The Turbulent

60s

1960 Election

• Nixon – Republican candidate (former vice president for Eisenhower)

• Kennedy – Democratic candidate-43 year old senator from Massachusetts

TV’s role in Election

• Most decisive factor in the race for presidency

• First four televised debates– Kennedy appeared more

vigorous and comfortable

Kennedy• New Frontier• “The Torch has been

passed to a new generation”

• Administration was dubbed Camelot

Kennedy’s Domestic Policy

• Called for aid in education• Federal support of health

care• Civil rights legislation• Urban renewal

– Most were not passed

Economy stimulated due to increased spending for defense and space

Assassination in Dallas

• Lee Harvey Oswald accused gunman

• Many conspiracies linked to assassination – none have proved creditable

• Marked the beginning for distrust in government

Kennedy’s Legacy

• “ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country”

• Peace Corp• Inspired thousands to

public service

Johnson’s Great Society• Medicare – health insurance

for those over 65• Medicaid – health care for

poor and disabled• Elementary and Secondary

Education Act – provided funding to poor school districts

• National Foundation on the Arts and Humanities

Johnson’s Great Society cont.

• HUD• Increased funding for

secondary education• Increased funding for public

housing• Increased funding for crime

prevention• Regulated automobile

industry • Civil Rights Act of 1964

Social Issues …..

British Invasion

• Beatles– First appeared on the Ed

Sullivan Show Feb 9th ’63– First hit “I want to hold

your hand” hit the airways Jan ’63

– Held the first 5 places on Billboard Hot 100 in ’64

– No one person or group has every surpassed them!

Second Wave of British Music….

• Rolling Stones– Mick Jagger, Keith

Richards, Ron Wood• Yardbirds

– Consists of Jimmy Page Jeff Beck, and Eric Clapton

Haight- Ashbury In San Francisco• became a haven for hippies

during the 1960s, due to the availability of cheap properties for rent in the district and the subculture that subsequently flourished there

• Gained reputation as being center of the drug culture

• Jefferson Starship members, Janis Joplin, and the Grateful Dead all lived in this district

Student Movement

• Tom Hayden – leader of a group of radical students

• Port Huron statement – university decisions made through participatory democracy

• SDS – Students for a Democratic Society

Free Speech Movement

• University of California 1964

• Called an end to university restrictions on student political activities

• Student demonstrations grew with the escalation of Vietnam War –many closed down by protestsKent State - 1970

Weathermen• Radical fringe of SDS• Embraced violence and

vandalism on American institutions

• Angered by the Vietnam War

• Discredited early idealism of the New Left

• Led the protests at the Chicago Democratic convention

Counterculture• Expressed by youth in

rebellious styles of dress, music, drug use and communal living

• Bob Dylan and Joan Baez gave voice to protests

• Beatles, Janis Joplin, Rolling Stones provided the beat

• Dress code for “hippies”– Long hair, beard, and jeans

Women’s Movement• The Feminine Mystique by Betty Fiedan

encouraged middle-class women to seek fulfillment in careers rather than confining roles as wives, mothers, and homemakers

• NOW – National Organization for Women goal- secure equal treatment of Women

• ERA – passed in 1972 – equality of rights under the law shall not be denied based on sex

• Accomplishments -changes in employment and hiring practices

Watts Riot – August 1965

• Watts neighborhood in Los Angeles erupts– After two African American men are pulled over by

police for minor traffic incident – 34 people killed– $40 million dollars in property damage

Cesar Chavez

• Chavez was a union organizer and social activist of the 1960s. The son of migrant laborers, Chavez founded the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) and later the United Farm Workers (UFW). He led a five-year nonviolent boycott against California grape growers

Ralph Nader• In 1965 he released Unsafe At Any Speed, a study

that illustrated fundamentally unsafe engineering of many American automobiles, especially those of General Motors.

• GM tried to discredit Nader, hiring private detectives to investigate his past and attempt to trap him in a compromising situation, but the effort failed.

• Upon learning of this harassment, Nader successfully sued the company for invasion of privacy, forced it to publicly apologize, and used much of his $284,000 net settlement to expand his consumer rights efforts.

• Nader's lawsuit against GM was ultimately decided by the high Court of New York, whose opinion in the case expanded the privacy rights that can be remedied in tort. Nader v. General Motors Corp., 307 N.Y.S.2d 647 (N.Y. 1970).

Art of the 60s

• Andy Warhol– Famous pop artist – Removed the difference

between fine arts and commercial arts

– Painted objects of mass production

– Produced silk screens and posters using mass production

• documents in detail the true menace to the ecosystem caused by harmful pesticides

• awakened society to a responsibility to other forms of life

• is credited with launching the contemporary environmental movement

Warren CourtChanges in Criminal Law

• Mapp v. Ohio – ruled illegally seized evidence cannot be used in court against the accused

• Gideon v. Wainwright – required that courts provide an attorney for poor defendants

• Escobedo v. Illinois – required police to inform an arrested person of their rights

• Miranda v. Arizona – accused has the right to an attorney present during questioning

Expression and Privacy• Yates v. U.S. – First Amendment protected

radical and revolutionary speech, even by Communists unless it presented a “clear and present danger” to country

• Engel v. Vitale – prayer and Bible readings in public schools violated separation of church and state

• Griswold v. Connecticut – right to privacy – a state could not prohibit the use of contraceptives

1968: Coming Apart at Home

• January – Tet Offensive• March – My Lai massacre• April – Martin Luther King assassinated• June – Robert Kennedy assassinated

Martin Luther King

• Civil rights leader committed to nonviolent protests

• March on Washington 1963 – most successful peaceful marches in history – delivered “I have a Dream” speech– Appealed to end racial

prejudice

Robert Kennedy

Assassinated June 5, 1968

– Presidential candidate 1968

– Shot and killed by a young Arab nationalists who opposed Kennedy’s support for Israel

Chicago Democratic Convention: 1968• Hubert Humphrey

emerged as the candidate controlling the convention inside

• Outside antiwar demonstrators controlled the streets

• Chicago’s Mayor Richard Daley had the police out in mass – seen on TV as “police riot”

Battle of Lincoln Park

Chicago SEVEN• “YIPPIES” Youth

International Party• Accused of conspiring to

incite the riot at the Democratic National Convention, 1968

• Government reports placed the blame on Daley and police department

• Sentenced to five years; overturned in 1972 by federal appeals court

Jerry Ruben, Abby Hoffman, Tom Hayden, David Dellinger, John

Froines, Lee Weiner and Bobby Seale

1968 Candidates

• Hubert Humphrey – Democrat (New Deal coalition)

• George Wallace – American Independent Party (hostility towards antiwar protests and segregation)

• Richard Nixon –Republican (peace with honor)

Significance: Election of 1968Voters sent a very strong

messageSupporters of Nixon and

Wallace (“Silent Majority”) had enough of the protests, violence, the counterculture, drugs, and federal intervention in social institutions – tide was turning on the New Deal liberalism in favor of the conservatives

WOODSTOCK

1969

One Last Fling for the “Hippies”

• Woodstock music festival in upper New York

• Put together by four young entrepreneurs between the ages 24-26

• ~500,000 “hippies” gathered peacefully to listen to music