A3 1960s Rokicki


 

Santosh Mohan

Harry Hwang

Jeffery Lyons

Noah Fleck


 

    

 

 

Timeline for the 1960s

The most important event per year from 1960-1969

 

1960

6 May

The Civil Rights Act of 1960 becomes law. It seeks to protect the right of black Americans to vote by providing "voter referees," as well as empowering the Department of Justice to bring suits to force the registration of black voters. Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho hits theaters. 

1961

Nov.

The Civil Rights Commission releases its second report. Its five volumes re-count disturbing episodes of police brutality against blacks in both the North and South. It calls for federal grants to upgrade police forces and for new laws allowing victims of such violence to sue local governments for damages. The Soviets' Yuri Gagarin is the first man in space. The Berlin Wall was built.

1962

14 Aug.

The Great Mail Robbery occurs on Cape Cod Highway in Massachusetts. The thieves get away with over $1.5 million in cash, making it the biggest cash heist in U.S. history. Cuba is found to have IRBMs via photographic proof of missile bases.

1963

12 June

Mississippi civil rights leader Medgar Evers is gunned down by segregationist Byron De La Beckwith. John F. Kennedy is assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald and a nation mourns the potential this young politician had. Martin Luther King gives his iconic "I Have a Dream" Speech and the Civil Rights Movement gains momentum in the liberal 1960s era. 

1964

June

The Boston Strangler begins a killing spree which soon holds the city in the grip of terror. Muhammad Ali becomes the world heavyweight champion. Beatles hit a critical mass with the young in the US. 

1965

6 Aug.

The Voting Rights Act is passed by Congress. It seeks to end racial discrimination in the voting process in the South. Malcolm X is assassinated while giving a speech in New York.

1966

Jan.

Kentucky is the first southern state to pass a civil rights laws. Hippies begin Mass Draft Protest against Vietnam war. Star Trek series airs for the first time on television. Mao Zedong's cultural revolution begins. 

1967

23 Feb.

The Twenty-fifth Amendment is ratified which provides the procedure for empowerment of the vice-president in case the president of the United States is incapacitated. The first Super Bowl game is played between the Kansas City Chiefs and the Green Bay Packers in the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. 

1968

11 Apr.

The Civil Rights Act of 1968 becomes law. It outlaws discrimination in the sale or rental of all housing, public and private. Marin Luther King is assassinated. Hundreds of Vietnamese civilians are killed on a Search and Destroy mission during the My Lai massacre.

1969

23 June

In Chimelv. California the Supreme Court allows warrantless search "within reach" of a suspect. The Hippie movement hit critical mass as thousands from all over the country gather in New York for Woodstock. Coincidentally, Charlie Manson and his "family" are found and arrested. 

 

                

 

Business and Economy

 

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     Unemployment was down despite significant population growth from the baby boomer generation. Domestic economic activity increased as American business prospered abroad. With a surge of technological innovation expanding US trade in the 1950s, the trend continued in the 1960s in the aerospace, housing, and computer industries. The American standard of living rose substantially as median family income rose from $8,540 in 1963 to $10,770 in 1969. Dispensable income meant an active circulation of money, yet not all felt the prosperity of the time. Poverty was a growing issue until Johnson’s Great Society where virtually no one was under the federal poverty line. Government employment of the national work force grew from 2.4 percent in 1940 to 3.9 percent in 1970. Research effort from federal funds stimulated an economy with billions of dollars, especially with 10 percent of GDP and 45 percent of national budget going towards defense research and goods. With Johnson’s Great Society came social security and Medicare/Medicaid for workers, the impoverished, and the retired.

Five companies owned over 12 percent of the nations manufacturing assets.  By the 1960s, manufacturing dominated a previously agrarian economy as single companies such as Ford had larger gross incomes than all farms in the nation. America’s global reach now had a geometric progression. International investment increased from $11.8 billion in 1950 to $49.2 billion. Some saw the democratization of American industry as the “Coca-Colonization of the world.”

     Paradoxically, union membership increased at this time. At the start of the decade, 18 million workers were part of a union, but by 1970 20.7 million workers. Given population growth rates, however, the percentage of the workforce in unions declined. The American Federation of Labor and Congression of Indus-trial Organizations (AFL-CIO) opposed unions working for the war effort in Vietnam. Though it enjoyed some political victories, union influence decreased by the end of the decade. Though the AFL-CIO was not all wrong, regardless of their motivations. Federal monies stimulating the economy as the war effort employed more and more, a scenario similar to that of World War II, created incredible amounts of inflation. However, unlike World War II, we did not win the war, and our international enemies such as Japan and Europe become competitors in our leading industries, even in our own nation.  This will result in both high unemployment and inflation in postwar Keynesian 1970s.

