Chapter 32: Cultural and Social Change in the 1960s

TIMELINE

1960	Joan Baez’s first record becomes a hit, and the Folk Revival takes off
1962	Port Huron Statement of Students for a Democratic Society is written  • “Blowin’ in the Wind” is written by Bob Dylan  • Pete Seeger’s “If I Had a Hammer” becomes a hit for Peter, Paul, and Mary
1964	Free Speech Movement (FSM) organized at the University of California, Berkeley  • Beatles appear on The Ed Sullivan Show
1965	“Like a Rolling Stone” becomes a big hit for Bob Dylan  • “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” becomes a big hit for the Rolling Stones  • “Tracks of My Tears” becomes a big hit for Smokey Robinson
1966	Black Panther Party founded  • “United Farm Workers sign first contract
1967	Summer of Love takes place
1968	SDS sponsors a protest at Columbia University, where more than 700 are arrested  • Demonstrations held at Chicago Democratic Convention
1969	Woodstock Festival takes place
1973	Stand-off at Wounded Knee led by American Indian Movement (AIM)

IMPORTANT PEOPLE, PLACES, EVENTS, AND CONCEPTS

American Indian Movement

Cesar Chavez

“Freedom Now!”

hippies

Motown

The Rolling Stones

“Turn on, tune in, drop out”

Yippies

Joan Baez

John Coltrane

Erich Fromm

Abbie Hoffman

Huey Newton

Mario Savio

United Farm Workers of America

The Beatles

Bob Dylan

Paul Goodman

Timothy Leary

Port Huron Statement

Ravi Shankar

Weathermen

Black Panthers

Free Speech Movement

Haight-Ashbury

“Let the People Decide”

psychedelic rock

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)

Woodstock

“There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can’t take part…. You’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers … and you’ve got to make it stop. And you’ve got to indicate to the people who run it … that unless you’re free, the machine will be prevented from working at all!”

—Mario Savio, Berkeley, California, 1964

INTRODUCTION

The protesters of the 1960s were ordinary people who were agents of change. To understand the decade, we must understand their origins and the nature of their mission. Underlying the optimism of the youth was the postwar boom and its contrast with the Depression culture of their parents. The key was a new sense that society was in flux and the baby boomers, the largest generation ever, could direct its development. Some were moved by John Kennedy’s words, “… ask what you can do for your country,” but many others regarded “Freedom Now!” of the SNCC, “Let the People Decide” of the SDS, or “Turn on, Tune in, Drop out” of Timothy Leary as the paths to follow.

THE POLITICAL ACTIVISTS

Moral and Intellectual Roots

The roots of protests were moral, intellectual, and cultural. The moral roots came from the actions and purposes of the Civil Rights Movement. The intellectual sources came from the analyses of four main thinkers. In The Power Elite (1956), C. Wright Mills contended that the United States was a class society controlled by a small group of moneyed men. In Contours of American History (1961), William Appleman Williams argued that not only had America always been undemocratic, it had also been imperialist. Paul Goodman, in Growing Up Absurd (1960), and Erich Fromm, in The Sane Society (1955) and The Art of Loving (1956), gave psychological permission to the baby boomers to express their authentic (natural) feelings against what they saw as a puritanic and shallow capitalist society in which everything was for sale. The four writers encouraged free expression, both intellectually and sexually, and advocated useful (productive) work that would build community cohesion and provide opportunities for all to grow.

Cultural Roots

The cultural roots of the 1960s were in the hipster world of jazz and blues. The many uses of man—for “you” or as a substitute for “lord”—are familiar examples. The casual acceptance of marijuana as a recreational drug went as far back as the 1920s, when Louis Armstrong’s smoking habits became public. The world of the Beats, which was derived from the cool jazz lifestyle, came into the ’60s through Allen Ginsberg’s poem “Howl” (1955) and Jack Kerouac’s novel On the Road (1951). Finally, Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception (1954) introduced hallucinogenic drugs to the baby boomers.

