1960's

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• Refers to a cultural phenomenon that developed first in the United States and United Kingdom and spread throughout much of the Western world between the early 1960s and the early 1970s
• The movement gained momentum and became revolutionary during the US government's extensive military intervention in Vietnam
• As the 1960s progressed, widespread tensions developed in society that tended to flow along generational lines regarding the war in Vietnam, race relations, human sexuality, women's rights, traditional modes of authority, experimentation with psychoactive drugs, and differing interpretations of the American Dream.

HIPPIES

• After the January 14, 1967 Human Be-In in San Francisco organized by artist Michael Bowen, the media's attention on culture was fully activated. In 1967 Scott McKenzie's rendition of the song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)" brought as many as 100,000 young people from all over the world to celebrate San Francisco's "Summer of Love."
• San Francisco's flower children or "hippies" adopted new styles of dress, experimented with psychedelic drugs, lived communally and developed a vibrant music scene.
• As members of the hippie movement grew older and moderated their lives and their views, and especially after US involvement in the Vietnam War ended in the mid-1970s, the counterculture was largely absorbed by the mainstream, leaving a lasting impact on philosophy, morality, music, art, alternative health and diet, lifestyle and fashion.

THE GENERATION GAP

• The "Generation Gap," Is divided in worldview between the old and young.
• A large measure of the generationalof the 1960s and early 1970s was born of rapidly evolving fashion and hairstyle trends that were readily adopted by the young, but often misunderstood and ridiculed by the old.
• These included the wearing of very long hair by men, the wearing of natural or "Afro" hairstyles by Blacks, the donning of revealing clothing by women in public, and the mainstreaming of the psychedelic clothing and regalia of the short-lived hippie culture.
• Ractical and comfortable casual apparel, namely updated forms of T-shirts (often tie-dyed, or emblazoned with political or advertising statements), and Levi Strauss-branded blue denim jeans became the enduring uniform of the generation.
• The fashion dominance of the counterculture effectively ended with the rise of the Disco and Punk Rock eras in the later 1970s, even as the global popularity of T-shirts and Levis has continued to grow.

Sociological issues

• Seeking to resolve Constitutional civil rights illegalities, especially regarding general racial segregation, longstanding disfranchisement of blacks in the South by white-dominated state government, and racial discrimination in jobs and in housing in the North.
• On college and university campuses, student activists fought for the right to exercise their basic Constitutional rights, especially freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.
• Many counterculture activists became newly aware of the plight of the poor, and community organizers fought for the funding of anti-poverty programs, particularly within inner city areas in the United States.
• Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech, was given in front of the Lincoln Memorial during the 1963 March on Washington.

Law enforcement

• The often violent confrontations between college students and law enforcement officials became one of the key points of the era.
• Many younger people began to show deep distrust of police, and terms such as "fuzz" and "pig" as derogatory euphemisms for police reappeared, and became key words within the counterculture lexicon.
• The distrust of police was based not only on fear of police brutality during political protests, but also on generalized police corruption - especially police manufacture of false evidence, and outright entrapment, in drug cases.
• The social tension between the counterculture and law enforcement reached the breaking point in many notable cases: the Columbia University protests of 1968 in New York City, the 1968 Democratic National Convention protests in Chicago, the arrest and imprisonment of John Sinclair in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the Kent State shootings at Kent State University in Ohio.

The Vietnam War

• Was arguably the most important factors contributing to the rise of the larger counterculture movement.
• Enormous war protests consisting of thousands of mostly younger people in every major US city effectively united millions against the war, and against the war policy that prevailed under five congresses and during two presidential administrations.
• The counterculture era essentially commenced in earnest with the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy. It ended with the termination of US combat military involvement in the communist insurgencies of Southeast Asia and the end of the military draft in 1973, and ultimately with the resignation of disgraced President Richard M. Nixon in August, 1974.
• Many key movements were born of, or were advanced within, the counterculture of the 1960s. Each movement is relevant to the larger era.

Anti-nuclear movement

• The application of nuclear technology, both as a source of energy and as an instrument of war, has been controversial.
• Scientists and diplomats have debated nuclear weapons policy since before the atomic bombing of Hiroshima in 1945.
• The public became concerned about nuclear weapons testing from about 1954, following extensive nuclear testing in the Pacific.
• In 1961, at the height of the Cold War, about 50,000 women brought together by Women Strike for Peace marched in 60 cities in the United States to demonstrate against nuclear weapons.
• Some local opposition to nuclear power emerged in the early 1960s, and in the late 1960s some members of the scientific community began to express their concerns.

Marijuana, LSD, and other recreational drugs

• During the 1960s, LSD users evolved and expanded into a subculture that extolled the mystical and religious symbolism often engendered by the drug's powerful effects. Also advocating its use as a method of raising consciousness.
• Some psychedelic rock musicians such as the Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, The Doors, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane and the Beatles soon attracted a great deal of publicity, generating further interest in LSD.
• Experimentation with LSD, peyote, psilocybin mushrooms, MDA, marijuana, and other psychedelic drugs became a major component of 1960s counterculture.
• This influenced philosophy, art, music and styles of dress.

GAY LIBERATION MOVEMENT

• The Stonewall riots were a series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations against a police raid that took place in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969.
• It took place at the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City. (Shown in background)
• This is frequently cited as the first instance in US history when people in the gay community fought back against a government-sponsored system that persecuted sexual minorities.
• This had became the defining event that marked the start of the Gay rights movement in the United States and around the world.

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