 

Education

 

     At first education was behind the times. There existed a gap between the technology WWII had inspired the scientific community to build, such as the Soviets' Sputnik I, and American society. Near the end of 1950, when Sputnik I crossed the skies of America, educators attempted to upgrade math and science education but eventually clung to conventional practices. In 1954, theBrown vs Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas case ruled fair does not mean equal, and desegregation became a federal mandate. Yet change came slow with federal district courts threatening to cut off school funding to southern schools ticketed with "ingenious procrastination." The federal courts' moves were gradual, having schools desegregate a grade level per year only by the late 1960s. Defiance towards the court in both the North and South led to the unanimous Supreme Court ruling that it is "the obligation of every school district to terminate dual school systems at once and to operate now and hereafter only unitary schools."

     Desegregation in the leagues of higher education led to race riots when James Meredith, the first black man to seek entry into the University of MIssissippi, was barred out of admittance by the governor, Ross Barnett, himself. In lieu of the board of trustees' and the Southern Association of College and Schools' support for his candidacy, Barnett persisted in attempts to stop the law of the land to affect his state's university. Eventually, Barnett was found in contempt of a federal court order, leaving him with a fine of $5,000 per day until he terminated resistance. The first day Barnett attended, two men died in riots. Schools in the North such as the Ivy league actively pursued African American applicants with Princeton University increasing black enrollment by 200 percent from 1960. 

     A common issue within the 1960s was the rise of the baby boomer generation, which meant overcrowding. It was estimated that there was an excess of 1.9 million students not getting the education the nation needed to stay competitive with the Soviets. The federal government provided more funds to schools that would push for a math/science emphasis yet schools were reluctant to convert. Along with this, not enough college graduates became teachers as the profession paid half as much as other professions with comparable educational requirements. During the Kennedy-Nixon presidential debates, the nation’s standard for teacher salaries were seen as a “national disgrace,” eventually having Kennedy win that debate on the account that he voted that federal funds be used to raise teacher salaries during his time in senate. To mitigate this issue temporarily, mobile schooling would come into towns and teach students for half days. Though, colleges also felt the affects of baby boomers in higher enrollment numbers. We had more college students than farmers, a statistic that is a touchstone to our nation's full transition into the industrial era. The same students that were prohibited from these establishments in the past occupied these campuses in droves. With vivacity and a new level of independence, especially in the age of political turmoil that was the 1960s, college students were politically separated with the minorities on campus the first to protest the Vietnam War, giving rise to the Hippie movement.

            By the end of the decade, reform was the key question of public education. The “Great Debate” was about the purpose of education, and whether it was to be “intellectual training or social adjustment.” The social adjustment side, or the response to Soviet advancement in the space race, was called out as mobilizing outside the bounds of education. Rather, the social adjustment extreme postulated that education be a “development of awareness of the students’ inner feelings generated by what they have learned or problems they have encountered.” The de facto of education, at this point, was to build social competence, critical thinking, good citizenship, and creative skills. The strength of the Soviet educational system brought a perception of fanaticism to the American public. But the commitment they had to achieve things such as Sputnik I was something the public felt America lacked. 

 

October Sky: A high schooler lives in a cold mining town where every seeks an education only to end up in the mines. After witnessing the Sputnik one cross the "October Sky," he is inspired to achieve more than his father, escape the same fate as his friends, and become a scientist for NASA. He begins by building rockets, though against his father's wishes. His father sees this as disrespecting his own profession, as if his cold mining doesn't provide enough for his family and isn't an honorable job. But the high schooler has a passion and drive, building his own rockets and launching them for the whole town to see. Education radically transformed as the rapid importance of math and science met with the struggles of the older generation accustoming to the fast-paced life of the newer generation. 

 

Fashion

 

 

 

 

Beatles in the Edwardian look: Neat and British, exactly how the early 1960s liked it. Done hair with a single breasted, "fitted' suit makes a gentlemen out of what were former Liverpool street dogs.

 

Hippie in Pink: Intentionally bought, vibrant rags make the eclectic spontaneity of a newly tempered youth culture spring to life. Headbands and Bhuddism outline a strong counterculture, its revolt felt in unkempt hair with minimalist fashion involved.

 

Me (Santosh Mohan) - The Modern Man?: Fashion in 2010 is random at best. For males, a neat dress shirt tucked in (in contrast to the untucked skirts oft the Hippie era) for the new business casual look. The fauxhawk is intentionally messy while somewhat kept in its rather natural state. 

 

Mrs. Gaga...: Called the Haus of GaGa, Lady GaGa aggregates the decade's top designers in a melting pot labeled engineered specifically to experiment with the latest, sometimes questionable, forms of fashion. The literal bleeding edge, the Haus of GaGa represents what high fashion has become, seemingly esoteric yet undoubtedly crafted from materials and styles found from decades past. The post-modern dual code, juxtaposing somethings new and old, represent the high point of 21st century creativity, going back to our roots and finding new meanings in the mix of things.  

