The Causes and the Protest of 1968
In the 1960s, the great decade of social change, the civil rights movement alongside student movements worked together to bring about a momentous change in society. In 1968, the New Left continued to take on thousands of members as it developed a more radical approach in its opposition to racism and the Vietnam War. Practically synonymous with the New Left, Student’s for a Democratic Society (SDS) argued that militant tactics showed young people that actions could make a difference. SDS stated: "we can make a difference, we can hope to change the system, and also that life within the radical movement can be liberated, fulfilling, and meaningful." Student unrest passed from "protest to confrontation to resistance and to outright obstruction; even more startling, the university as a general institution, itself, was now regarded as the enemy, the target for disruption."
On April 23, 1968, this American Student movement culminated at Columbia University. Students on Columbia’s Morningside Heights campus gathered to oppose an institution they viewed as racist, imperialistic, and authoritarian; the school represented the old order of society that still dominated American institutions. Students angry with Columbia’s connection to the Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA), its aggressive, even racist expansion techniques, and the administration’s authoritarian rule, launched a demonstration in protest. What was initially a non-confrontational protest quickly escalated. Columbia students, angry and tired of being neglected by the administration, fought to be heard; students raided Hamilton Hall and refused to leave until their six demands were met. Ulitimately the SDS led protest, initially centered around speeches at the center of campus, evolved into a hostile student takeover of five university buildings. These frustrated students lashed out against the establishment—and the nearest target was their own Columbia. However, Klaus Mehnert observed that the "campus problems as such did not stand in the foreground of the conflict…The true enemy was society…the university simply being that segment of society with which the students happened to be confronted." Although superficially centered around three specific issues, these demands were only symbolic of the far broader issues of racism, imperialism, and authoritarianism, presently ailing society. The revolution was ultimately a power struggle between the New Left and the old order; a battle between liberal students and Columbia’s archaic administration for a voice in society.
In April 1968, Columbia University’s appearance was like that of any other college around the nation.
The 1960’s was a time society fantasized of a better world. However, the horrors of the Vietnam War soon became evident; the mass amounts of death occurring because of the war became a reality. It created a “movement”, especially in American colleges, in order to stand up for what they believed to be “right”. By 1970, many Americans believed sending troops to Vietnam was a mistake, however there were also various individuals becoming increasingly critical of the student antiwar movement
Chicago Riots Have you ever felt as if your government is doing the wrong thing? During the Democratic National Convention in 1968, an estimate of 5-7K protesters were not happy with the results on what was happening in the government. So a group called Yippies started an organized protest. They started to have riots in places like Chicago, where soon after the police came in and started to relentlessly beat the protesters with billy clubs.
Rest, J., Narvaez, D., Thoma, S., & Bebeau, M. (1999). DIT2: Devising and testing a revised instrument of moral judgment. Journal of Educational Psychology, 91(4), 644-659.
The Newark riots of 1967 were very extreme and terrible time in Newark, New Jersey, one of the worst in U.S. history. The riots were between African-Americans and white residents, police officers and the National Guard. The riots were not unexpected. The tension between the city grew tremendously during the 1960's, due to lack of employment for Blacks, inadequate housing, police brutality and political exclusion of blacks from government.
The T4 program was not the beginning of Germany’s effort to reach a super race. Leading up to the war Hitler enacted the “Law for the Prevention of Progeny with Hereditary Diseases” in the year of 1933. The law called for the sterilization of anyone that had any hereditary illnesses. The list of hereditary illnesses included: “schizophrenia, epilepsy, senile disorders, therapy resistant paralysis and syphilitic diseases, retardation, encephalitis, Huntington’s chorea and other neurological conditions.” (History Place) This law was enforced by opening 200 genetic health courts that would analyze the medical records of individuals and decide if they were to be sterilized or not. The sterilization of people usually involved the use of drugs, x-rays, or uterine irritants. Dr. Horst Schumann did a lot of these experiments with sterilization at Auschwitz, where he would take a group of men/women and would expose them to x-rays. Most of his experiments with x-rays were disappointing but he kept using this method. After he subjected his subjects to x...
There were a lot of movements during the 1960s like the Civil Rights movement or the Feminist movement. However the Anti-War Movement was the most popular one during the 1960s due to the lack of support towards the war. Protests across the U.S against the Vietnam War started small. Nevertheless, they became popular among young people as groups like the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) started protesting in Washington, D.C. The organization of nonviolent protests was the best way to fight back the injustice made by the government for drafting people into a war that was totally unrelated to the country.
