Challenging America in the 60s:
Politics and Culture

JFK

Camelot and Cold Warrior

JFK: Style and Substance

•Born to be President

–Family background

–Early politics: liberal consensus

–1960 election

•JFK’s New Frontier

–liberal ideas and political failures

•fear of Southern Democrats

•Space program

•expand the economy
•1963 Civil Rights activity

–Birmingham

 

A True Cold Warrior

•Peace Corps

–humanitarian effort and help create positive view of US in the midst of Cold War

 

A True Cold Warrior

•Castro and Cuba

 

•Bay of Pigs (1961)

–embarrassing political disaster

•Cuban Missle Crisis (October 1962)

–quarantine of Cuba

–Kruschchev exchange

•Test Ban Treaty (1963)
 

 

You Can’t Have Your Cake and Eat it Too

LBJ, the Great Society, and Vietnam

LBJ and his Great Society

HBackground

–In JFK’s shadow

HOrigins of the Great Society

–War on Poverty

–Economic Opportunity Act (1964)

HElection of 1964

–Goldwater

 

The Great Society

HExpanding rights and entitlement

–Medicare/Medicaid

–AFDC

HCreating a Great Society

–NEA, NEH

–HUD

–Fish and Wildlife Protection Act

 

LBJ,the Great Society and Vietnam

HNot another China

HExpanding war and the rise of the quagmire

 

HDecision Time: Great Society or Vietnam
 

 

 

Liberalism and the 60s Generation

 

•Warren Court and the Rights Revolution

–Civil rights, personal liberty, and criminal rights

•The “Pepsi Generation”

–Baby boom

–New values

–Demise of in loco parentis

 

The Campus Comes Alive

•End of the Silent Generation

–JFK and Civil Rights

–Anti-HUAC Protest (1960)

•Students for a Democratic Society (1962)

–The New Left

–Port Huron Statement

–Participatory democracy

 

The Campus comes alive

•Berkeley Free Speech Movement (1964)

–HUAC protests

–concerned political rights and free speech

•Impact

–fostered questioning attitude

–no longer accept wisdom of elders

–sparked other political protests

 

Antiwar Movement

•Escalation leads to teach-ins

–Vietnam Day committee

•Draft Protests

–Protests expand by 1967

–Selective Service System

–Oakland 1967

–Stop the Draft Week

 

Drugs, Sex, and Rock n’ Roll:
60s Counterculture

l

Hippies

Origins

–Beatniks

–alienation

lReject Mainstream cultural norms

–dress

–behavior (Let it all hang out)

–Carlin 1966 Hippy Dippy Weatherman

 

Hippies

lReject mainstream cultural norms

–LSD and Acid Test

»Kesey and Merry Pranksters

–Make Love, Not War

»Banana Hoax

 

Hippies

lHaight  Ashbury

–Human Be-In and the Summer of Love (1967)

 

Hippies and People’s Park

lOrigins

 

lRadicals and hippies unite

 

lNegotiations

 

lConflict

–National guard

 

Concerts, Communes, and the Legacy of the Counterculture
lWoodstock

lAltamont

lCommunes

lLegacy of the Counterculture

–Manson

–Earth Day

–Sexual revolution

–Expanded personal freedom and choice