 

 

     With a nation enamored with their new Camelot of Washington D.C., Jacqueline and John Kennedy both set fashion trends that defined the early part of the 1960s. One would spend “many hour with hair lacquer, combs, and curriers” to achieve the “big hair” look. Unsurprisingly, Jackie Kennedy sports this look at the National General Armory fundraising dinner on 20 June 1962. This meant that hats were off, showcasing the elegance of hours of work. This combination of extravagance reminiscent of the 1920s combined with the temperament of the new age businesswomen came out an inspiration to the contrived notion of formality everywhere. Big hair meant maintaining one’s look, no messy and untamed hair of the later, psychedelic 60s, but a more genteel approach towards American fashion headed by arguably the most influential American women in the decade.

     However, Mary Quant, the mods, and Andre Courreges started selling to all demographics. For the first time, there was a fashion market for both males and females constantly reconstructing itself. Whether you were a Chelsea mod or New York business man, fashion was becoming pertinent to you. With such a broad audience, sentiments of “antifashion” are raised which come into the fore in the late 1960s. Men, now part of the bleeding edge of fashion, went to hairstyling salons instead of their local barbershops. Things began shrinking for the “fitted” look. Ties narrowed, suits were tighter rather than their boxy 1950s counterpart, and vests re-entered the fashion market after decades of disappearance. This culminated in the Edwardian look of the mid-1960s consisting of “a single-breasted suit jacket with narrow lapels buttoned high on the chest.

The youth had more money during the late ‘50s and early ‘60s than previous generations. Aforementioned Mary Quant opened a youth fashion store called Bazaar on King’s Road in the Chelsea district of London. In tune with the passionfruit fuchsias and corn-on-the-cob yellow of Jackie Kennedy, Quant made “figure-skimming short dresses in black or geometric patterns, knee-length jumpers, balloon-style dresses, and other novel items.” With stock going out in days, Quant’s philosophy of fun, accessible clothing caught on, welcoming the age of the “boutique experience.” Largely embodied by the present-day mall, easy listening music and browsing (which department stores reviled) brought on constant innovation. As fashions changed based on what these boutiques could come up with, clothes would be trashed in moments in what used to be a “made-to-last fashion industry.” Thus was the speed of London’s mod look. Quant’s greatest contribution to fashion was the miniskirt, which affected all ages of women. What solidified England’s mod look were the introduction of British cultures via the Beatles’ rise to popularity in 1964.

     In the mid-1960s, the fight for Vietnam had the youthful fight against the older establishment recollect about the materialism of the former half of the decade. Finding it a falling out of American social structure, increased US intervention in Indochina led to a rejection of establishment altogether. Enter antifashion and the Hippie movement. They bought clothes from secondhand shops merely for utilitarian purposes. They saw capitalism as morally empty and materialistic, leading many to Eastern culture, clothing, and religion such as that of India and the Native Americans. No longer were pantyhose or heavily groomed hair necessary. Many high fashion realtors such as Vogue attempted to bandwagon on the hippie style, but the fact that they were an establishment themselves left fashion innovation at a loss. The decade ended with uncertainty in this field, often attributable to the uncertainty in our nation’s ethics fighting a war the youth, now the head of fashion, did not believe in. 

 

 

 

Beatles wig produce in 1964, USA

 

 

Film and theater

During the 1960’s the theater and its style hadn’t changed much, the business of theater had become a little more conservative during this time, for example, “Hello, Dolly!" and “Fiddler on the Roof” resembled older musicals. What little change did occur was that from rock music influence, for instance, the new Broadway musical “Hair” was created which is rock musical performed in Broadway in 1968. The movie industry was hugely affected by the television. As television became more popular and widely used through out America, the movie industry was losing their audience. The competition between movie and television industry began. In order to win the competition, the film industry began to make or produce things that the television industry could not. The movie industry used more sex and violence to attract the audiences. Films like James Bond series successfully attracted the audience. However, as movie industry turned to the sex and violence, the family entertainment declined. Because of the change in movies, some people strayed away from the theater to avoid seeing these inappropriate materials, and protests against sex and violence in the movies for family entertainment were made. Because of these protests, the MPAA was created and provided code for material, or a rating on its level of inappropriate material.

 

 

Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical

 

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Sound track from "Hair"-1968

 


                    

Food &  Drink

The income in late 1950s and 1960s increased. The increased income affected the American eating habits. Also, the TV contributed to the changing American eating habit. In 1960s, the tinned food became popular. The tinned food provided people with variety of food that are easy to prepare. Also, tinned food provided out of season fruits and vegetables. The Chinese and Indian food gained its place in America as the Chinese and Indian population increased. Many people from Hong Kong immigrated to America. These Chinese immigrants soon set up restaurants and takeaway foods in America. The new foreign cuisines soon affected the British taste in America. However, the fish and chip still remained the nation's favorite.

