A Time of Change

movements• A time for demanding Civil Rights– Black– Chicano– Women’s Movement– American Indian Movement– Other groups:

• Japanese• Disabled Americans• Gay Movement• Gray Movement

Begin 1960 With JFK• JFK defeats Nixon• Deals with

– Civil rights issues– Bay of Pigs– Cuban Missile Crisis– Suggests formation of NASA

to land a man on the moon– Creates Peace Corps– Promotes relationships with

Latin America • JFK Assassinated on

November 22 1963

1963-1968 LBJ• LBJ picks up where Kennedy

and his “new frontier” left off with the creation of – The great society

• Ending racial injustice• Declaring war on poverty• Improving access to

healthcare• Supporting lifelong learning

and culture• Opening doors for immigrants• Preserving the environment• Protecting consumers

Emergence of a counterculture• Counterculture:

– A group with ideas and behaviors very different from those of the mainstream culture

• Big contributor:– Bob Dylan

• Sang about racial injustice, nuclear war, and other major issues that engaged people living in a time of social change

• Times they are a changin

Baby Boomers launch a Cultural Revolution

• Postwar baby boom created the largest generation of children in American History

• By the early 1960s the oldest baby boomers were nearing their twenties– A few of these boomers felt guilty about the growing

up with advantages denied to many Americans– They believed American society was flawed

(materialism, racism, and inequality)• Also believed it could change

Form a New Left• Responding to the suffering

of the poor a small group of student activists formed a movement called the New Left– Rejected the communism of

the ‘old left’– Inspired by the civil rights

movement—goal of allowing all people to have an active part in government

Students for a Democratic Society• The strongest voice of the New Left• During their first year (1962) membership grew to

over 8,000 students• Formation of the Free Speech Movement– Developed in response to a university rule banning

groups like SDS from using a plaza on campus to spread their ideas

– Thousands of students joined the movement shutting down the campus for weeks—eventually the university lifted the ban

New Left: Tinker v Des Moines

• Tinker v Des Moines

Hippies• They developed a

counterculture seeking freedom of expression– Shunned convention– Preferred jeans and long

hair– Gave up shaving or

wearing make-up

Uniting the movements• No organization could unite all of the

movements• However beliefs did:– Distrust of the establishment• Their term for the people and institutions who

controlled society– Love was more important than money

Culture Clash• Countercultures that embraces ideas like “be-

ins” that tended to promote the illicit use of drugs seemed to prove mainstream societies worst fears – Society was in a moral decline

• Changing view of love and marriage– Counterculture embraces an openness about

sexual behavior• Sparks the Sexual revolution

Culture Clash• Hippies embrace a freer society

– Reject mainstream life in favor of communes

– Embrace changing views of recreational drug use

• Rock-n-Roll gives a voice to the counterculture– Many adults worries that this

music promoted increased drug use

• Woodstock– Counterculture at its height– 400,400 people gathered at a 3

day music festival

Impact of the Counterculture Movement

• By the end of the 1960s countercultural ideas and images appeared in mainstream magazines and movies and on television

• Experimentation with new forms of expression spread to the visual arts—new pop art

• Pop art focused on everyday life, commenting on consumer culture by elevating plain objects into art

• explanation of the counterculture