The Expanding Civil Rights and Antiwar Movements and 1960s Counterculture

1. The Expanding Civil Rights and Antiwar Movements and 1960s Counterculture

2. All the notes you take need to help you answer the clarifying questions below. As you analyze and evaluate the information contained throughout this presentation you should be asking yourself the following questions: How did non-violent protests influence U.S. policy during the end of the Vietnam War? How did college students and musicians influence the counterculture? How was non-violent protest able to establish equal civil rights for all U.S. citizens? How and why did civil rights activists and protestors become more militant during the mid to late 1960s?

3. Martin Luther King Jr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Baptist minister and political activist who was the most famous leader of the American civil rights movement.  King won the Nobel Peace Prize before being assassinated in 1968.  For his promotion of non-violence and racial equality, King is considered a peacemaker and a martyr by many people around the world.  Martin Luther King's most influential and well-known speech was the I Have A Dream address at the so-called March on Washington in August of 1963.

4. Malcolm X Born Malcolm Little, Malcolm X was a Muslim Minister and National Spokesman for the Nation of Islam.  Malcolm X became one of the most prominent black nationalist leaders in the United States, and when murdered was considered by some as a martyr of Islam, and a champion of equality.  As a militant leader, Malcolm X advocated black pride, economic self-reliance, and identity politics. Malcolm X advocated equality By Any Means Necessary which contrasted starkly with the teachings of M.L.K. He ultimately rose to become a world renowned African American/Pan-Africanist and human rights activist.

5. Malcolm X: Letter to Martin Luther King (July 31, 1963)

6. The Black Panther Party The Black Panther Party was an African American civil-rights and self-defense organization, founded in 1966. The organization espoused a doctrine of armed resistance to societal oppression especially from police.  The group was founded on the principles of its Ten-Point Program. They also advocated an exemption from military service that would utilize African Americans to "fight and kill other people of color in the world who, like Black people, are being victimized by the White racist government of America."

7. The Black Panther Party The Black Panthers focused their rhetoric on revolutionary class struggle, taking many ideas from Maoism.  The party turned to the works of Marx, Lenin, and Mao to inform the manner in which it should organize, as a revolutionary cadre organization.  In consciously working toward such a revolution, they considered themselves the vanguard party, �committed to organizing support for a socialist revolution.�

8. The Black Panther Platform

9. Stokely Carmichael and Black Power Stokely Carmichael was a black activist and leader of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Black Panther Party.  Carmichael criticized both blacks and whites and advocated Black Power to �get smart.� He later became a black separatist and a Pan-Africanist.  Carmichael joined Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr and others to continue James Meredith's �March Against Fear� after his assassination.

10. Stokely Carmichael and Black Power Stokely was arrested during the march; on his release he gave his "Black Power" speech, urging black pride and independence. SNCC became more radical under his leadership.  He was critical of civil rights leaders that simply called for integration of African Americans into the existing institutions of white middle class culture.  Carmichael is credited with coining the phrase �institutional racism� (or structural racism or systemic racism).

11. Jack Kerouac Jack Kerouac was a novelist, writer, poet, artist, and part of the Beat Generation. The spontaneous, confessional prose style inspired others, including Tom Robbins, Richard Brautigan, Hunter S. Thompson, Ken Kesey, Tom Waits and Bob Dylan.  His writing reflects a desire to break free from society's mold and to find meaning in life.  His search led him to experiment with drugs and to study spiritual teachings such as Buddhism which was considered unusual for a non-Asian person.  His books are often credited as the catalyst for the 1960s counterculture.

12. Jack Kerouac, On the Road On the Road was published in 1957. This largely autobiographical work, based on the spontaneous road trips of Kerouac and his friends, is often considered the defining work of the Beat Generation that was so affected by jazz, poetry, and drug experiences.  As the story goes, On the Road was written in only 3 weeks in a burst of artistic fury, hammered out on one long scroll.

13. From On the Road

14. Allen Ginsberg Irwin Allen Ginsberg was an Beat poet best known for �Howl� (1956), a long poem about consumer society's negative human values.  Ginsberg formed a bridge between the Beat movement of the 1950s and the hippies of the 1960s, participating in the anti-war movement. Ginsberg's principal work, "Howl� is well known for its opening line: "I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness.� Many characters referenced in "Howl" destroyed themselves through substance abuse or a generally wild lifestyle.