POLITICAL ORGANIZATIONS

Students for a Democratic Society

The founding document of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) was the Port Huron Statement (1962), which, like Paul Goodman, called for “educative … creative work” that would help realize humanity’s potential for “self-direction and self-understanding.” SDS wanted to “let the people decide” in both the economic and political spheres. Tom Hayden and Paul Potter, early leaders of SDS, watched in amazement as their group of fewer than 100 students from the University of Michigan seemed to grow by itself into an organization of 142,000 by 1967. They called SDS a New Left organization to differentiate themselves from the communist and socialist organizations of the 1930s–1950s that had a heritage of Stalinism and old disputes that never seemed to be resolved. They mobilized on campuses and organized for community development in Cleveland, Ohio, and Newark, New Jersey. When the Vietnam War did not end in response to their demonstrations, some members of the leadership called for violence against what they called the “monster United States war machine,” splitting SDS into factions in June 1969. One splinter group was the Weathermen, who decided to become terrorists in America to save the world from more Vietnams. They derived their name from a line by Bob Dylan: “You don’t need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.” Four Weathermen died in an explosion in a townhouse in Greenwich Village, New York City. SDS terrorism died with them.

The Free Speech Movement

The Free Speech Movement of the University of California at Berkeley grew directly out of civil rights demonstrations at hotels in San Francisco. The university administration suspended some students for distributing pro-demonstration literature on campus. In protest, hundreds of students took over the main classroom building. This signaled a new era: They were not only fighting for the right to express themselves politically, but they were also demanding to be treated with respect. The chancellor, Clark Kerr, had called the university a “huge machine.” However, Mario Savio, a philosophy graduate student, in a famous speech, said he was so “sick at heart” at the repression of his ideas and actions that he was willing to put his “body upon the gears and upon the wheels, upon the levers … to make it stop” until he was free. This inspired students all over the country to take power into their own hands and to shape their schools and the society to their ideals. The Free Speech Movement of 1964 grew into an antiwar organization called theVietnam Day Committee (VDC) (see chapter 31 on the Vietnam War).

Yippies

The gifted activist and comedian Abbie Hoffman and his partner Jerry Rubin organized a group of anarchists to oppose the war in Vietnam and the stodgy-minded conformity of consumer culture. These Yippies (Youth International Party) poured garbage bags full of dollar bills from the balcony onto the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. They also protested against the war by marching with pictures of Lyndon Johnson upside down. Hoffman wrote Steal This Book in 1971.

Black Panthers

The Black Panthers of Oakland, California, were the most contradictory of all the organizations of the 1960s. They were an inspiration to many white and African American radicals because they seemed ready to put their lives on the line. Huey Newton, Bobby Seale, and Eldridge Cleaver were all strong personalities who carried unconcealed weapons. They demanded a socialist America that would protect all its citizens from violence and poverty. In the meantime, they would protect their community and provide free breakfasts for poor African American children so they could go to school and learn. Their speeches were long harangues, serious and hilarious by turns. Some of the Black Panthers were also selling heroin or were involved with other serious crime.

United Farm Workers and the American Indian Movement

Cesar Chavez organized Chicano (Mexican) migrant farm workers in California. They formed a union, the United Farm Workers of America (1966), and called for boycotts of grapes and lettuce.

Dennis Banks, a Chippewa, and Russell Means, a Sioux, led the American Indian Movement to obtain equal rights for Native Americans. They led a protest at the historic site of the Wounded Knee Massacre (1889) in 1973.

CURRENTS IN HISTORY WRITING

The ideas of the 1960s influenced historians: They now discussed history in terms of change caused by conflict and the actions of ordinary people. This is called conflict historiography. Everything no longer “turned out for the best” in their view, and not everyone agreed with the presidents. Slavery and the lives of African Americans, women, and minorities were treated much more extensively.

MUSIC

Motown

Founded in Detroit, The Motown record company was owned and operated by Barry Gordy, a black entrepreneur. Its distinct Motown sound of Smokey Robinson’s “Tracks of My Tears” and the Supremes’ “Stop in the Name of Love,” combined with the Memphis sound of Otis Redding’s “Try a Little Tenderness” and Wilson Pickett’s “Mustang Sally,” produced a constant stream of hits.