...War and the Civil Rights Movements in order to illustrate how the 1960s was a time of “tumult and change.” To Anderson, it is these events, which sparked the demand for recognition of social and economic fairness. He makes prominent the idea that the 1960s served as the origin of activism and the birth of the civil rights movement, forever changing ideals that embody America. The book overall is comprehensive and a definite attention grabber. It shows how the decade had the effect of drastically transforming life in America and challenging the unequal status quo that has characterized most of the nation's history. Despite the violence and conflict that was provoked by these changes, the activism and the liberation movements that took place have left a permanent imprint upon the country.
The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) believe it or not was the strongest civil rights organization during the 1960s and 70s. The unusually thing was that the SNCC did not want to be an organization, they were stuck on just being a movement. In Struggle is a great book to learn about SNCC. Clayborne Carson rewrote the introduction and epilogue in 1994, in the introduction he outlines exactly want the book is about. Carson has three points in book which are how SNCC came together, how SNCC development after early defeats, and lastly how SNCC resolved their differences.
Shaskolsky, Leon. “The Negro Protest Movement- Revolt or Reform?.” Phylon 29 (1963): 156-166. JSTOR. U of Illinois Lib., Urbana. 11 Apr. 2004 .
Teenagers in the 1950s were restless creatures, tired of listening to parents and doing school work. When they went away to university, it gave them a taste of freedom and responsibility at the same time. Unfortunately, a war was going on for the U.S.: a war not all people thought we should have been involved with in the first place. As Mark Barringer stated in his article "The 1960s: Polarization, Cynicism, and the Youth Rebellion", student radicals Al Haber and Tom Hayden from the University of Michigan formed the Students for a Democratic Society in 1960 as a scholarly arm of an institution for Industrial Democracy. In June 1962, fifty-nine SDS members met ...
As a dictator Stalin was very strict about his policies, especially working. For instance. Stalin had set quotas very high , as they were very unrealistic. The workers had very long days, and under the rule of Stalin most people worked many hours in overtime, and resulting in no pay. Stalin treated workers very, very harshly. Those who did not work were exiled to Siberia or killed. Some may say you got what you deserved in Stalin’s time. Those who worked very hard for Stalin sometimes got bonuses such as trips, or goods likes televisions and refrigerators. The workers had to conform to Stalin’s policies . Stalin’s harsh treatment of workers received a very unwelcoming response, but in fact the liberal amount of goods that the workers had made, had in fact
In William Shakespeare’s Hamlet, women are oversexualized, and are given no role other than to be the item of a man’s desire. The promiscuity of the only two women in the play, Gertrude and Ophelia, detracts from their power and integrity, and allows Hamlet a certain amount of control over them. Gertrude’s sexual lifestyle is often mentioned by her son, Hamlet, and Hamlet uses his knowledge of Gertrude’s sexuality as a means to criticize her. Ophelia’s sexuality initially appears to be controlled by Laertes and Polonius, and Hamlet takes advantage of the naive image that she is required to keep. However, in her later madness, Ophelia taints this image by revealing that her innocence is feigned. By exposing the sexual natures of both Gertrude and Ophelia, Hamlet strips these women of any influence they may have had, and damages their once-honourable names.
... the movement were to take on the mindset of one large class, say one of those deserving of the vote, and work together they could have been spared some of the violence and distaste they faced.
During the 1960s, the accepted American way of life was challenged. People began to question, and ultimately reject, traditional societal roles and values. This led to the mobilization of like minded individuals who sought to effect change through gaining political influence. The Civil Rights Movement, the Free Speech Movement, the Women's Rights Movement, and the Antiwar Movement were the result of such mobilizations. Participants in these movements were uniformly deemed leftists or radicals or revolutionary bums by the mainstream. This oversimplification obscured the true linkages that existed between the different movements. From the inception of the Women's Rights Movement, it has drawn on ideas originating in the Civil Rights Movement. In particular, the Civil Rights Movement played a significant role in sparking the Women's Rights Movement, and it continued to influence the women's movement because of their shared ideologies.
Sanderson suggests that even the shocking unemployment statistics are not a clear indication of just how desperate the job market is for young people (Sanderson, Wells, & Wilson, 2015). What is rarely captured in this data is the “higher levels of underemployment amongst those young people in relatively stable employment (including those with higher level qualifications)” (Sanderson, Wells, & Wilson, 2015). Highlighting this mismatch, in 2005, underemployed individuals in their 30’s came together to create a coalition to represent the overeducated Italian citizens surviving on only 1000 euro a month (Nadeau, 2015). While the volume of participants in 2005 was disheartening, the founder, Antonio Incorvaia, recently lamented that in the 9 years