The Expanding Civil Rights and Antiwar Movements and 1960s Counterculture

1
The Expanding Civil Rights and Antiwar Movements
and 1960s Counterculture
2
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 is "I Have A Dream."

3
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.
• He ultimately rose to become a world renowned
  African American/Pan-Africanist and human rights
  activist.

4
Malcolm X Letter to Martin Luther King (July 31,
1963)
The present racial crisis in this country carries
within it powerful destructive ingredients that
may soon erupt into an uncontrollable explosion.
. A United Front involving all Negro factions,
elements and their leaders is absolutely
necessary. A racial explosion is more
destructive than a nuclear explosion. We are
inviting several Negro leaders to give their
analysis of the present race problem and also
their solution. There will be no debating,
arguing, criticizing, or condemning. I will
moderate the meeting and guarantee order and
courtesy for all speakers. This rally is designed
not only to reflect the spirit of unity, but it
will give you a chance to present your views to
the largest and most explosive elements in
Metropolitan New York.
5
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.
• 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."

Bobby Seale (left) and Huey Newton (right), Two
of the Founders of the Black Panthers
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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.

7
The Black Panther Platform

• We want freedom. We want power to determine the
  destiny of our Black Community.
• We want full employment for our people.
• We want an end to the robbery by the white man of
  our Black Community.
• We want decent housing, fit for shelter of human
  beings.
• We want education that exposes the true nature
  of this decadent American society. We want
  education that teaches us our true history and
  our role in the present-day society
• We want all black men to be exempt from military
  service.
• We want an immediate end to police brutality and
  murder of black people.
• We want freedom for all black men held in
  prisons and jails.
• We want all black people when brought to trial to
  be tried in court by a jury of their peer group
  or people from their black communities
• We want land, bread, housing, education,
  clothing, justice and peace. And a United
  Nations-supervised plebiscite to be held
  throughout the black colony in which only black
  colonial subjects will be allowed to participate
  for the purpose of determining the will of black
  people as to their national destiny

8
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.
• 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.

9
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 for coining the phrase
  institutional racism (or structural racism or
  systemic racism).

Tommie Smith and John Carlos, American athletes
at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, displaying
the Black Power Salute
10
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.
• His books are often credited as the catalyst for
  the 1960s counterculture.

11
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.

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From On the Road
Stranger flowers yet--for as the Negro alto mused
over everyone's head with dignity, the young,
tall, slender, blond kid from Curtis Street,
Denver, jeans and studded belt, sucked on his
mouthpiece while waiting for the others to
finish and when they did he started, and you had
to look around to see where the solo was coming
from, for it came from angelical smiling lips
upon the mouthpiece and it was a soft, sweet,
fairy-tale solo on an alto. Lonely as America, a
throatpierced sound in the night.
13
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.

14
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.

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From Bob Dylans, The Times They Are a Changing
(1964)
Come gather 'round peopleWherever you roamAnd
admit that the watersAround you have grownAnd
accept it that soonYou'll be drenched to the
bone.If your time to youIs worth savin'Then
you better start swimmin'Or you'll sink like a
stoneFor the times they are a-changin'.
Come writers and criticsWho prophesize with your
penAnd keep your eyes wideThe chance won't come
againAnd don't speak too soonFor the wheel's
still in spinAnd there's no tellin' whoThat
it's namin'.For the loser nowWill be later to
winFor the times they are a-changin'.
Come senators, congressmenPlease heed the
callDon't stand in the doorwayDon't block up
the hallFor he that gets hurtWill be he who has
stalledThere's a battle outsideAnd it is
ragin'.It'll soon shake your windowsAnd rattle
your wallsFor the times they are a-changin'.
16
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 RB 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.

17
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."

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Anti-War Demonstrations
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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.

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Walter Cronkites We are Mired in Stalemate
Broadcast (February 27, 1968)
To say that we are closer to victory today is to
believe, in the face of the evidence, the
optimists who have been wrong in the past. To
suggest we are on the edge of defeat is to yield
to unreasonable pessimism. To say that we are
mired in stalemate seems the only realistic, yet
unsatisfactory, conclusion. On the off chance
that military and political analysts are right,
in the next few months we must test the enemy's
intentions, in case this is indeed his last big
gasp before negotiations. But it is increasingly
clear to this reporter that the only rational way
out then will be to negotiate, not as victors,
but as an honorable people who lived up to their
pledge to defend democracy, and did the best they
could.
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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.

22
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, "How 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?"

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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."

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Jane Fonda 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.

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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.

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