The 1960’s was a happening decade. It was a time when many people came together for a common good and stood against injustice. The 60’s is often recalled as the era of the peace sign, one ridden with hippies, marijuana and pacifism. While true of much of the era, some of the movements calling for immense social change began as non-violent harbingers of change and later became radicals. The reason for this turn to radicalism, as seen in the case of the Students for a Democratic Society, and as suggested by the change between this organizations earlier Port Huron statement and the later Weatherman Manifesto, is due to the gradual escalation of the Vietnam war.
The Port Huron Statement, issued in 1962 by a group of reformist students, is a peaceful call to action. In addition to pointing out the wrongs in their society, it also speaks about how the institutions of schools, government, the economy, the military-industrial complex and society as a whole are broken and need to change. “Institutions and practices which stifle dissent should be abolished, and the promotion of peaceful dissent should be actively promoted.” It calls for the use of modern technology, corporations and government to eliminate the problems past generations had to suffer such as poverty and racism. Its specific recommendations speak of working within the system to reform it. At this time the Students for a Democratic Society really believed that change could be achieved through “peaceful dissent”.
The combative nature of the Weatherman Manifesto is a culmination of the failures since the national convention of the Students for a Democratic Society just seven years earlier. Where the Port Huron Statement just tiptoed around the...
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... Similar to the response of Black power to the civil rights movement the SDS of the Weatherman Manifesto is a response to the SDS of the Port Huron Statement. They were willing to more violent tactics to achieve their goals. They called for a “movement with a full willingness to participate in the violent and illegal struggle.”
The Students for a Democratic Society of the late 1960’s was the result of failure of the tactics of the SDS of the early 1960’s. Despite all the protest and teach ins the war raged on and escalated. After continuously being marginalized the youth of the SDS were pushed to the breaking point. Their goal was “the destruction of the US imperialism and the achievement of a classless world: world communism.” This global revolution never came to fruition and yet we still face many of the same problems of poverty, injustice and war today.
During the 1960’s, there was a rising tide of protests that were taking place. College students began to stand up for their rights and protest for a stronger voice in society. The United States was going through a tough period marked by the Cold War against communism and also the war in Vietnam. From Truman to Nixon the United States government involved the country more and more in Vietnam. Nixon announced a new policy in 1968 called Vietnamization. (Foner, 4th edition, pg.1028) This policy would bring American troops back home, but it neither limited the war nor ended the antiwar movements.
The Port Huron Statement was a manifesto written by Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) that details the paradoxes in American society and the need for social change. This manifesto was written in 1962 during the time of the Civil Rights Movement. During this period, African Americans continued to struggle to become integrated into American society. There was still segregation although African Americans were promised equality by the American government that was supposed to be “of, by, and for the people.” The Port Huron Statement was a form of civil disobedience that argued for the active participation of students in democratic institutions to create social change and equality for all. The group discussed nuclear warfare, participatory democracy, and forming an anti-hierarchical society. They wanted to bring students together to fight for an equal and just society. However, they faced difficulties that stood in the way of their goal. They noticed that America did not have any explicit values or practical alternatives to the present. America was not trying to improve. Rather, they continued to live the same and influenced others to
Political systems and their consequent removals during this time serve as a flashing indicator towards the power that exists in the mobilization of the people. The Declaration of Independence, Constitution of the United States, and the Rights of Man and Citizen, serve as reminders of the revolutionary philosophical and political attitudes belonging to the writers of these revolutionary documents. Even now, the same attitudes of equality and freedom can be seen. Whether it be through movements for racial equality on school campuses, justice for those killed unjustly, or the prevailing ideals of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness,” for all races and genders, the resounding calls for people to support and affirm their brethren continue to echo (US
American society and culture experienced an awakening during the 1960s as a result of the diverse civil rights, economic, and political issues it was faced with. At the center of this revolution was the American hippie, the most peculiar and highly influential figure of the time period. Hippies were vital to the American counterculture, fueling a movement to expand awareness and stretch accepted values. The hippies’ solutions to the problems of institutionalized American society were to either participate in mass protests with their alternative lifestyles and radical beliefs or drop out of society completely. The government and the older generations could not understand their way of life.
There are times throughout the history of the United States when its citizens have felt the need to revolt against the government. Two such cases occurred during the time of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Henry David Thoreau. Both men courageously confronted the mighty us government; both spent time in jail as a result of their defiant actions; both men stood for a belief in a better future, and both presented their dreams through non-violent protest and civil disobedience. The similarities in their course of action are undeniable, but each man used different terms on which they based their arguments. Martin Luther King Junior's appeal through the human conscience, and Henry Thoreau's excellent use of patriotism, present similar issues in very dissimilar ways.
