If you could put a tack..anywhere on the map of the united states...and you had to put it on a famous 1960's event..where would you put it and what event..thanks!
I'm not totally sure what you're getting at but I'll take a stab at it anyway. I'd put my tack in two places as they ended up being forever linked in the American consciousness. Those places and times would be Memphis on April 4, 1968 and Los Angeles on June 4, 1968 when when Martin Luther King Jr. and RFK (Robert Kennedy) respectively were assassinated. I think it was the moment where all of the hope of the 60's evaporated and as a result violence took the place of generally peaceful protest. I think the process started with Martin Luther King's assassination and any hope of having the late 60's and early 70's turn out differently ended when Bobby Kennedy was murdered just after winning the democratic primary in California.
There was no one of any real authority in the student anti-war or black movements that was espousing non-violence once these two were murdered. For evidence of this you can look at all of the demonstrations that took place prior to '68 and note that while many may have been met with violence, the practice of non-violent resistance was predominant. After the assissinations of MLK and RFK, the weatherman - an underground movement opposed to the war in Vietnam started and used bombings of government buildings to get its point across. At the same time, the Black Panther movement took hold in the void left by King's assissination and advocated violence to achieve its ends.
It was an unfortunate turn of events given all of the energy and hope that the youth of this country had generated up until that point. The disillusionment of entire generation turned a decade that promised change into violence. Drugs were no longer touted for their ability to open the mind but rather to escape reality. All of this was capped off with the election of Richard Nixon in Nov. of '68 because the left could no longer find a candidate to unite behind and the disillusionment was complete when Nixon resigned amid threats of impeachment in 1974. Those who saw nothing but hope in the mid-60's had become irrevocably jaded by the mid-70's. It's difficult to imagine all of the ways things would be different if those two assissinations hadn't occurred. I think it's safe to say that the effects of those events were far reaching and indeed, I believe we are still living with some of the consequences today.
Haight-Ashbry, in San Francisco. It was a total revolution of thought and ideas. Unfortunately, many got caught up with drugs, which snuffed out the possibility of a new age culture.
All the assassinations: JFK in Dallas, RFK in California, MLK in Memphis.
Comments
I'm not totally sure what you're getting at but I'll take a stab at it anyway. I'd put my tack in two places as they ended up being forever linked in the American consciousness. Those places and times would be Memphis on April 4, 1968 and Los Angeles on June 4, 1968 when when Martin Luther King Jr. and RFK (Robert Kennedy) respectively were assassinated. I think it was the moment where all of the hope of the 60's evaporated and as a result violence took the place of generally peaceful protest. I think the process started with Martin Luther King's assassination and any hope of having the late 60's and early 70's turn out differently ended when Bobby Kennedy was murdered just after winning the democratic primary in California.
There was no one of any real authority in the student anti-war or black movements that was espousing non-violence once these two were murdered. For evidence of this you can look at all of the demonstrations that took place prior to '68 and note that while many may have been met with violence, the practice of non-violent resistance was predominant. After the assissinations of MLK and RFK, the weatherman - an underground movement opposed to the war in Vietnam started and used bombings of government buildings to get its point across. At the same time, the Black Panther movement took hold in the void left by King's assissination and advocated violence to achieve its ends.
It was an unfortunate turn of events given all of the energy and hope that the youth of this country had generated up until that point. The disillusionment of entire generation turned a decade that promised change into violence. Drugs were no longer touted for their ability to open the mind but rather to escape reality. All of this was capped off with the election of Richard Nixon in Nov. of '68 because the left could no longer find a candidate to unite behind and the disillusionment was complete when Nixon resigned amid threats of impeachment in 1974. Those who saw nothing but hope in the mid-60's had become irrevocably jaded by the mid-70's. It's difficult to imagine all of the ways things would be different if those two assissinations hadn't occurred. I think it's safe to say that the effects of those events were far reaching and indeed, I believe we are still living with some of the consequences today.
Gosh, so many.
Haight-Ashbry, in San Francisco. It was a total revolution of thought and ideas. Unfortunately, many got caught up with drugs, which snuffed out the possibility of a new age culture.
All the assassinations: JFK in Dallas, RFK in California, MLK in Memphis.
Woodstock in NY.
Civil Rights marches in Alabama.
Landing on the Moon.
In fact, the whole decade was amazing.
Dallas, Texas
Nov. 22, 1963
Assassination of President John Kennedy
Dallas,Texas.Friday,November 22,1963.Of all the traumatic events of the 1960s,this was the worst.
landing on the moon