 

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1960s Franco American Spaghetti commerical

 

Print Culture 

 

 

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The 1960s were a very controversial time for the print culture. JFK has given his famous “ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country”, this inspired the nation. The events that followed were not inspiring, the print was controversial because the event was controversial. The opposing viewpoints of the youth, baby boomers, and their parents lead to events and heated debates. An example would be the Charles Manson case, the baby boomers believe that his actions were morally justified and due to their need for a sense of individualism, they protested his realize through the print median. Events like this fueled a sense in print culture to oppose the government and get a different and younger side of viewpoint. Two more examples of this would be the Vietnam war, and the lunar landing. The Vietnam war was different because of the intense fueled anger opposing it, this then lead to riots, and police brutality. It was like handing candy to a baby, for the broadcast stations, they just want more. The Lunar landing was also controversial because some people believe we didn’t land on the moon and the government made it up. This was bad because if they faked and important part of Americas history what else would they fake…. the justification to entering the Vietnam war? My last example of how the events of the time influence a controversial print culture would be the black community. A lot of civil right movements were going on at the time, including Martin Luther King jr. and the assassination of Martin Luther King jr. As long as history could tell that the repression of one man over another was hard for some people to comprehend, but furthermore the repression of one man over another when it is illegal for slavery and America was one of the last people to oppose slavery was just too much for the general public. Overall the 60s actions and events have been controversial at best thus influencing the print culture.

Sports &  Games 

As Vince Lombardia once put it "Winning is not everything; it is the only thing", and this statement was especially true during the 1960’s. Everything in the 1960’s became competitive and much more serious. Amateurism was seen as naïve.  As sport games and the sports business became extremely competitive, and with that, came the pressure to do drugs like steroids to enhance athletic ability. The negative effects of steroids weren’t known too well in the 1960’s so people would take them without proper knowledge of their side effects and long term effects. In addition, winning meant getting sponsors and commercials, which meant more money, which meant even more pressure on players to do steroids to enhance their athletic ability. Commercialism took over the sports and gaming businesses, shoe companies paid performers to wear shoes with their logos, much like how NASCAR drivers today are paid to put the logos of companies on their cars for races. And also, players would get paid to endorse certain products, and this was a popular advertising way for boxing and ice skating. All of this commercialism was becoming more and more popular because of television and the new sports broadcasting businesses. The television brought whole new sports experience. Now, people could enjoy the sports in their living room. The sports broadcasting were enhanced by commentaries, slow-motion, replays, and commented slow-motion replays. The television helped the sports community in America. Now, sports were broadcasted by the stations which meant that the sports community would have more income because the stations paid the sports community to let them broadcast the game. However, not every sport was blessed by the television. The broadcasting companies were less interested in sports like baseball where game is long and there isn’t much of action every minute. Instead, they were more interested in game where action occurs every second such as football. Football became popular among the television broadcasting companies due their intensity and action packed games. The audience wanted game of football where lot of action happens instead of baseball.  Racism worked its way into sports as more African Americans grew into the business. People had a general agreement, for instance, that African Americans were better basketball players than White Americans. Muhammad Ali was a black boxer and became the heavyweight champion, and he used his fame and position to demonstrate his point of view on the controversial issue of race in sports. And finally, in football, black people were generally more accepted. However, the positions like the quarterback and the middle linebacker, also known as “thinking” positions, were not given to African Americans due to racial discrimination and stereotypes.

 

  Muhammad Ali, heavyweight boxing champion

 

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Music

     Music in the 1960’s went through a very big change, through three mediums, the British Invasion, Classic Rock, and Motown Music.

     Beginning with the music of the British Invasion one of the biggest hits of the decade was The Beatles. Debuting on February 9, 1964, The Beatles were the biggest influence of the British Invasion – a movement of British born bands in America playing their interpretation/style of rock ‘n’ roll. They quickly became one of the most well-known bands in America and in addition to them were some other bands that became quite popular due to this movement; Dusty Springfield, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, and The Dave Clark Five. This was mostly pop-rock sounding music that had more uplifting beats and lyrics.

     In another movement, the record label Motown was created in 1959 and by the time it was 4 years old, it had become the most successful record company that was owned as an African American record company. This music industry was dominated by African Americans and some even took lessons in dance, manners, etc. in contrast to their lyrics that were about oppression in the most part.

     And finally, the third big movement musically of the time was classic rock, with the leading force being Jimi Hendrix. And the influence of drugs in the music industry was seen heavily in the later part of the decade, as Jimi, Jim Morrison and Janis Joplin all died from drug overdoses. Janis Joplin was a singer and songwriter and Jim Morrison was the lead singer of The Doors. This type of music was more of a post take on rock 'n' roll.

