The 1960’s
Luke Laubaugh
3-11-99
research paper
rough draft
The
1960’s was a decade that forever changed the culture and society of America. The
1960’s were widely known as the decade of peace
and love, not because the
world had become a utopia but, in my opinion,
because of the heavy use of the
popular hallucinogenic drugs by the
American youth. In reality minorities
were struggling to gain freedom
from segregation and thousands of American
soldiers and Vietnamese
civilians were being killed in the highly disputed
war in Vietnam.
On February 20, 1960 four black college freshmen from the
Negro
Agricultural and Technical College in Greensboro, North Carolina
quietly
walked into a restaurant and sat down at the lunch counter. They
were
protesting the Jim Crow custom that blacks could be served
while
standing up but not while they were sitting at the lunch counter.
The
students quietly sat there politely asking for service until closing
time.
The next morning they showed up again accompanied by twenty five
fellow
students. By the next week their sit down had been repeated in
fourteen
cities in five deep south states. In the weeks to follow many
new
protests arose. After a black woman was beaten with a baseball bat
in
Montgomery, Alabama, 1,000 blacks silently marched into the first
capital
of the Confederate states to sing and pray. Six hundred students from
two
colleges walked through the streets of Orangeburg, South Carolina
with
placards that exhibited phrases like "We Want Liberty" and
"Segregation
is Dead." By late June some kind of public place in over one
hundred and
fifty different cities across America had been
desegregated.
John F. Kennedy was never able to gain enough support to
pass a civil
rights bill during his short time in office, but Lyndon Johnson
drawing on
the Kennedy legacy and the support of the nation succeeded in
passing the
bill. The bill passed 71 to 19, four more votes than
required.
By early 1965 a new black leader had arose, whose name
was
Malcolm X. His gospel was hatred and his motto was; "If ballots
won’t
work, bullets will." Malcolm X was a former pimp, cocaine addict,
and
thief. He started a militant, all black group called the Black Panthers.
On
a bright Sunday in a ballroom in Manhattan in full view of 400
blacks
Malcolm was murdered. Three men casually walked down the aisle;
and
from eight feet opened fire with sawed-off double barreled
shotguns.
Malcolm was killed by a pair of point blank range shots to the
chest.
On March 12, 1965, U.S. Highway 80 was blocked by sixty
state
troopers who stood in a wall three deep 400 yards past the Edmund
Pettus
Bridge, which crosses the Alabama river. When black marchers
came
within 100 yards the troopers were ordered to put on their gas masks.
At
twenty five yards the marchers stopped. Seconds later the command"troopers
forward" was barked. The troopers moved in a solid wall
pushing back the
front marchers. At 75 yards the troopers were joined by
posse men and
deputies with tear gas canisters, in seconds the road was
swirling with
clouds of smoke. The mounted men brought out bull whips
and began beating the
marchers. Never in history had the American public
responded with such fury.
Over 15,000 thousand people marched in five
different cities across the
country.
On Sunday, March 21, 1965 a crowd of 3,400 marchers lead by
two
Nobel Peace Prize winners, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. and Ralph
Bunche,
departed from Selma on their four day march to Montgomery. They
were
accompanied by 2,900 military police, U.S. Marshals, and FBI agents.
The
goal of the march was to serve the governor with a petition
protesting
voter discrimination. When the crowd reached the capital the
governor
reneged and blandly told them "the capitol is closed
today."
By August of 1965 riots began to erupt in Los Angeles. At the
end
of one week there were 27 dead, almost 600 injured, 1,700 arrested,
and
over $100 million dollars worth of property damage. The riots
were
finally stopped when 5,000 national guardsmen were called in from
around
the country. No one actually knows what started the riots, but
some
blame it on the heat wave that was hitting Los Angels and others blame
it
on the irritation of the urban blacks because of their isolation
and
poverty.
By the end of 1966 the federal government was getting fed
up with
the lack of obedience by some school districts in the deep south that
were
refusing to desegregate schools. They decided to take action and cut
off
all federal funding to six more districts bringing the total to 37
southern
schools without funding. Though losing funding many schools were
still
segregating students. In Louisiana only 1 in 28 black students
attended
school with whites, 1 in 31 in Mississippi, and only 1 in 42 in
Alabama.
The Los Angeles ghetto of Watts plunged into anarchy in 1965
after
a black man named Marquette Frye was arrested for drunk driving.
After
six days of rioting ended a total of 35 were dead, 900 were injured,
and
there was millions of dollars worth of property damage. A
Cleveland
ghetto broke into rioting after a white bartender denied a glass of
ice
water to a black man. In Newark, New Jersey some of the most
violent
race riots broke out after a black cab driver was killed by
white
policemen. At the end of the week there were 21 dead, over 1,000
injured,
and at least 1,600 arrested. Property damage was once again in the
high
millions. By 1967 forty five were dead and property damage was up
to
almost one billion dollars. During the summer of 1967 riots intensified
in
Detroit. By the end of one week 41 were dead, 350 injured,
3,800
arrested, 5,000 homeless (mostly blacks), 1,300 buildings
completely
destroyed, and 2,700 businesses ransacked. Property damage reached
an
astonishing $500 million dollars.
It was a brisk spring night in
Memphis as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
stood on a second story balcony
discussing the next week’s march on
Washington with his colleagues.
Suddenly a single shot broke the silence
of the night air. King’s co-workers
thought it was some kind of bad joke
until they saw him lying on the ground
in a pool of blood with a bullet hole
torn through his neck. In response to
the shot some thirty Memphis police
converged on the building. Somehow,
possibly on purpose, all thirty
policemen missed the shooter. The weapon used
to kill King was a scope-
sighted 30.06 cal. Remington pump rifle. The range
from which the shot
was taken was a short 205 feet. After King’s murder
rioting took place in
scores of cities around the country.
The United
States had a simple yet bloody goal in Vietnam, to keep
the communists from
acquiring South Vietnam. The U.S. had three main
avenues to help South
Vietnam resist communist guerrilla attacks: 1) The
dispatch to South Vietnam
of U.S. operational personnel; 2) Reconnaissance missions along the border of
North and South Vietnam; 3)
Bomber strikes at Communist guerrilla bases.
The U.S. expected to win
the war with the Viet Cong within three years with
high but acceptable
causalities. In reality the U.S. lost the war and had a
casualty count of a
devastating 58,148 dead.
In August of 1969 a
historical music and arts fair in Bethel, New
York took place. It is
commonly known as "Woodstock." Over 400,000
people showed up at Woodstock,
most between the ages of 16 and 30.
Many were said to be attracted by the
all-star cast of top rock artists
that included Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix,
the Who, the Jefferson Airplane,
and Bob Dylan. To many adults of the time
Woodstock was simply a
freak out, a "monstrous Dionysian revel," where a
group of drugies got
together to drop acid and groove to hours of "amplified
cacophony."
In reality the impact Woodstock had on the youth culture can
hardly be
overestimated.
In closing,the 60’s was in one perspective, a
decade of peace and
love, but in another perspective a decade of war and
struggle.