The 1960's The 1960’s was a decade that forever changed the culture and society of America. The 1960’s were widely known as the decade of peace and love when in reality, minorities were struggling to gain freedom from segregation. The war to gain freedom for all minorites was a great obstacle to overcome. On February 20, 1960 four black college freshmen from the Negro Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro, North Carolina quietly walked into a restaurant and sat down at the lunch counter. They were protesting the Jim Crow custom that blacks could be served while standing up but not while they were sitting at the lunch counter. The students quietly sat there politely asking for service until closing time. The next morning they showed up again accompanied by twenty five fellow students. By the next week their sit down had been repeated in fourteen cities in five deep south states. In the weeks to follow many new protests arose. After a black woman was beaten with a baseball bat in Montgomery, Alabama, 1,000 blacks silently marched into the first capital of the Confederate states to sing and pray. Six hundred students from two colleges walked through the streets of Orangeburg, South Carolina with placards that exhibited phrases like “We Want Liberty” and “Segregation is Dead.” By late June some kind of public place in over one hundred and fifty different cities across America had been desegregated. John F. Kennedy was never able to gain enough support to pass a civil rights bill during his short time in office, but Lyndon Johnson drawing on the Kennedy legacy and the support of the nation succeeded in passing the bill. The bill passed 71 to 19, four more votes than required. By early 1965 a new b... ... middle of paper ... ...ompletely destroyed, and 2,700 businesses ransacked. Property damage reached an astonishing $500 million dollars. Upon a brisk spring night in Memphis, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood on a second story balcony discussing the next week’s march on Washington with his colleagues. Suddenly a single shot broke the silence of the night air. King’s co-workers thought it was some kind of bad joke until they saw him lying on the ground in a pool of blood with a bullet hole torn through his neck. In response to the shot, some thirty Memphis police converged on the building. Somehow, possibly on purpose, all thirty policemen missed the shooter. The weapon used to kill King was a scope- sighted 30.06 cal. Remington pump rifle. The range from which the shot was taken was a short 205 feet. After King’s murder, rioting took place in scores of cities around the country.
The 1960’s changed the world in an explosion of sex, drugs, and rock and roll, for the first time women and men where declaring freedom and free love. The sexual revolution of the 1960’s saw changes in the way the world saw its self, and the way we saw each other. It changed what we wanted to buy, how we bought it and how we sold it to each other. Artistic free thinkers began to push boundaries everywhere they could. This is reflected in the music of the times, the notable events and the fashion.
(Behind the limo shots) Since I was facing the building where the shots were coming from (Texas Book Depository), I just glanced up and saw two colored men in a window straining to look at a window up above them. As I looked up to the window above, I saw a rifle being pulled back in the window. It might have been resting on the windowsill. I didn't see a man. I didn't even see if it had a scope (telescopic sight) on it.
The 1950s seemed like a perfect decade. The rise of suburbs outside cities led to an expansion of the middle class, thus allowing more Americans to enjoy the luxuries of life. The rise of these suburbs also allowed the middle class to buy houses with land that used to only be owned by more wealthy inhabitants. Towns like Levittown-one of the first suburbs- were divided in such a way that every house looked the same (“Family Structures”). Any imperfections were looked upon as unfavorable to the community as a whole. Due to these values, people today think of the 1950s as a clean cut and model decade. This is a simplistic perception because underneath the surface, events that took place outside the United States actually had a direct effect on our own country’s history. The rise of Communism in Russia struck fear into the hearts of the American people because it seemed to challenge their supposedly superior way of life.
The Chicago riot was the most serious of the multiple that happened during the Progressive Era. The riot started on July 27th after a seventeen year old African American, Eugene Williams, did not know what he was doing and obliviously crossed the boundary of a city beach. Consequently, a white man on the beach began stoning him. Williams, exhausted, could not get himself out of the water and eventually drowned. The police officer at the scene refused to listen to eyewitness accounts and restrained from arresting the white man. With this in mind, African Americans attacked the police officer. As word spread of the violence, and the accounts distorted themselves, almost all areas in the city, black and white neighborhoods, became informed. By Monday morning, everyone went to work and went about their business as usual, but on their way home, African Americans were pulled from trolleys and beaten, stabbed, and shot by white “ruffians”. Whites raided the black neighborhoods and shot people from their cars randomly, as well as threw rocks at their windows. In retaliation, African Americans mounted sniper ambushes and physically fought back. Despite the call to the Illinois militia to help the Chicago police on the fourth day, the rioting did not subside until the sixth day. Even then, thirty eight
... were a big help to the Civil War. Of the 190,000 were in the Civil War, an amazing 16 of them got the Medal of Honor, fourteen received the honor as a result of their actions at New Market Heights.
