Unit IV Assessment: The Social Crisis of the 1960s

Introduction

A great time of social change befell the United States in the Sixties. It started with the

election of John F Kennedy in 1960, lasting up to the early Seventies with the Watergate scandal

and the end of the Vietnam War. The US economy was still riding the coattails of the World War

II economic boom, with standards of living increasing across the country. The decades of racial

oppression facing this nation finally boiled over. The explosion this caused created a revolt that

empowered African Americans, Women, the Gay and Lesbian communities, and the New Left to

a level promised by American ideals.

Historiography

Since the beginning, American history has always been about the struggle for equality.

The colonists fought off British rule, the Civil War between North and South over slavery, and

the fight for workers’ rights in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. The New Deal of the 1930s

set a precedent of equality for America. Many got lifted by this new ethos and America entered a

new level of prosperity, making it one of the wealthiest nations on the planet. Despite this

prosperity, the racial and gender inequalities remained as they did previously. These oppressed

groups only gained pittance from this prosperity. Activists laid the seeds of growth in the 1950s

with Brown v. Board and The Montgomery Bus Boycotts. The Civil Rights movement exploded

in the Sixties, with citizens pushed by leaders like Martin Luther King, Jr., and the Black Power

movement to examine if the American ideals of equality held true for all. This drive inspired

groups around the nation to fight. The New Left grew on college campuses in response to the

War on Vietnam. Women demanded to be equal to men in education and employment. The
Stonewall Inn Riots created the Gay and Lesbian rights movement. The 1960s was a time of

enlightenment for many Americans, showing them the truth of our ideals; giving them the

motivation to fight.

Others have an opposing view on the Sixties, a time of naïve rebellion for a utopia

society. Many were skeptical of these visions of grandeur. They believed that social change came

from patience, pragmatism, and self-sacrifice. The actions of this generation got seen as

destructive, a group of radicals with no care for America’s democratic institutions. It is believed

that the prosperity and relative peace of post-World War II America created an entitled

generation who never learned of life’s disappointments. They rebelled when the real world did

not conform to their fantastical wishes.

The Civil Rights movement was taken over by “Black Power,” rejecting the system they

viewed as rotten to its roots. Women’s rights activists became more extreme in their views,

calling for the elimination of the traditional family. The pampered middle-class students in

universities of the New Left fought against the institutions responsible for their worry-free

upbringing, attacking the Vietnam War as evidence of America being a racist empire. There is

hope among people with these views that future generations will take more care in solving social

issues to avoid the destruction of the 1960s.

Another view of the Sixties is to see it as a time of unraveling that revealed the illusion of

the American consensus. After the New Deal of the 1930s, a new set of American ideals had

formed. Worker safety and wealth equality became set in stone. It kept people complacent;

wages kept growing year after year. But this could not hold forever, eventually the social issues

would grow too large. The population went along, thinking everything was whole in this nation.

The argument that decided the election of 1960 was how to beat the Soviets. In only a short ten
years, it all crumbled. Inequality among class and racial lines could not be paved over with

American Idealism anymore. The hopeful Civil Rights movement grew to become frustrated

with the system. Access to education and consumer goods is not enough when these issues exist

within the core of America itself. The New Left struggled much the same. The failures of the

Vietnam War and Lindon Johnson’s Great Society plan showed the truth. The American dream

was nothing more than a hopeful lie. Even many in the middle class lived with fear, living on the

line between wealth and poverty. The 1960s revealed the truth beneath the surface, America is

divided, no matter what we say.

Counter Argument

There was considerable opposition in the 1960s to the social revolution. Former governor

of Maryland, Spiro Agnew, ran as Vice President under Richard Nixon in 1968 (Document 7.4).

Agnew was seen as “a voice of the ‘silent majority,’” calling out the way most Americans saw

the activists of the Sixties. Agnew called New Left intellectuals “impudent snobs.” He listed

Hippies and Black Panthers alongside zoo animals like lions and tigers. The protest got criticized

as a thoughtless battle that shut out rational discussion. This resistance was not just pure blind

hatred for activists. The National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders, A special

commission formed by Lyndon Johnson, analyzed the destruction caused by these activists

(Document 2.8). Riots broke out across the nation in 1967 and caused severe damage, the worst

occurring in Newark and Detroit. “A spirit of carefree nihilism” took hold of the people, leading

to a spirit of rebellion. Molotov cocktails got thrown, some leading to the destruction of entire

blocks. Looters with rifles clashed with officers and the National Guard, leaving death when the

firing stopped. In the end, 83 people died in these riots, and Detroit and Newark suffered over 55
million dollars in damages. While the goals of many Sixties activists were noble, their opposition

got justly criticized. Their naivety and the destruction left in their wake destroyed this nation.

