Presentation20

The Politics of Protest

Chapter 201960-1980

A Review of the Vietnam Protest

During the hippie movement started in the 1960’s, 250,000 anti-war protestors gathered in Washington D.C. It was the largest protest to occur during the Vietnam war. Many Americans were against the war in Vietnam mainly because 48,700 American soldiers died including 4 Students. They did not like the idea that America got involved in the Vietnam War.

The Radical Left Turns Vietnam Sour

Opposition to the war grew with increased U.S. involvement. Leftist college students, member of traditional pacifist religious groups, long-time peace activists, and citizens of all ages opposed the conflict. Some were motivated by fear of being drafted, others out of commitment, some just joined the crowd, and a small minority became revolutionaries who favored a victory by Ho Chi Minh and a radical restructuring of U.S. society. College campuses became focal points for rallies and “teach-ins”—lengthy series of speeches attacking the war. Marches on Washington began in 1971. Suspecting that the peace movement was infiltrated by Communists, President Johnson ordered the FBI to investigate and the CIA to conduct an illegal domestic infiltration, but they proved only that the radicalism was homegrown. Although the antiwar movement was frequently associated with the young, support for the war was actually highest in the age group 20-29. The effectiveness of the movement is still debated. It clearly boosted North Vietnamese morale; Hanoi watched it closely and believed that ultimately America’s spirit would fall victim to attrition, but the Communists were prepared to resist indefinitely anyway. The movement probably played a role in convincing Lyndon Johnson not to run for reelection in 1968, and an even larger role in the subsequent victory of Richard Nixon over the Democrat Hubert Humphrey. It may ultimately have helped set the parameters for the conflict and prevented an even wider war. Certainly its presence was an indication of the increasingly divisive effects of war on U.S. society.

U.S. actress Jane Fonda, aka Hanoi Jane, tours North Vietnam, during which she is photographed sitting on a North Vietnamese anti-aircraft gun.

2004 Presidential candidate- “Swift boat” John Kerry

“Hanoi Jane” Fonda

New Technology and Cultural

Trends

Salk and the SolutionPoliomyelitis has sometimes been considered a disease of developed nations, where improved hygiene has reduced the chances of contact with the virus during infancy and hence also reduced the protection provided by maternal antibodies to the disease, but in fact poliomyelitis’ worldwide rates of occurrence show no selectivity. The World Health Organization is conducting an ongoing immunization program against poliomyelitis and other common childhood diseases. In the United States, development by Jonas Salk (injection) and Albert Sabin (oral) in the 1950s of a vaccine for all three strains of poliovirus brought about a dramatic reduction in the incidence of the disease. In the 1980s, concern was aroused when long-term survivors of the disease began reporting various symptoms of joint and muscle pain, fatigue, respiratory problems, and sometimes an increasing loss of muscle strength (postpolio muscular atrophy). Post-polio syndrome is apparently related to a destabilizing of overburdened motor neurons. Treatment for this condition includes physical and occupational therapy.

Rock & Roll

Rock and roll has been described as a merger of country music and rhythm and blues, but, if it were that simple, it would have existed long before it burst into the national consciousness. The seeds of the music had been in place for decades, but they flowered in the mid-1950’s when nourished by a volatile mix of black culture and white spending power. Black vocal groups such as the Dominoes and the Spaniels began combining gospel-style harmonies and call-and-response singing with earthy subject matter and more aggressive rhythm-and-blues rhythms. Heralding this new sound were disc jockeys such as Alan Freed of Cleveland, OH, Dewey Phillips of Memphis, TN, and William (“Hoss”) Allen of WLAC in Nashville, TN—who created rock-and-roll radio by playing hard-driving rhythm and blues and raunchy blues records that introduced white suburban teenagers to a culture that sounded more exotic, thrilling, and illicit than anything they had ever known. In 1954, that sound coalesced around an image; that of a handsome white singer, Elvis Presley, who sounded like a black man.

The Beatles’ triumphant arrival in New York City on 7 Feb 1964, opened America’s doors to a wealth of British musical talent. What followed would be called—with historical condescension by the willingly reconquered colony—the second British Invasion. Like their transatlantic counterparts in the 1950’s, British youth heard their future in the frantic beats and suggestive lyrics of American rock and roll. But initial attempts to replicate it failed. Rock swept Britain. By 1964, Greater London could claim the Rolling Stones, the

Rock & Roll (cont’d)Yardbirds, the Who, the Kinks, the Pretty Things, Dusty Springfield, the Dave Clark Five, Peter and Gordon, Chad and Jeremy, and Manfred Mann. Manchester had the Hollies, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, Freddie and the Dreamers, and Herman’s Hermits, Newcastle had the Animals. And Birmingham had the Spencer Davis Group (featuring Steve Winwood) and the Moody Blues. Bands sprang up from Belfast (Them, with Van Morrison) to St. Albans (the Zombies), with more inventive artists arriving to keep the styles moving forward, including the Small Faces, the Move, the Creation, the Troggs, Donovan, the Walker Brothers, and John’s Children.