15.The Constitutional Conventions of the Southern States between 1867 and 1868 proved that the South will remain to the control of whites. With the 10 states that searched for the readmission to the Union through the creation of a state constitution only four states that included Louisiana, Florida, South Carolina, and Virginia had some leverage in the formation of the state structure for government. The rest of the six states had dwindling percentage between 10% to 20% of African American members in the conventions. It was not a surprise that all adopted the same if not similar Black Codes that restricted the Blacks to labor intensive work, and other detrimental conditions.
Stephanie Coontz's essay `What we really miss about the 1950's' is an essay that talks about a poll taken in 1996 by the Knight-Ridder news agency that more Americans preferred 1950's as the best decade for children to grow up. Coontz doesn't believe that it is a decade for people to remember fondly about, except for financial reasons and better communication within families. Coontz doesn't believe in it as the best decade because of the votes, the 50's only won by nine percent, and especially not by African Americans. Examples from family and financial issues in the 50's that makes it better than other decades from 20's to 80's. She doesn't believe that the 50's should be taken `literally' because from 50's there were changes in values that caused racism, sexism discrimination against women. Even though the 50's were good, it didn't lead to a better 60, 70, and 80.
...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.
“Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans” (Kennedy 916). With these words, John F. Kennedy in his inaugural address in 1961 described the 1960’s decade. This era in American history encapsulated a belief in the power of young people to change the world, a desire to help others globally and accept their differences, and a war that would eventually destroy all that America stood for. It was a time for new ideas in all aspects of life. This shift in thinking is apparent when looking at the happenings in society, the younger generation, and the media. The sixties were the beginning of many great revolutions in society.
One of the first documented incidents of the sit-ins for the civil rights movement was on February 1, 1960 in Nashville, Tennessee. Four college African-Americans sat at a lunch counter and refused to leave. During this time, blacks were not allowed to sit at certain lunch counters that were reserved for white people. These black students sat at a white lunch counter and refused to leave. This sit-in was a direct challenge to southern tradition. Trained in non-violence, the students refused to fight back and later were arrested by Nashville police. The students were drawn to activist Jim Lossen and his workshops of non-violence. The non-violent workshops were training on how to practice non-violent protests. John Lewis, Angela Butler, and Diane Nash led students to the first lunch counter sit-in. Diane Nash said, "We were scared to death because we didn't know what was going to happen." For two weeks there were no incidences with violence. This all changed on February 27, 1960, when white people started to beat the students. Nashville police did nothing to protect the black students. The students remained true to their training in non-violence and refused to fight back. When the police vans arrived, more than eighty demonstrators were arrested and summarily charged for disorderly conduct. The demonstrators knew they would be arrested. So, they planned that as soon as the first wave of demonstrators was arrested, a second wave of demonstrators would take their place. If and when the second wave of demonstrators were arrested and removed, a third would take their place. The students planned for multiple waves of demonstrators.
One of the most powerful counterculture movements in the sixties was the civil rights movement. In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act to end racial discrimination in employment, institutions like hospitals and schools, and privately owned public accommodations In 1965, congress returned suffrage to black southerners, by passing the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (Foner 926). In the case of Loving v. Virginia (1967), the Supreme Court ruled that laws prohibiting interracial marriage were unconstitutional (Foner 951). Because of the civil rights movement in the sixties, minorities gained more rights than they had prior to the 1960s.
Halfway between the end of the American Civil War and the growth of the civil rights movement, the beginn...
African Americans had been struggling to obtain equal rights for scores of decades. During the 1960’s, the civil rights movement intensified and the civil rights leaders entreated President Kennedy to intervene. They knew it would take extreme legislature to get results of any merit. Kennedy was afraid to move forward in the civil rights battle, so a young preacher named Martin Luther King began a campaign of nonviolent marches and sit-ins and pray-ins in Birmingham, Alabama to try and force a crisis that the President would have to acknowledge. Eventually things became heated and Police Commissioner Eugene “Bull” Connor released his men to attack the protesters, which included many schoolchildren. All of this was captured and televised to the horror of the world. Finally this forced the President into action and he proposed a bill outlawing segregation in public facilities. The bill became bogged down in Congress but civil righ...
Kennedy received praise for these strong and moving words yet was criticized for his weak legislative proposals to remedy the situation. By May of 1963, his proposal would change greatly however, after two men, from opposite positions set the civil rights movement into intense motion. Martin Luther King despite advice to do otherwise began massive protests in the street of Birmingham. To combat these protests, Police Commissioner “Bull” Conner used any means, including dogs, fire hoses, and electric cattle prods on protestors. Making newspapers and televi...
The 1950s was a time when conformity held supreme in the culture at large. Issues such as women 's rights were thrown to the back as people tried to remain in the popular form of a family. These issues being put off only caused the prolonging of the tumultuous 1960s that would soon