     In 1969 an extremely large crowd of people, over 400,000 people, and was the most influential musical arrangement of the decade. As approximately thirty three bands/acts had engaged in the concert. In addition, the police were extremely easy going on the policies they enforced, as they did not arrest anyone for the possession of marijuana. They did however, arrest for possession of drugs like LSD and heroin. This historic event took place over three days, August 15-17.

 

Jimi Hendrix

 

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Jimi Hendrix performing in Monterey Pop Festival of 67'

 

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The Beatles performing "Yesterday"

 

"The Way We Lived" 

In the 1960’s the growing ‘Fad’ was to become what was known as a ‘hippie’ and was very inviting for the youth of America. These people would burn their draft cards, engage in casual sex, enjoyed loud music, nature, shared property, and did drugs like LSD and marijuana. Speaking of this, casual sex had become quite popular, where as it meant that two people would engage in sexual activities without being married, without knowing the other person on an intimate level, or that they were engaging in sexual activities beyond their marital vows. This type of sex had become quite popular due to birth control in a more easily accessible form. And on top of this divorce rates skyrocketed. Back to hippies, they often protested the war in Vietnam and one of these protests was the scene that went down at the University of California, Berkeley. While the idea of drugs is still fresh on the topic, drug use was becoming very popular in the rock music scene, which in itself was becoming popular with anyone who wasn’t a hippie or a businessperson, and with it came the drug use of LSD, heroin, and other hardcore drugs. In addition to that, the British invasion, and The Beatles, was like a virus in its spread throughout America, its music caught on quickly and was what most everyone in their youth was listening to. Women also began to speak up about their rights and the National Organization for Women (NOW) was created in 1966. All of these things were growing social statuses and activities that were to be expected of the youth, women, and their influences. African Americans also had begun participating in the nonviolent protests led by Martin Luther King Jr. until his death, when riots broke out in cities.

IA Student created video

 

Government & Politics 

Kennedy in the early 1960’s. John F Kennedy became president in 1961, and in 1961 was the invasion of Cuba, which became known as the Bay of Pigs, and was a massive failure on the United States’ part. Following this in 1962 there was intelligence that said that Cuba had possession of missiles and bombers and thus used the U.S. Navy to quarantine Cuba. This event was the height of the Cold War. In addition to this, Kennedy had the ambitions of winning the space race with Russia, in sending a man to the moon, and had promised to do so before the end of the decade. And in 1969 a man did, in fact, fly to the moon and back safely. In 1963, Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. Before this occurred, he had proposed and endorsed a bill over the summer that was a civil rights bill. It however, like his promise of putting a man on the moon, only came true after his death. In addition to that, Robert Kennedy, his brother, and Martin Luther King Jr., a civil rights speaker, had both also been assassinated in this decade, specifically in 1968. His brother had one the spot of presidency when he was killed and Martin Luther King Jr. was shot on his balcony. The latter of the two assassinations had brought many riots along with it, as Martin Luther King Jr. was the voice of the civil rights activists after his ‘I Have a Dream’ speech.

The Vietnam War. In 1965 Americans began to get upset with the war in Vietnam, as napalm bombs were beginning to be used that had negatively affected the people living there. The effects were devastating, in fact, and innocent people were torched by the bombs, and thus the reason to protest. And in October, 1968, two days of violence occurred. One day, in Vietnam, a couple of squads were killed in action, and over half of the battalion died that day, which was later spun by the military as a victory, even though they had lost terribly. And in the next day, a campus protest went wrong when police brutally attacked the students protesting the Vietnam War and the use of the chemical weapons or bombs such as napalm. Both were tragic events that greatly impacted the public opinion of the Vietnam War and the government.

Finally, in 1969; the U.S. combat deaths totaled at 33,641, and yet negotiations to end the war hadn’t yet come to a close, a man walked on the moon, and came back, which was broadcasted on television, and eventually a 250,000 person march occurred on the 15 of November in Washington D.C., again, protesting the war. This was one of the biggest for the cause, and one of the more influential protests. 1969 was an important year in American history, and marked the win of the space race with Russia, one that America had won, and thus extremely influential.

