and pray-ins in Birmingham, Alabama to try and force a crisis that the President would have to acknowledge. Eventually things became heated and Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor released his men to attack the protesters, which included many schoolchildren. All of this was captured and televised to the horror of the world. Finally this forced the President into action and he proposed a bill outlawing segregation in public facilities. The bill became bogged down in Congress but civil righ...

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...ousness-raising" groups, which rapidly expanded in number. These women met to discuss the injustice of "sexism," an equivalent to racism; they began to start many feminist projects, such as health collectives, day care centers, rape crisis centers, abortion counseling services and women’s study programs. In the 1970’s they focused on three issues: equality in education/employment, access to legal abortions and the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA). Congress also approved Title IX of the Higher Education Act. This Act prohibited bias on the basis of sex in any educational program that received federal resources. So, many universities and military academies that was once all-male were forced to accept women students. While great strides were made in women’s equality, the wage discrepancy between men and women for the same jobs remains prevalent today.