8.12 Youth Culture of the 1960s

LEARNING OBJECTIVE: Explain how and why opposition to exisiting policies and values developed and changed during the course of the 20th century

INTRODUCTION

• American youth were idealistic & desired change for the better

  • JFK’s Peace Corps—→ surge of volunteers

  • Some youths wanted more than confromity & materialsim

    - rejected middle-class culture of the 1950s

BABY BOOM GENERATION

• Baby boom generation started college during 1960s

  • College & university enrollments quadrupled

    - American insitutions were not ready for large generation

• Baby boomers were influenced through civil rights movement

  • Fought for justice, freedom, & equality

    - did not experience Great Depression or World Wars

STUDENT MOVEMENT AND THE NEW LEFT

• Liberal groups began to identify with black stuggle such as students

  • Students for Democratic Society (SDS)

    - led by Tom Hayden (supporters became known as New left)

    - group issued Port Huron Statement (called for university decisons to be made through partipatory democracy)

  • Free Speech Movement

    - first major student protest @ Berkeley University

    - demanded end to restriction on political activties & greater voice in gov of university

  • Students began going against more

    - drinking rules, coed dorm visitis, right to organize & protest

    - primary focus was opposition to Vietnam war & the draft

STUDENTS AGAINST THE VIETNAM WAR

• Student demonstrations grew with escalation in war

  • Young male students were usually drafted after leaving school

    - fled to Canda or Europe to avoid serving

  • Campuses were disrupted by antiwar protest

    - demonstrations included draft-card burning, sit ins, & protest

    - students also protested against war-related companies

• Veitnam war & assassinations of MLK & JFK

  • Made 1968 bad year for protest

    - SDS members joined blacks in their stuggle on campuses

    - police were called and protestors were injured or arrested

THE CHICAGO CONVENTION

• Off-campus protest @ Democratic Convention

  • Mix of peaceful & radical anti-war protestors, anarchist, & Yippes

    - damanged property, terrorized pedestrians, taunted police

    - Mayor of Chicago called police to break it up—→ police riot

THE WEATHER UNDERGROUND

• The Weather Underground

  • Most radical fringe of the SDS

    - embraced violence & vandalism in their attacks of “the system”

    - methods escalted from riots to bombings

    - weathermen were arrested during “Days of Rage” riots

  • Unqiue among radicals for their methods

    - went against war policies, racial inequality, & corportate greed

    - believed evil of injustices needed extreme response

    - set off 25 bombs during their existence—→ FBI’s most wanted

    - extremist acts & languaged discredited New Left

THE COUNTERCULTURE

• Protest of New Left went hand in hand with youth counterculture

  • Expressed in rebellious dress, music, drugs, & communal living

    - “hippies” had long hair, beards, beads, & jeans

    - Folk music gave voice to protestors (Bob Dylan, Joan Baez)

    - Rock music symbolized counterculture (Beatles, Rolling Stone)

WOODSTOCK

• Woodstock Music Festival in upper New York

  • Hundreds of young people gathered in zenth of coutnerculture

• LSD & other drugs—→ addiction

  • Young people destroyed their lives

    - counterculture died due to excesses & economic issues

SEXUAL REVOLUTION

• Counterculture changed attitudes towards sexual expression

  • Alfred Kinsey challenged traditional belief of sexual conduct

    - indicated premartical sex, martial infidelity, & homsexuality were more common than suspected

  • Medicine & science contributed to change in casual sex

    - antibiotics for STD’s & birth-controll pills

  • Sexual themse in media (ads, movies, tv)

    - made sex appear to be another consumer product

• Sexual Revolution changed behavior of majority

  • Premartial sex, contraception, abortions, & homosexuality

    - became more visable & widely accepted

    - some blamed it for loosend moral codes (illegitimate births, increase in rape & sexual abuse, spread of AIDS)

IN RETROSPECT

• As baby boomer came of age, they believed in ideals of democracy

  • Went against authority, poverty, racism, & war

    - followed with impatience, violence, & self-destructive behavior

    - their reputation discredited their cause to other

  • Manta of “sex, drugs, & rock and roll” was rejected by many

    - helped motivate conservative resurgence (order & tradition)