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The sixties was a decade full of notable events. It continues to live on in the hearts of many people today, and not just to those who were there to witness the intriguing happenings of this popular decade, but also to the succeeding generations who try to re-live some of the excitement as well as pain that was experienced then. From fashion to politics, successful landing on the moon to decolonization in Africa, painful assassinations to revolution in the music and film industries, the sixties is here to stay. This paper will focus on some of the social protests that took place in the sixties.
Two major events brought about social protests in the sixties, and these are the Civil Rights Movements and the Vietnam War.
By the 1960s, it had been almost a hundred years since the end of the civil war, which had been one of the deadliest wars ever fought in American history. This war caused thousands of deaths of soldiers and civilians and undetermined number of casualties. It brought an end to slavery in the United States and strengthened the role of the federal government, shaping events that led the USA to be the Super Power that it is today. The fact that an end to slavery had been realized did not immediately bring the equivalent social changes. Discrimination was still on an all-time high and the whites could not in any way mingle with the blacks (Mc Adam, Doug; Process and the development of Black insurgency, 1930-1970). There was segregation in the buses, places of eating, at work places, and even at water points. Many groups and organizations had been formed to look into issues of racial injustice and equality in the US, albeit at very slow progress. It was therefore in the sixties that a hundred years of effort erupted and movements began protesting in order to gather the attention that would bring this change once and for all. While some groups advocated for peaceful methods to bring about the change, other groups believed in the “eye for an eye” response and a division of the races.
Dr. Martin Luther King was a significant civil rights leader in the sixties and is renowned for the ‘I have a dream’ speech, found himself as the main spokesperson for peaceful protests. King endorsed peaceful methods and believed that nonviolent confrontation with the authorities as well as probing the conscience of the white people would bring about the change that they were fighting for ( Branch, Taylor; At Canaan’s Edge: America in the King years). He was the president of the Southern Leadership Christian Council and together with his followers organized countless marches, rallies and protests. On March 25th 1965, he managed to organize one of the most notable marches of the civil rights era. His supporters marched from Selma, Alabama, to the courthouse in Montgomery, which was a fifty-mile walk where about forty thousand men, women and children were estimated to have participated.
King was assassinated on the evening of April 4th 1968. He had gone to Memphis to support sanitation workers who were protesting discrimination in their workplaces. As expected, fighting and rage immediately followed, as many of King’s supporters took to the streets to protest the assassination.
Other notable people who led riots in the sixties include Malcolm X, Eldridge Cleaver and Leroi Jones. They however had a different idea of ending inequality and racial injustices. They led groups that advocated for complete separation of the races, promoting black power and arguing that the black race was superior to the white race.
The Vietnam War remains to be controversial till today many claiming that it was a war that had neither clear beginning nor ending (Loure, Alf; Tell me lies about Vietnam: Cultural battles for the meaning of the war).
The American government began supporting the government of South Vietnam so that they could win against North Vietnam and the USSR, which were mounting a guerilla war. They did this by first sending them military advisors. In 1964, the US Senate approved the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution, giving support to President Johnson to increase US involvement in the war and to take whatever actions he deemed necessary to defend the South Vietnamese. In 1965, 1,500 marine troops were sent to Vietnam and by 1968, 500,000 troops were stationed there. Every Thursday, the toll on the American soldiers killed, which was over a hundred a week, was reported (www.vietnam-war.info).
With the war not coming to an end, protests began as to the validity of it in the first place. The Johnson administration reacted by guaranteeing the American people that the ‘next round’ of troops would bring victory. The faith of the Americans diminished when the enemy, allegedly on the brink of caving in, mounted the Tet Offensive in 1968. Americans began to feel deceived by their own government. Critics, both military and civilian, started voicing their disapproval, with the former pointing out that the war was political and therefore the military mission had no clear objectives and the former arguing that the government of South Vietnam was not valid and that supporting them was morally wrong.
Opposition to the war continued to escalate. Young men feared being sent to the war, hundreds of them fleeing to Canada and Sweden. Others found compassionate doctors who exempted them from being drafted on a medical basis while college-going students took advantage of the student deferment. Still, others joined the National Guard or the Peace Corps knowing that this would exempt them from the war.
At the beginning of the war, few Americans opposed it. The first protest actually took place in December of 1964. Twenty-five thousand people marched to Washington on that day. It was the largest march against the war in the history of America and it brought to the open the sentiments of the people about the war. Some people even publicly burnt themselves to death just so they could make a point to the government. Others burnt their draft cards in large anti-war meetings after being inspired by David Miller in 1965 who was the first to publicly burn his draft card. The government started prosecuting when it was apparent that young men were refusing to be drafted into the army. The most well-known of those that refused to be drafted was Mohammed Ali, the renowned boxing champion.
Blacks and other minorities felt that the war was too expensive as it was costing the taxpayers sixty-six million dollars daily. The poor people who could not afford college felt victimized as they could not enjoy the student deferment. This prompted riots in many black neighborhoods. These demonstrations continued to gradually increase throughout the sixties. Over a million Americans took part in one protest march in New York. The most remarkable protest was when members of the armed forces themselves left Vietnam, many of them questioning the morality of the war. In 1967, heroes of the war staged a demonstration all over America, with many of them injured. They discarded the medals they had won fighting in the war.
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