Ch. 20 The Politics of Protest

1. Ch. 20 The Politics of Protest 1954-1975

2. Sec. 1 Students and the Counterculture • I. The Rise of the Youth Movement • 1. During the 1960s, a youth movement developed that challenged American politics, its social system, and the values of the time. • The beginning of the 1960s youth movement began with the baby boomers after World War II. • During the 1950s, the nation had a boom in its economy that not all Americans enjoyed.

3. Sec. 1 Students and the Counterculture • Some Americans, especially writers and artists of the “beat” movement, openly criticized American society. • The economic boom of the 1950s led to a dramatic increase in college enrollment. • College gave young people the opportunity to share their feelings and fears about the future with others. 2. Students concerned about injustices in political and social issues formed the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).

4. Sec. 1 Students and the Counterculture • Their views were written in the 1962 declaration known as the Port Huron Statement. • Written largely by Tom Hayden, editor of the University of Michigan’s student newspaper, the statement called for an end to apathy and urged citizens to stop accepting a country run by corporations and big government.

5. Sec. 1 Students and the Counterculture • SDS was mainly focused on the Vietnam War, but also was concerned on other issues— poverty, campus regulations, nuclear power, & racism. 3. A group of activists at the University of California at Berkeley, led by Mario Savio, began the Free Speech Movement.

6. Sec. 1 Students and the Counterculture • The group was upset over college restrictions on students’ rights to distribute literature & recruit volunteers for political causes. • Sit-ins were staged at the administration building with more than 700 protesters being arrested. • This resulted in a campus-wide strike stopping classes for two days. • The administration gave in to the student’s demands, & the Supreme Court upheld the student’s rights to freedom of speech & assembly on campus. • The Berkeley revolt became the model for college demonstrations around the country.

7. Sec. 1 Students and the Counterculture • II. The Counterculture • 1. Some young Americans did not challenge the system. • Instead, they sought to create their own society. • The counterculture, or hippies, was mostly white youths from middle- and upper-class backgrounds. • They lived a life that promoted flamboyant dress, rock music, drug use, and free and independent living.

9. Sec. 1 Students and the Counterculture • 2. At the core of the counterculture was a utopian ideal of living, or the ideal of a society that was free, closer to nature, and full of love, empathy, tolerance, and cooperation. • As the movement grew, newcomers did not always understand these roots and focused on the outward signs of the movement. • Long hair, Native American headbands, shabby jeans, and drugs were common.

10. Sec. 1 Students and the Counterculture • Communes or group living arrangements in which members shared everything and worked together, were formed as hippies dropped out of society. • One of the most popular hippie destinations was the Haight-Ashbury district in San Francisco.

11. Sec. 1 Students and the Counterculture • 3. As counterculture members rejected materialism, many embraced spirituality— including astrology, magic, & Eastern religions. • The counterculture declined, as some hippie communities became a place where criminal activity was common. • Drug use declined as the excitement faded and as more young people became addicted or died from overdoses.

12. Sec. 1 Students and the Counterculture • The counterculture had an impact on American life as mainstream America adopted some of their ideas. • The international fashion world looked to the counterculture to create new fashions with more color and comfort. • Military, worn-out, and ethnic clothing was popular. • As the initial shock of the counterculture waned, what was once clothing of defiance became mainstream.

13. Sec. 1 Students and the Counterculture • 4. During the 1960s, the distinction between traditional art & popular art, or pop art, ended. • Pop art took its subject matter from popular culture, using photographs, comics, advertisements, and brand-name products. • The new generation of music added to the rift between parents and youth. • Musicians like the Beatles, Bob Dylan, and Janis Joplin used lyrics to describe the fears and hopes of the new generation. The master of the electrically amplified guitar, Jimi Hendrix, gained stardom after returning to the United States from Great Britain

14. Sec. 1 Students and the Counterculture • In August 1969, one of the first outdoor festivals was held in upstate New York— Woodstock, to celebrate the counterculture’s way of life

15. Sec. 2 The Feminist Movement • I. A Renewed Women’s Movement • 1. A new feminist movement began in the 1960s. Feminism, the belief that men and women should be equal politically, economically, and socially, began as early as the 1920s. • With the onset of World War II, women joined the nation’s workforce as many men went off to fight the war. • When the soldiers returned after the war, many women lost their jobs.

16. Sec. 2 The Feminist Movement • 2. Women gradually returned to the labor market, and by 1960 made up almost one-third of the nation’s workforce. • By the early 1960s, women became increasingly resentful being shut out of higher-paying professions. • As more women entered the workforce, the protest for equality increased. • The women’s movement was brought back to life by a mass protest of women & a government initiative called the President’s Commission on the Status of Women.

17. Sec. 2 The Feminist Movement • 3. The group, headed by Eleanor Roosevelt, urged President Kennedy to study the status of women. • In 1963 the Equal Pay Act was passed, outlawing paying men more than women for the same job. 4. In 1963 Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique stirred up women all across the country. • For the book, she traveled around the country interviewing women who had graduated with her from Smith College in 1942.