15. Bob Dylan The 1963 release of The Freewheelin� Bob Dylan marked his emergence as one of the most original and poetic voices in the history of American popular music. The album included, �Blowin� in the Wind.� His next album, The Times They Are A-Changin�, firmly established Dylan as the definitive songwriter of the �60s protest movement.  By 1964, Dylan was playing 200 concerts annually, but he tired of his role as �the� folk singer-songwriter of the protest movement. Another Side of Bob Dylan was a much more personal, introspective collection, far less politically charged than previous efforts.

16. From Bob Dylan�s, �The Times They Are a Changing� (1964)

17. The Beatles The Beatles are held in high regard for their artistic achievements, their commercial success, and their ground-breaking role in popular music and culture.  Their early material fused elements of early rock 'n roll, pop, and R&B into a new form of popular Rock 'n Roll. They were instrumental in the development of 1960s musical styles, such as folk-rock, hard rock and psychedelia.  Their clothes, hairstyles, statements, and choice of instruments made them trend-setters, whilst their growing social awareness saw their influence extend into the social and cultural revolutions of the 1960s.

18. The Doors and Resistance/Defiance http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61m_Dm44RHA The Doors on Ed Sullivan http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iGQwAA3I-eQ&feature=related

19. Timothy Leary Timothy Francis Leary was an American writer, psychologist, computer software designer, and advocate of psychedelic drug research and use.  As a 1960s counterculture icon, he is most famous as a proponent of the therapeutic and spiritual benefits of LSD.  During the 1960s, he coined and popularized the catch phrase "Turn on, tune in, drop out."

20. Anti-War Demonstrations

21. Shock and Disillusionment in the Wake of the Tet Offensive As 1968 began, President Johnson and the military offered optimistic appraisals of the situation in Vietnam. January 30th, North Vietnamese and Vietcong troops launched a massive, unexpected offensive on the lunar New Year holiday of Tet. U.S. forces repelled enemy forces, but public support for the war plummeted as Americans recognized the inevitability of stalemate. 

22. Walter Cronkite�s �We are Mired in Stalemate� Broadcast (February 27, 1968)

23. The 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago The events of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago illustrated the depth of the divisions in the Party and society at large when it erupted into violence. Anti-war activists planned a massive demonstration outside convention venues. Chicago's mayor refused all parade permits and mobilized over 20,000 law enforcement personnel. On August 28, as demonstrators marched toward the convention, a "police riot" occurred as officers fired tear gas and beat protesters and reporters. Hubert Humphrey won the nomination, but the party was hopelessly fractured.

24. John Kerry and Vietnam Veterans Against the War Future Senator & Presidential candidate John Kerry served in the Navy during the Vietnam War. He was awarded the Silver Star, Bronze Star, and three Purple Hearts. Kerry joined the Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). In 1971, Kerry became the first Vietnam veteran to testify before Congress. He asked, "[H]ow do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake?" 

25. John Kerry and Vietnam Veterans Against the War The day after this testimony, Kerry participated in a demonstration with 800 other veterans. They threw their medals and ribbons over a fence at the front steps of the U.S. Capitol building. Kerry explained, "I'm not doing this for any violent reasons, but for peace and justice, and to try and make this country wake up once and for all."

26. Jane Fonda [Hanoi Jane]and Vietnam Jane Fonda is an Oscar-winning actor, writer, producer, and political activist. She is credited with exposing Nixon's potential strategy of bombing the dikes in Vietnam. United Nations ambassador George H. W. Bush. Bush intended to provide evidence of US innocence, but Fonda released filmed evidence. In Vietnam, Fonda was photographed multiple times seated on an anti-aircraft battery used against American aircrews. She participated in radio broadcasts on behalf of the Communist regime, asking US aircrews to turn around without dropping their bombs.

27. Jane Fonda and Vietnam Opposition to the war was building, but Fonda's actions in 1972 were widely perceived as an unpatriotic display of aid and comfort to the enemy, with some even characterizing it as treason. Her detractors labeled her Hanoi Jane, comparing her to war propagandists Tokyo Rose and Hanoi Hannah.

28. 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago Hundreds of anti-war protestors converged on the presidential nominating convention at Chicago in 1968. Chicago�s Mayor Daley ordered police to disperse protestors using batons and clubs.

30. Reexamining the Clarifying question How did non-violent protests influence U.S. policy during the end of the Vietnam War? How did college students and musicians influence the counterculture? How was non-violent protest able to establish equal civil rights for all U.S. citizens? How and why did civil rights activists and protestors become more militant during the mid to late 1960s?