Joan Baez and Bob Dylan

Joan Baez was the 19-year-old symbol of the Folk Revival. Her crystalline voice made converts by the thousands from 1958 to 1961. Her albums were best sellers; other popular and more mainstream successes included Peter, Paul, and Mary; the Kingston Trio; and, later, Bob Dylan. Dylan had studied folk, blues, rock, and Ginsberg and Kerouac. He absorbed all these influences and churned out songs and poems concerning current events, as well as his personal relationships. Dylan’s two most famous songs were “Blowin’ in the Wind,” about the ills of racism and war (which became a big hit when Peter, Paul, and Mary sang it in 1963), and “Like a Rolling Stone” (which was his first folk-influenced rock hit). “Like a Rolling Stone” was a description of how hard it is to make choices for yourself when you have no one to take care of you.

The Beatles and the Rolling Stones

In 1964, the British group the Beatles played on The Ed Sullivan Show, a television variety program. Their appearance was a teen sensation, but the Beatles became a phenomenon unlike any other group of teen idols. They developed a musical and intellectual depth far beyond their initial impression. From “I Want to Hold Your Hand,” a simple love song, to “Eleanor Rigby,” an ominous tune about a lonely old lady played with quirky rhythms on cellos and violins, the Beatles opened up a wide new space for popular music, taking their gravity from Dylan and their music from folk and the blues.

The blues singer Muddy Waters received widespread recognition only after British rock star Mick Jagger explained that he had named his band the Rolling Stones after one of Waters’s songs. The Stones played a raw kind of rock that was extremely intense, like the blues, and was often tinged with a violence and hostility that most of the Beatles’ songs lacked. The sexual references in “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” (1965) and the dark references in “Street Fighting Man” or “Sympathy for the Devil” (1968) were anthems for the Weathermen. Their music helped set the tone for a knifing by a member of the Hell’s Angels motorcycle gang at an outdoor concert in Altamont, California, in 1969.

Ravi Shankar, John Coltrane, and Psychedelic Music

Interest in Eastern philosophy extended to a fascination when the classical music of India was brought to America by the master musician Ravi Shankar. The jazz virtuoso and innovator John Coltrane was heavily influenced by Indian music. His successive recordings of the showtune “My Favorite Things” from 1960 to his death in 1967 show a reach for meaning through his music similar to those who seek justice or personal truth. Lastly, rock and roll reflected the drug experience in psychedelic rock through such songs as the Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” Jimmy Hendrix’s “Purple Haze,” and the lengthy improvisations of the Grateful Dead.

Monterey and Woodstock

In 1967 and 1969, two immense gatherings of music lovers occurred in Monterey, California, and Woodstock, New York, respectively. The first was an outdoor concert at which British and American white rock stars played along with Jimmy Hendrix, Otis Redding, and Ravi Shankar. Woodstock was a concert in which drugs and nudity were prevalent. So many hundreds of thousands of people showed up that it was constantly on the verge of chaos. The fact that no one died has been attributed either to the magic of the ’60s or to sheer luck.

HIPPIES

The hippies, who followed the LSD guru (leader) Timothy Leary, were readers of the Eastern philosophies of Hinduism, Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, and Taoism. In The Way of Zen (1958), Alan Watts explained the thinking of the East that emphasized reaching inner peace (contentment) through meditation and spontaneous expression. In an analysis that criticized the Judeo-Christian tradition, Watts argued that instead of being separate from nature and each other, we are all one. Timothy Leary believed that LSD could create the experiences of self-knowledge and contentment that Eastern holy men sought. The hippies who followed him and his “Turn on, Tune in, Drop out” philosophy did just that: They dropped out of the competitive culture, dressed up in bright colors, tuned into their own feelings, and believed they could change the world by not participating. Some joined communes in which they tried to live simple lives on farms or as scavengers in cities. They held be-ins in San Francisco and New York City in which they experienced their togetherness in parks. The hippies flocked to a small San Francisco district called Haight-Ashbury in the summer of 1967, the Summer of Love. “Love is all you need,” chanted the Beatles.