The Argument

The beginning of Sixties activism started with the Black Civil Rights movement. In 1955

a key event set everything in motion (Document 2.3). Rosa Parks had just left work and taken a

bus home, where only one seat was available; in the white-only section. She got arrested this day

when she refused to leave her seat. Shortly after, Parks got bailed out by E. D. Nixon and

Clifford Durr of the NAACP. A plan got formed with Martin Luther King Jr. to boycott the bus

system of Montgomery Alabama. These protests would bring national attention to the horrific

racial segregation plaguing the South.

The actions of Park and King were revolutionary for the underclasses of America. New

groups sprouted up all over the nation to fight for their beliefs. The Black Panther party was

formed in 1966, a dominant group fighting for racial rights in America. The same year, they

released the document “What We Want, What We Believe,” detailing their demands (Document

2.5). They demand Freedom and equality in employment, education, and housing. They fought

for the end of police brutality, and fair treatment under the law. Another group got formed by

students at San Francisco State College (Document 2.7). These students created the Black

Student Union after George Murray, a part-time English teacher, and prominent Black Panther

figure, got fired. The students participated in a strike that “threw the campus into four months of

turmoil.” The strike was a major success and led to the creation of the College of Ethnic Studies,

which included a Department of Black Studies. The rise of the Civil Rights movement gave these

groups unimaginable support and motivation to fight for their Ideals.

 With the fires of the Civil Rights movement, the feminist movement reignited across

America. For most of US history, women got treated as second-class citizens. Women have often

struggled to obtain employment within the nation’s workforce. Only 45% of single women and

30% of married women had employment in the US (Document 5.1). Prestigious positions like

Physicians and Lawyers showed single-digit percentiles of women workers. A deep gender gap

existed in America, and the 1960s was the time it changed. Organizations like the National

Organization for Women (NOW) and Redstockings formed on both the moderate and radical

ends of the spectrum (Document 5.3 and 5.4). NOW demanded to be seen as equal under the law

and to have new protections around childbirth. The more radical organizations like Redstockings

fought the culture directly, calling out the oppressive nature of our male-oriented society. The

Sixties gave women the perfect opportunity to make their voices heard.

The Sixties was not just a time of existing social movements experiencing an explosion

of growth. In 1969 the Stonewall Inn riots occurred, the event that created the modern-day

LGBT movement. Mark Segal was an influential gay figure; who helped found the Gay

Liberation Front (Document 6.2). When Segal grew up, being gay was heavily scrutinized. You

got seen as a criminal, insane, and unemployable just because of your sexual preferences. The

Stonewall Inn in New York became a home for the Gay movement, where people traveled from

around the country to be with those who accepted them. With the inspiration of the ongoing Civil

Rights, Women’s Rights, and Anti-Vietnam War Movements, Gay groups started working to

make a change.

Along with these tremendous social developments, intellectualism rose on college

campuses. A New Left emerged across the US in response to the weakness of our government

institutions. The Vietnam War was a grievous issue that motivated the New Left; it was an evil
war in their eyes. Paul Potter of the New Left gave a speech in 1965 opposing the horrors of the

Vietnam War (Document 3.1). The US got seen as a humble, respectful nation that would not

frivolously engage in war. Why was the president using resources fighting this far-off war when

Americans at home were suffering from tyranny and oppression? These students grew

disillusioned as the injustices of American society expanded, growing more militant. Eventually,

this led to an occupation at Columbia University.

Larger Educational and Social Context

The arguments presented by conventional high school textbooks are similar in some

respects but leave out some key details. These textbooks talk a lot about the moderate sides of

the Civil Rights and Women’s rights movements but tend to gloss over some of the more radical

aspects of revolt. Groups like the New Left and Gay rights movements are missing from the

discussion, only showing a sterile surface-level view of the Sixties. The break in the American

census is set aside for whole chapters on the failure of The Great Society.

In modern American history, many issues mirror the social tension in the 1960s. Racial

Civil Rights are a major talking point with the death of George Floyd and other cases of police

brutality. Organizations like Black Lives Matter have formed to fight for Black Rights, mirroring

the past. The LGBT movement has grown by leaps and bounds since the Sixties. People can

adhere to their sexuality and gender identity without imprisonment and unemployment. The

political system has stayed stagnant since Nixon’s election. People vote for the same two parties

that do nothing to enact real change that would help the American people. The US populace

needs to see our history to learn. So, we can fight once more, for the rights of the underclasses of

the United States.