From Protesting Vietnam to CountercultureDid the anti-war protest movement impact on popular culture?

The anti-war protest movement had a

significant impact on popular culture

Anti-war Protest movement

The anti-war protest movement questioned the government’s involvement in the war. In both Australia and America this movement evolved from a small group of protestors at the fringe of society into a mass movement.As the documentary ‘Power to the People’ argues, the movement led to a shift in society’s views on government. In the 1950s the Australian public left the work of government to Menzies. However, as a direct result of the protest movement, by the end of the Vietnam war people activley questioned the role of government.

Questioning societyThis mood of questioning spread beyond the

government and its role in the Vietnam War to the foundations of society itself.

‘United in their antiwar sentiment, thousands of young people joined in their creation of the "counterculture."  This new culture, which fostered the rebellion, spread rapidly during the late 1960s.’ 1

A key component of society that was questioned were ‘traditional’ values.

1. Counterculture of the Sixties"- North Hagerstown High School A.P. U.S. History

Image Analysis 11)What is

portrayed in this image?

2)What values are represented?

3)What does this image tell us about social values in the 1950s?

Image Analysis 2

1) What is portrayed in this image?2) How are the values of this image different from the previous?3) How is this source useful to historians? (i.e. what does it tell us about the time?)

Rebellion manifested itself in several key

ways: The movement, greeted with enormous publicity and popular interest, contributed to changes in American culture. A willingness to challenge authority, greater social tolerance, the sense that politics is personal, environmental awareness, and changes in attitudes about gender roles, marriage, and child rearing are legacies of the era.

Key aspects of the new ‘counterculture’

long hair, rock music as showcased at Woodstock, tye-dye, free sex, drugs, and riots are only some of the vehicles through which the counterculture asserted itself. 

Impact of the anti-war protest movement

Music- Key examples

WoodstockJimi HendrickBob Dylan Beatles

Impact of the anti-war protest movement

Fashion

Impact of the anti-war protest movement

The war in Vietnam had far-reaching effects. It opened the eyes of many millions of people in the United States to the true reality of our government as an imperialistic, brutal, very flawed "democracy." It brought into existence a massive anti-war movement which, together with the Black freedom movement, helped to spawn a women's rights movement, Native American, Puerto Rican, Chicano and Asian American movements, a lesbian and gay rights movement, a progressive upsurge within labour, an environmental movement and more.

Impact of the anti-war protest movement

Other key social movements that came out of the culture of protest were:

1) Civil Rights Movement

e.g. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X & Black Panthers

"If a black man is going to fight anywhere, he ought to be fighting in Mississippi" and other parts of America” not in Vietnam.

Impact of the anti-war protest movement

2) Women’s Rights

Impact of the anti-war protest movement

3) Lesbian and gay rights

Impact of the anti-war protest movement

3)Green Revolution & communal living

ConclusionThe anti-war protest movement influenced

not just politics, but every level of society from sex, to gardening, to music. In questioning the government’s participation in what came to be seen as an unjust war, people’s eyes were opened and many moved to reject the norms of a society that would allow such a heinous event to occur.

This interrogation of society and search for new values became the primary feature of the 1960s and 1970s. Thus the anti-war movement was the spark that lit the fires of social revolution.

Bibliography