SUMMARY

At the height of the protests, a “movement culture” developed; thousands of people would turn out for demonstrations in any city in the country. Those who participated in demonstrations experienced a sense of empowerment; they knew they were makers of history and agents of change. Hundreds of thousands of young people and their allies were listening to the same music, from Dylan to the Beatles, from Hendrix to the Stones. Everyone seemed to be dancing to Smokey Robinson. The movement lost its steam by the early ’70s: The war was not ending, but the draft was, so only those most committed to radical change were participating in antiwar activities. The music became less urgent and less spontaneous, and disco took over. But the culture of the country had been changed fundamentally. Now there were those who favored the changes in the 1960s and those who did not. New conflicts were on the way, while the war in Vietnam continued and equal opportunity was still not a reality.

•  Conflict historiography: Historiography is the study of how history is written. Historians of the 1950s—consensus historians—in general argued that America was the world’s great democracy that only did good in the world and had no conflicts at home. Largely due to the efforts of the Civil Rights and Antiwar Movements, the issues and facts about slavery, racial and gender discrimination, riots, radicals, etc. have been important parts of U.S. history curriculum in schools since the late 1960s and early 1970s. Similarly, while consensus historians of the 1950s emphasized compromise as the key characteristic of change in American history, conflict historians believe that change occurs through conflict between opposing forces.

•  New Left: Organizations, such as the underground press, Students for a Democratic Society and its offshoots, and women’s groups (like the Red Stockings), that were interested in social change but uninterested in the debates over whether to support Russia as a socialist country. These organizations did not require their followers to support the Stalinist practices of the communists; they were not explicitly socialist, even though many in the organizations were socialists. They tried to differentiate themselves from the debates over totalitarianism by claiming that America did not need a police state to enforce economic and political equality. They rejected the “old left” of Stalinism.

REVIEW QUESTIONS

1.   Which was the most important reason for the early growth of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) and the Free Speech Movement (FSM)?

(A)    Drugs

(B)    Government lies

(C)    The high divorce rate

(D)    Optimism caused by the postwar boom

(E)    The nuclear threat

2.   Which did the Beatles influence the LEAST?

(A)    Students For a Democratic Society (SDS)

(B)    American rock and roll

(C)    Hippies

(D)    Timothy Leary

(E)    Yippies

3.   Match the book and the author:

A)    Growing Up Absurd

B)    The Power Elite

C)    The Art of Loving

D)    The Way of Zen

E)    Steal This Book

1)    Alan Watts

2)    Abbie Hoffman

3)    Paul Goodman

4)    C. Wright Mills

5)    Eric Fromm

Answer choices:

(A)    A-3, B-4, C-5, E-2

(B)    B-4, C-1, D-4, E-2

(C)    B-5, C-1, D-3, E-2

(D)    A-5, B-4, D-1, E-2

(E)    B-4, C-3, D-1, E-2

4.   The key reason for the slowing of protests after 1971 was that

(A)    America was winning in Vietnam.

(B)    the government became more responsive.

(C)    the draft ended.

(D)    all the major battles had been won.

(E)    the government cracked down on protesters.

ANSWERS AND EXPLANATIONS

1.    D

The postwar boom created a sense of optimism that characterized the student movement. The nuclear threat was not as important. Lies and drugs did not come into play until later.

2.    A

SDS was a political organization; the Beatles did not encourage political action. The drugs and music of the other choices were closer to the Beatles’ ideas. The Yippies combined fantasy and politics and drugs.

3.    A

Paul Goodman wrote Growing up Absurd; C. Wright Mills wrote The Power Elite; Eric Fromm wrote The Art of Loving; Abbie Hoffman wrote Steal This Book. Alan Watts wrote The Way of Zen.

4.    C

When the draft wound down, so did the majority of protesters. America was never winning in Vietnam, Nixon increased the bombing so his moves toward peace were never apparent, the war had not ended by 1971, and government harassment had never stopped the protests.