The Hippie Counterculture

“Make love, not war,” for which they were sometimes called “flower children” became their mantra. They promoted openness and tolerance as an alternative to the restrictions and regimentation they saw in middle-class society. Hippies often practiced open sexual relationships and lived in various types of family groups (communes). They commonly sought spiritual guidance from sources outside the Judeo-Christian tradition, particularly Buddhism and other Eastern religions, and sometimes in various combinations. Astrology was popular, and the period was often referred to as the Age of Aquarius. Hippies promoted the recreational use of hallucinogenic drugs, particularly marijuana and LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), in so-called head trips, justifying the practice as a way of expanding consciousness.

Both folk and rock music were an integral part of hippie culture. Singers such as Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and groups such as the Beatles, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Rolling Stones were among those clearly identified with the movement.

The musical “Hair,” a celebration of the hippie lifestyle, opened on Broadway in 1968, and the film Easy Rider, which reflected hippie values and aesthetics, appeared in 1969. The novelist Ken Kesey was one of the best-known literary spokesmen for the movement, but he became equally famous for the bus tours he made with a group called the Merry Pranksters.

Students for a Democratic Society (SDS)

SDS, founded in 1959, had its origins in the student branch of the League for Industrial Democracy, a social-democratic educational organization. An organizational meeting was held in Ann Arbor, Mich., in 1960, and Robert Alan Haber was elected president of SDS. Operating under the principles of the “Port Huron Statement,” a manifesto written by Tom Hayden and Haber and issued in 1962, the organization grew slowly until the escalation of U.S. involvement in Vietnam (1965). SDS organized a national march on Washington, D.C., in April 1965, and, from about that period, SDS grew increasingly militant, especially about issues relating to the war, such as the drafting of students. Tactics included the occupation of university and college administration buildings on campuses across the country. By 1969 the organization had split into several factions, the most notorious of which was the “Weathermen,” or “Weather Underground,” which employed terrorist tactics in its activities.

Jeff Jones (above) of the Apollo Alliance authored President Obama’s 2009 $787 billion stimulus bill and the Obamacare healthcare bill. It was in Bill Ayers’ (left) living room in Chicago (a neighbor down the street) that President Obama launched his political career.

Weathermen

I Am Woman

The National Organization for Women (NOW), an American activist organization (founded 1966) that promotes equal rights for women, was established by a small group of feminists who were dedicated to actively challenging sex discrimination in all areas of American society but particularly in employment. The organization is composed of both men and women, and in the late 20th century, it had some 250,000 members.

Among the issues that NOW addresses by means of lobbying and litigation are child care, pregnancy leave, and abortion and pension rights. Its major concern during the 1970’s was passage of a national Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution; the amendment failed to gain ratification in 1982. NOW has also campaigned for such issues as passage of state equal rights amendments and comparable-worth legislation (equal pay for work of comparable value) and has met with greater success on the state level.

Gloria Steinem Betty Friedan, author of the book, The Feminine Mystic in 1963

The Majority of Women—Conservative

Antifeminists such as Phyllis Schlafly organized a crusade against the Equal Rights Amendment (ERA), warning that it would, among other things, invalidate state sodomy laws, outlaw single sex bathrooms in public places, legalize same-sex marriage, and make taxpayer-funded abortion a constitutional right. Needing 38 states to ratify within 10 years of its passage by Congress, the amendment fell three states short.

By the 1990s, a movement that was once defined by its radical pitch had taken on new tones—some of them conservative. The divide over abortion continued to alienate many women, such as the Feminists for Life, who believed fervently in women's rights but disagreed with the mainstream movement's position on abortion. That divide deepened when, in 1998, Norma McCorvey, the plaintiff in Roe v. Wade, declared her opposition to abortion on demand.