 

Leadership

    

Politics of the 1960s were full of contrasts, JFK’S inaugural speech ushered in a new decade of activism with consequences neither he nor anyone else at that time could foresee. Yet as the decade progressed, optimism gave way to anger and pessimism. In November of 1963 President Kennedy was assassinated, and in 1968 Luther King Jr. was assassinated along with Sen. Robert F. Kennedy a few months later made Americans question the character of their nation. President Lyndon B. Johnson offered a vision of a Great Society, with equal opportunity, unfortunately this vision was blurred by diverted funds for the Vietnam war. Another part, in the 60s, was “blacklash” triggered by summer riots that occurred in black neighbor-hoods from 1964 and 1968. The wide appeal of Richard M. Nixon's call for "law and order" in his successful presidential campaign of 1968 may be seen as an index of the extent to which Americans were tired of violence and dissent. In his inaugural address Kennedy justified their counties role of going to any extent to preserving liberty. In the early 1960s—years of confrontation between the Soviet Union and the United States—most Americans expected that there would eventually be a war between the two countries, one that might even involve nuclear weapons. After the Cuban missile crisis of 1962 leaders in both counties saw a read for improved relations, together they made small steps towards arms control and better diplomatic relations. The stage was gradually being set for Nixon's 1970s policy of détente with the Soviet Union. The American public paid little attention to the situation in Vietnam until Johnson started bombing North Vietnam in February 1965 and then sent combat troops later that year. Over the next three years, as American forces took over more and more of the combat role, members of the government and the military—as well as the general public—increasingly called into question the wisdom and purpose of the war as well as the belief that Americans were fighting to "contain" communism. They called for limits to America's policy of global activism in support of its anticommunist allies. By the start of the 1970s the broad, bipartisan foreign policy consensus was breaking up. With the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the legal underpinnings of segregation and white supremacy in the South were stripped away.

 

 

 

 

Law &  Justice 

 

In the 1960s the attitude of the people towards Law and Justice changed as well as the law itself consolidating a trend in the direction of individual rights. Some people whose involvement in the war has shaped their views on the Law and Justice system of America. Their actions in the war has seeded a sense of pride and trust in the law. The law itself has been shaped by events/ crimes, example of this would be the Richard Hickock and Perry Smith "In Cold Blood" murders, the Charles Manson case, and the trial of the Chicago Seven. The view of law was different for the children, called baby boomers due to the great increase in population after the return of solders, of the veterans then their parents. This was due to the differences in their formative years environment, the baby boomers had grown up in America’s greatest period of prosperity. This prosperity threaded in them a sense of individualism, this sense of individualism lead them to stretch and challenge the law. Some law – makers tried to restore the “free fight” to American life, however others regarded any attempt by the state to regulate economic activity as inherently unfair. In 1969 Charles Manson killed five people, including Sharon Tate, this was different from crimes before it because Manson pro-claimed that what he did was morally right, this was frightening for many WWII vets because Manson’s followers were mainly baby boomers. In the 1960s it has arrived for the New Deal to finally be fulfilled. As the baby boomers came of age, a half dozen men on the Supreme Court, three of whom were old enough to be their grandfathers, were expanding the individual rights of Americans to their outer limits. As the decade of the 1960s opened, the universal voting franchise which Americans had come to accept over almost two hundred years of constitutional evolution was subject to a major qualification. In old confederate states blacks were still largely restricted from voting. By mid decade, federal legislation had been brought in end those racial specific practices. In a series of decisions that spanned the decade of the 1960s, the U.S. Supreme Court Supreme Court ruled that the right to counsel, the right to remain silent, the right to be free of unreasonable searches and seizures, and other constitutional guarantees must be strictly adhered to in all criminal cases, regardless of the odiousness of the crime or the social status of the accused. In 1969 the Chicago Seven case was providing a sense of personal liberty collided with the established legal order. The conclusion, with a deeply divided jury, left the judicial system dented and the radicals jailed but unrepentant. For most Americans there was a growing feeling that in cases where politics and the law were mixed, the different factions. While Congress and the courts were expanding the rights of people on the fringes of American society, behavior patterns and attitudes were spreading from the fringes toward society's heart. Many mainstream Americans found these developments to be especially threatening. By 1969 a political and legal reaction to the assault of individual liberty on legal order had emerged, which set the stage for future turmoil in the field of law.

 

 

 

Religion

God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals ofatonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?

—Nietzsche,The Gay Science, Section 125

 

In the tumult of the 1960s, people lost faith in the their personal faiths (i.e. religion). In the fallout of the Vietnam War, the hippies found that our materialistic society meant that we brought war unto ourselves in our own indecent lifestyles. Better yet, political discussion and activism was at an all-time high as public and private colleges were teeming with impressionable youth ready to make their voices heard in what was perceived as government overtaking American political independence in its decision to go to war. For the first time, without the bounds of Judo-Christian values that were before so embedded to mainstream American culture, talks of sexuality and the futility of war sprung up. Overall, discussions were not concerned with revival but decline.

