Youth Protests & Counterculture (REVISED)

US Student Activism & New Left #1

Background & Context

• Post WWII “baby boom” = large, educated generation w/ access to media

• disillusionment w/ Cold War politics, racism & Vietnam War

  • inspired students to question status quo (CRM)

US Student Activism & New Left #2

Characteristics & Manifestation

• SDS released Port Huron Statement (1962) → “participatory democracy”

  • replace power/priviliege = power/ love & reason

• Free Speech Movement (1964); UC Berkley

  • used sit-ins & occupation of admin buildings → to protest restrictions on poli activities (fundraising, campaigning, literature)

• by 1968, protests → more global/violent

  • occupation of Columbia Uni → defense contracts & local land use

US Student Activism & New Left #3

Impact & Significance

• challenged loco parentis role of uni’s

• dismantled 1950s social conformity and challenged established authority

• fostered greater student power in uni governance & politics

• “paradigm shift” → student protest as irrational behaviour → legitimate forms of political action

• radicalism = conservative backlash

  • election of Nixon, “law & order” candidate (1968)

Historian Perspectives #1

Allen Matusow

• Student extremism damaged the American liberal tradition.

Todd Gitlin:

• defends New Left → eventual ruin by “selfishness” of counterculture

Ken Heineman:

• challenges focus on elite universities → significant antiwar activism at blue-collar institutions

  • e.g, Penn State

U.S. Counterculture #1

Background & Context

• grew from 1950s Beat generation

• rejected middle-class materialsim & “work-ethic” of” of capitalism

• favoured personal freedom & spiritualism

U.S. Counterculture #2

Characteristic & Manifestation

• created in the Haight-Asbury district

  • mov. advocated for peace, love & sexual liberation

• manifested through psychedelic drugs (LSD), communal living & rock music (Jimmy Hendrix & the Beatles)

Woodstock Festival (1969)

• became pinnacle symbol of youth idealism → peace despite chaos

U.S. Counterculture #3

Impact & Significance

• reshaped social norms = wider acceptance of

  • individual rights,

  • environmentalism

  • alternative lifestyles

• “queered” gender aesthetics → challenged traditional masculine/feminine binaries

  • long hair on men & androgynous style

Historian Perspectives #2

M.J. Heale:

• notes critics who view “destructive generation” as promoting anarchy

• defenders crediting the era with releasing Americans from a stfiling “Victorian moral code”

1968 Mexican Student Movement #1

Background & Context

• frustrated by authoritarian, single-party rule of PRI → government betrayed ideals of 1910 Mexican Revolution

• tensions = peaked

  • government spent heavily on 1968 Olympics → many impoverished

1968 Mexican Student Movement #2

Characteristics & Manifestations

• movement involved strikes & massive demonstrations in Mexico City

  • demanded an end to police brutality & release of political prisoners

• influenced by global student protests (Paris & NY) & rock ‘n’ roll

1968 Mexican Student Movement #3

Impact & Significance

Tlatelolco massacre (1968): Government troops killed 100’s peaceful protesters.the government's

• shattered governmnent’s image of stability

• disgruntled youths joined underground guerrilla movements (led by Che Guevara)

Historian Perspectives #3

Eric Zolov

• rock ‘n’ roll subculture provided initial bridge for students to support broader demands for state reform

Carlos Fuentes

• Tlatelolco Massacre → exposed state = repression to survive

Canadian Student Movements #1

Background & Context

• Canada’s proximity to U.S. → “special relationship” American counterculture & media heavily influenced Canadian youth

• “White Paper” sought to eliminate the special legal status of Indigenous

• “Quiet revolution" in Quebec → provided a backdrop of modernization & secularization that challenged traditional Catholic & Anglo-Canadian authority

Canadian Student Movements #2

Characteristics & Manifestations

FLQ

• violent strain of youth protest → bombings, kidnappings

  • e.g, 1970 October Crisis: demanded an independent Marxist state

• Student radicalism → conc. at uni’s (SFU, York & Uni de Montreal)

  • focused on issues like racial intolerance & admin unresponsiveness

• Indigenous groups used direct action, “Red Power” tactics

  • The Constitution Express (1980) - protest patriation of Constitution (lacked recognition of Aboriginal rights)

  • Temegami First Nation Blockades (1988) → blockades = protest non-Native development → assertion of sovereignty

Canadian Student Movements #3

Impact & Significance

• resistance to White paper → shift from government dependency to Indigenous self-representation

• counterculture = liberalization of Canadian society (easing of divorce laws & decriminalization of homosexual acts)

Historical Perspectives #4

Desmond Morton:

• counterculture was primarily an urban, middle-class phenomenon; the “unfashionable majority” did not embrace the lifestyle.

J.M. Bumstead:

• student revolution never fully arrived in Canada as a total political transformation..