Eventually, a backlash cast doubt on many of the social and economic achievements fostered by the women's movement. Faced with increasing numbers of single mothers and older divorced women living in poverty, many Americans began to wonder whether no-fault divorce and the end of most alimony had, in fact, served women's best interests. With a growing number of young children spending their early years in institutional day care,

Phyllis Schlafly

The Majority of Women—Conservative (cont’d)

debates erupted over whether women were abdicating their maternal responsibilities and whether federal policies that gave tax breaks to working mothers were encouraging a further deterioration of the family unit. Feminists were further targeted as the primary culprits behind the many by-products of the sexual revolution, from the increased rate of teen pregnancy to the spread of AIDS.

Phyllis Schlafly and me at the 9/11 2009 TN Eagle Forum

Minority Equality

César Estrada Chavez was the organizer of the migrant American farm workers and founder of the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA) in 1962. Chavez, who was a farm laborer himself, grew up in a migrant farm-labor family of Mexican American descent. He lived in a succession of migrant camps and attended school sporadically. After two years in the U.S. Navy during World War II, Chavez returned to migrant farm work in Arizona and California. In 1966, the NFWA merged with an American Federation of Labor-Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO) group to form the United Farm Workers of America (UFW). In recognition of his nonviolent activism and support of working people, Chavez was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom posthumously in 1994. His wife, Helen, accepted the award.

The American Indian Movement (AIM) was a militant American Indian civil rights organization founded in Minneapolis, MN, in 1968 by Dennis Banks, Clyde Vernon Bellecourt, Eddie Benton Banai, and George Mitchell. Later, Russell Means became a prominent spokesman for the group. Its original purpose was to help Indians in urban ghettos who had been displaced by government programs that had the effect of forcing them from the reservations. Its goals eventually encompassed the entire spectrum of Indian demands—economic independence, revitalization of traditional culture, protection of legal rights, and most especially, autonomy over tribal areas and the restoration of lands that they believed had been illegally seized.

César is signing an important agreement while many union supporters watch with reporters from radio stations and newspapers.

Flag of the American Indian Movement

La Raza UnidaThe La Raza Unida Party (RUP) started with simultaneous efforts throughout the U.S. Southwest. The most widely known and accepted story is that the La Raza Unida Party was established on January 17, 1970 at a meeting of 300 Mexican-Americans in Crystal City, Texas by José Ángel Gutiérrez and Mario Compean, who had also helped in the foundation of the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) in 1967.

The goals of the Raza Movement (RUP) are constantly changing and adjusting. It is a racially bias movement promoting greater economic, social, and political self-determination to Mexican Americans. Over the years it has supported several issues including bilingual education, women's and workers' rights (presumably Latinos), prosecution of industrial polluters (presumably NOT Latinos), new modes of transportation, improved funding of public education (bi-lingual), better medical care, and solutions to urban problems. Like every political movement they have their radical fringe ..... a few radicals want to see the American southwest ceded back to Mexico.

Mario Compean at a house meeting in Uvalde, Texas when he was running for Governor in 1978 under the banner of La Raza Unida Party

The Black Panther Party

The Black Panther party was a militant organization of blacks founded in Oakland, Calif., in 1966 by Huey P. Newton and Bobby G. Seale. Panther leaders called upon blacks to arm themselves for a struggle against their oppressors and collected small arsenals. At the same time the party provided free breakfasts, financed by donations from local merchants and wealthy sympathizers, for children in some ghetto areas. It also opened schools and medical clinics.Several armed clashes with the police occurred. Huey Newton was found guilty of killing an Oakland policeman in 1967, but the conviction was reversed on appeal. He was charged with murder in a street brawl in 1974 and fled to Cuba. Seale and other Panther leaders were accused of torturing and murdering a former Panther whom they suspected of being a police informer, but the jury failed to reach a verdict. Another leader, Eldridge Cleaver, fled abroad to avoid imprisonment for parole violation; he later returned, abandoned radicalism, and became a proselytizer for Christianity.The Panthers lost a leader in 1969 when Chicago police made an early-morning raid on a Panther residence and killed Fred Hampton in his bed. The movement declined after quarrels among its leaders increased and as black radicalism waned in the 1970s. Two former Black Panthers were implicated in the Brink's robbery incident in New York in 1981.

Politics of Protest Concept Map

Examples/Movements

People involved

Form of culture

Definition

1950’s and 60’s Culture Quiz1. Who were the doctors that developed the polio vaccine?

2. Name one of the rock and roll groups that emerged in the 1950’s and 60’s.

3. Name one of the various aspects that defined the hippie counterculture.

4. The feminist movement had two differing viewpoints. Name a leader of one side.

5. Hispanics and American Indians were making strides in recognition. Name a leader of either movement.