        The ecumenical nature of Christianity by the 1960s brought on the ideological deunification that characterized the former half of the decade. Seeing this as a general disconnection with God, the Consultation on Church Union was formed to consolidate Christian interest groups and maintain Christianity’s cultural rule. The civil rights movement ended by the end of the decade, with Nixon promising to “wind down the war.” Churches, however, saw no growth in membership, and sometimes lost them as well. Jews were marrying out of their religion now more than ever. However, with the inauguration of JFK to presidency, being the first Roman Catholic allowed the Vatican to become increasingly integrated into Western culture. By switching the Mass from Latin to English and becoming more democratic via the Second Vatican Council. The Second Vatican Council was the first ecumenical council, proving the unification of Christianity in the face of political turmoil and social instability.

            With immigration restrictions relaxed, more ideas and more faiths were allowed to come into our nation’s borders, especially Islam. With the Nation of Islam leading the black nationalist movement and its figurehead, Malcolm X, becoming assassinated, the rise of Muslims in America led to the construction of a mosque in New York City by the end of the decade. Hare Krishnas increased the “Krishna consciousness” throughout California while Rev. Sun Myung Moon built a Unficatin church which later garnered personal political and religious criticism. Also, the Metropolitan Community Church served a primarily gay community, a testament of religious subversion at the time.

Regardless of the religion, the 1960s brought diversification to a national was previously Christian in general. The “God is dead” statement that was revived from Nietzsche’s 120 year old corpse speaks to quote “sapere aude,” or dare to discern. The times were all about finding one’s personal connection with a personal God, no longer contemplating Him as a faraway entity but rethinking what sort of ideal we want to follow Him as in the humanizing backdrop of the Vietnam War.

 

 

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JFK's speech about relgion

 

 

 

Positive Political Cartoon


This political cartoon is about the first moon landing that happened in 1969. This was the first time in history of mankind that a human landed on the moon. This was big victory for United States of America because US put person on the moon before Soviet Union could. This raised the American spirit by defeating the America's rival, the Soviet Union.

 

Negative Political Cartoon

This political cartoon is about the Vietnam War. In the cartoon, there is a dead man. The caption says "Bang! Bang! You're dead..." this shows how easily human lives were lost. Just two quick shot and the man is dead. Also the cartoon is graph in order to give a strong impression that this war is not pretty. The left leg of dead man in the cartoon is covered by the water. This shows how all those death of soldiers were covered up. The right leg of the soldier is twisted. This represents how the reality was altered.

 

 

MYP Unit Question: How did culture, events and leadership shape and reflect post-WWII America?

     

After the Good War, communism was kept at bay and the American way of life was kept preserved. By in 1955, we moved towards the rising problem in Southeast Asia. The domino effect theory stated that if China took over neighboring Vietnam, then one by one communism would encompass the entirety of Europe, leaving America as the only capitalist/democratic nation in the world. Eventually, we were at war again. But this time, it was against us as much as it was against communism. What changed was our faith was a revolution spearheaded by our youth towards anti-materialism, equal rights, and a new sense of peace overseas and at home.

        The beginning of the century was marked with the Kennedys. Jaclyn Kennedy took over fashion as she introduced genteel extravagance reminiscent of the Roaring Twenties from her strong feminist post. JFK just resolved in the Cuban Missile Crisis and was hitting his prime in the presidential position until his assassination in 1963. The nation was in the same shock that both Pearl Harbor and September 11th had brought, being completely from left wing. For the first time, the American public was presented with the horrors of the Vietnam war and a rising death count in Vietnam to boot. The American public felt distressed in America’s seemingly futile efforts in Indochina, and the first anti-war sentiments were felt. The events of the Vietnamese war would tentpole the rise of counterculture by the mid-1960s. In the dichotomy of the true American, both pro-war and anti-war sentiments resonated with American values.

     At the turn of the century, our education was severely underperforming. 1.9 million children were not getting the education they needed; they were not getting the education America needed to stay competitive with the Soviets. The rise of the baby boomers into their college years allowed them to be more liberal and en masse. With higher enrollment numbers, we had more college students than farmers for the first time, a touchstone that we had finally shifting towards becoming an industrial superpower. Admission floodgates were open now more than ever before. The same people prohibited to enter campuses before were now occupying the quads at major colleges, including those in the Ivy League. This results in as much diversity on campus as there is liberality to our nation’s young and restless. Everyone had a different background and a different opinion.

     With such a rise in diversity in American colleges came controversy among all college students in the backdrop of Vietnam. In the advent of television, everyone was able to watch war footage from Vietnam and have his or her own say on the topic. Everyone had an opinion. Some felt it futile with a rising body count and no real results. This view was seen as un-American by those with values in line with older generation, eventually leading to the riots discussed such as DOW Chemical at the University of Wisconsin.

     Especially with Kennedy in office, and Martin Luther King’s growing popularity, even in white demographics, enforcement of desegregation was given a larger federal thrust than ever before. Cutting off funding was a threat to make rapid change in an attempt to bring the diversity and equality Kennedy wanted to afford this nation. Within the re-evaluation of American morals found later in the decade, especially equality, provided a platform the likes of Malcolm X and Martin Luther King could use to raise awareness of Civil Rights and gain momentum with a more liberal crowd.