18. Sec. 2 The Feminist Movement • Friedan found that while women reported that they had everything they could want, they still felt unfulfilled. • The book became a bestseller. • Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act outlawed job discrimination. • It became the legal basis for advances by the women’s movement. • Attitudes about what was proper women’s work took time to change.

19. Video

20. Sec. 2 The Feminist Movement In June 1966, Betty Friedan felt it was time for a national women’s organization to promote women into mainstream America. The group was named the National Organization for Women (NOW). It responded to many issues facing women. It demanded greater educational opportunities for women and denounced the exclusion of women from certain professions and political positions. In 1972, Ms. was founded by Gloria Steinem to keep female readers informed about women’s issues.

21. Sec. 2 The Feminist Movement • II. Successes and Failures • 1. The women’s movement experienced many successes and failures as it fought for women’s rights. • In 1972 Congress passed the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), which protected against discrimination based on gender. “Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the U.S. or by any State on account of sex.” • In order for it to become part of the Constitution, 38 states had to ratify it.

22. Sec. 2 The Feminist Movement • 2. Opposition to the ERA amendment began to grow as many saw the act as a threat to traditional American values and social patterns. • Phyllis Schlafly, one of the most vocal critics of the amendment, organized a national Stop-ERA campaign. • The amendment failed to be ratified by 38 states and finally died in 1982.

23. Sec. 2 The Feminist Movement • 3. An important success was greater equality for women in the educational system. • Lawmakers enacted federal legislation banning sex discrimination in education. • In 1972 Congress passed the Educational Amendments. • One of the sections, Title IX, prohibited federally funded schools from discriminating against girls in nearly all aspects of their operations, from admissions to athletics. • Implementation of Title IX was slow at many schools and women still had to struggle for equality.

24. Sec. 2 The Feminist Movement • 4. By the late 1960s, some states began adopting liberal abortion laws regarding a woman’s mental health or in the case of rape or incest. • The biggest change came with the 1973 Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade. • The Supreme Court ruled that state governments could no longer regulate abortion during the first three months of pregnancy, a time within a woman’s constitutional right to privacy. • This gave rise to the right-to-life movement, whose members considered abortion morally wrong.

25. Sec. 3 Latino Americans Organize • I. Latinos Migrate North • 1. In 1910 the Mexican Revolution began & the resulting conflict led to a wave of emigration from Mexico that lasted more than a decade. • Mexicans faced discrimination dating back to the 18th century when English-speaking settlers built around the older Spanish-speaking district. • Residential discrimination continued in the 20th century with ethnic discrimination. • During World War II, labor shortages in the Southwest led to the creation of the Bracero Program.

26. Sec. 3 Latino Americans Organize • 2. Following the war, illegal immigration increased. • In 1954 Eisenhower’s administration started a program intended to deport illegal Latino immigrants. • In the decade following Castro’s take over in Cuba, more than 350,000 Cuban immigrants came to America; mostly Florida— in the Miami region. • Most were middle class or affluent & were viewed as political refugees.

27. Sec. 3 Latino Americans Organize • II. Latinos Organize • 1. Latinos formed several organizations to work for equal rights & fair treatment. • The League of United Latin American Citizens was formed in 1929 to fight discrimination against persons or Latin American ancestry. • In 1947, Mendez v. Westminster, the Court ruled against school segregation in California. • In 1954, Hernandez v. Texas, the Court ended the exclusion of Mexican Americans from juries in Texas.

28. Sec. 3 Latino Americans Organize • 2. The American GI Forum was founded to protect the rights of Mexican American veterans. • Following W.W. II, Senator Johnson helped with the funeral arrangements for a Mexican American soldier who was killed in W.W. II.

29. Sec. 3 Latino Americans Organize • III. Protests and Progress • 1. By the late 1960s, 9 million Hispanic Americans lived in the United States. • Their reasons for coming to America ranged from economic opportunities, government oppression, and to escape poverty and war. • Hispanic Americans faced the same prejudice as other immigrant groups and began to organize their own protest movement.

30. Sec. 3 Latino Americans Organize • 2. In the early 1960s, César Chávez and Dolores Huerta organized two groups that fought for the rights of farmworkers. • In 1965, after employers would not respond to worker demands, the groups organized a boycott of table grapes and combined into one group, the United Farm Workers. • The boycott ended in 1970, when grape growers finally agreed to raise wages and improve working conditions.

31. Sec. 3 Latino Americans Organize • 3. In 1967 college students in Texas led by José Angel Gutiérrez founded the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) to fight discrimination in education.

32. Sec. 3 Latino Americans Organize • 4. In 1969 Gutiérrez organized a new political party in Texas called La RazaUnida, or “the United People.” • An issue promoted by Hispanic students and political leaders was bilingualism, the practice of teaching immigrant students in their own language while they also learned English. • This issue has become politically controversial with many Americans worried that bilingualism will make it more difficult for Latino immigrants to assimilate.