During the sixties and seventies there was an influx of social change movements, from civil rights, gay rights, student’s rights and feminism. In the early sixties the US was experiencing
He begins by expressing how during the 1968 US Democratic National Convention, a protest activity was done by many “Anti-war Democratic groups in Chicago.” He explains that the protest activity was “their” way of expressing their anger in the involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War. Haynes Johnson shows bias in this article because he explains the impacts of the Democratic National Convention from the perspective of an anti-demonstrator. He expresses just how in its psychic impact, and its long-term political consequences, the Convention eclipsed any other such convention in American history, destroying faith in politicians, in the political system, in the country and in its institutions. Haynes Johnson wrote, “I can still recall the choking feeling from the tear gas hurled by police amid throngs of protesters gathering in parks and hotel
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 ...
In the duration of one year, 1968, the American national mood shifted from general confidence and optimism to chaotic confusion. Certainly the most turbulent twelve months of the post-WWII period and arguably one of the most disturbing episodes the country has endured since the Civil War, 1968 offers the world a glimpse into the tumultuous workings of a revolution. Although the entire epoch of the 1960's remains significant in US history, 1968 stands alone as the pivotal year of the decade; it was the moment when all of the nation's urges toward violence, sublimity, diversity, and disorder peaked to produce a transformation great enough to blanket an entire society. While some may superficially disagree, the evidence found in the Tet Offensive, race relations, and the counterculture's music of the period undeniably affirm 1968 as a turning point in American history.
Paul Hawken, in the chapter “Blessed Unrest,” records the people of a new social movement, as well as their ideals, goals, and principles. He writes how they are connected, along with the diversity and differences they bring to make the social movement unique. Hawken communicates to the readers the various social, environmental, and political problems they will encounter in today’s world as well as similar problems of the past. Problems that these groups of organizations are planning to undertake with the perseverance of humanity.
The 1960s was a time filled with much revolution and movements in America. Upon these revolutionaries, existed youth movements. A deep difference of ideals and thoughts stirred upon the minds of many youth. In particular, the youth associated with the left wing movement compared extremely different to the youth movements of the right wing. Two documents that expressed these differences are, The Sharon Statement, from the Young Americans For Freedom dated in the 1960s and Mike Klonsky’s article “Toward a Revolutionary Youth Movement”, dated December 23, 1968. The Young Americans For Freedom pushed for a conservative future, keeping hold to traditional values and the support of constitution. The national secretary of SDS Mike Klonsky, leaned toward a more radical left movement, even going as far as identifying as a revolutionary communist. The two documents show deep ideal differences in communism and who the enemy is, yet with all these differences shows a similarity in the reason they fought for.
The 1960’s was a time full of different movements that have affected the outcome of our lives today. The movements dealt with all sorts of things such as women rights, equal rights, and how the hippies made it today. I have decided to write over the hippy movement, because of the different things they have interests in. The hippies have their own set of beliefs, their own style of clothing, and their own kind of music they listen to. The only negative aspect of hippies was that they did drugs, but most people don’t know where they came from or how they made it.
The Hippie Movement changed the politics and the culture in America in the 1960s. When the nineteen fifties turned into the nineteen sixties, not much had changed, people were still extremely patriotic, the society of America seemed to work together, and the youth of America did not have much to worry about, except for how fast their car went or what kind of outfit they should wear to the Prom. After 1963, things started to slowly change in how America viewed its politics, culture, and social beliefs, and the group that was in charge of this change seemed to be the youth of America. The Civil Rights Movement, President Kennedy’s death, new music, the birth control pill, the growing illegal drug market, and the Vietnam War seemed to blend together to form a new counterculture in America, the hippie.
The sixties was a decade of liberation and revolution, a time of great change and exciting exploration for the generations to come. It was a time of anti-war protests, free love, sit-ins, naked hippie chicks and mind-altering drugs. In big cities such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, New York and Paris, there was a passionate exchange of ideas, fiery protests against the Vietnam War, and a time for love, peace and equality. The coming together of like-minded people from around the world was spontaneous and unstoppable. This group of people, which included writers, musicians, thinkers and tokers, came to be known as the popular counterculture, better known as hippies. The dawning of the Age of Aquarius in the late sixties was more than just a musical orgy. It was a time of spiritual missions to fight for change and everything they believed in. Freedom, love, justice, equality and peace were at the very forefront of this movement (West, 2008). Some wore beads. Some had long hair. Some wore tie-dye and others wore turtle-neck sweaters. The Hippie generation was a wild bunch, to say the least, that opened the cookie jar of possibilities politically, sexually, spiritually and socially to forever be known as one of the most memorable social movements of all time (Hippie Generation, 2003).
“Without the principle of peace and strategy, politics has always embellished into banks of violent protest through all pillars of society.” (Huttenback, 1971, p.46)