     The anti-war, or Hippie, movement allowed people to be more rebellious and spread away from common practices. Christianity did not experience its typical growth in followers, even after the baby boomers. In some cases, they lost people to the rise of Eastern culture in things such as Buddhism. This idea of anti-establishment carried over to fashion, where Jaclyn Kennedy’s extravagant but elegant met with unkempt, anti-materialistic secondhand. Yet, the miniskirt allowed women to be more liberal yet cultured unlike the flappers of the 20s. Music became more psychedelic, something the British invasion spearheaded, especially with the growing popularity of the Beatles. Psychedelic music would have been obscuring to the older generation, and this trend against old values increases onto a political scale.

     The younger generation felt that they could make a transformative change in American foreign policy by protesting the war. The individual was at his/her strongest at this point, allowed to go against a nation’s decision for war. American ideals were opening themselves as a loud, yet growing minority of Hippies stand for things such as Civil Rights for blacks. Even after much protest, Johnson’s decision to increase troops increased tensions against the Hippie generation. Eventually, But with the conservatives saying that war was necessary to protect the same values that were they were trying to obstruct by breaking up protests, sometimes mortally wounding the Hippies. Both sides felt American in their own right, but if the nation could not do something that all Americans felt strongly what morals were our founding ideals built on?            

     The striking difference in our nation between World War II and Vietnam was that the former enjoyed a nation’s-worth of support. Vietnam, along with growing diversity and the rise of the television, more people to be exposed to the war and had an opinion likely competing with someone else’s. In a war that was meant to preserve American values, every value was being tested at home, sometimes violated in violence from this constant argument. The deconstruction of American culture rather invigorated our freedom to assembly and freedom of speech whilst the older generation thought the Hippie’s were speaking out of line, against the support of the nation giving them these rights, and thus out of the bounds of democracy. But that fundamental Natural law America’s creation was based on if the social contract is broken, “citizens not only have the right to overthrow the state, but are indeed morally compelled to revolt and replace it,” was being used in the most democratic and peaceful ways. Thus, in post-World War II America, culture has shifted to a re-evaluation of American ideals where revolution felt necessary and a persistent communist threat do not stop us from acting truly American.

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

"The 1960s: Business and the Economy: Overview." American Decades. Ed. Judith S. Baughman, et al. Vol. 7: 1960-1969. Detroit: Gale, 2001. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 5 June 2010.

 

"The 1960s: Education: Overview." American Decades. Ed. Judith S. Baughman, et al. Vol. 7: 1960-1969. Detroit: Gale, 2001. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 5 June 2010."

 

 

 

"The 1960s: Religion: Overview." American Decades. Ed. Judith S. Baughman, et al. Vol. 7: 1960-1969. Detroit: Gale, 2001. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 5 June 2010.
 

 

"The 1960s: Sports: Overview." American Decades. Ed. Judith S. Baughman, et al. Vol. 7: 1960-1969. Detroit: Gale, 2001. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 5 June 2010.

 

Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union.." The American Presidency Project. 2009. University of

     California. Web. 17 Jun. 2009 .

 

Cooke, Jacob E. "Washington, George." Presidents: A Reference History. Ed. Henry F. Graff. 3rd ed. Detroit: Charles Scribner's Sons, 2002. 1-      21. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Farmington Hills: Gale. Web. 30 Apr. 2008. 

 

"Europe Divided on Familiar Lines To Two Speeches." Prescott Evening Courier 54(1948): 6. Print.

 

Mid-1960s, The. "Food Standards Agency - Eat Well, Be Well - 1960s." Food Standards Agency - Eat Well, Be Well - Eatwell. Web. 09 June 2010. <http://www.eatwell.gov.uk/healthydiet/seasonsandcelebrations/howweusedtoeat/1960s/>.

 

"The Rise of the Youth Market." American Decades. Ed. Judith S. Baughman, et al. Vol. 7: 1960-1969. Detroit: Gale, 2001. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 2 June 2010.

 

"Secondhand Clothes and Tie-Dyed Shirts: Antifashion and the Hippie Influence." American Decades. Ed. Judith S. Baughman, et al. Vol. 7: 1960-1969. Detroit: Gale, 2001. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 2 June 2010.

 

 

 

 

 

Images:
http://www.orlok.com/hair/holding/Hair.html
http://thehumanflea.com/jimi.html
http://doodadkindoftown.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html
http://www.brockport.edu/~library1/suny50.htm
http://www.coverbrowser.com/covers/time/39

http://www.llgc.org.uk/illingworth/illingworth_s060.htm

http://www.glidemagazine.com/hiddentrack/interview-will-lee-of-the-fab-faux/

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