The Cultural Upheaval of the
1960’s
“Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We
don't allow our enemies to have guns, why
should we allow them to have ideas?
”Joseph Stalin
The Counter Culture

New cultural divide began in the 60’s as
more educated American’s became
secular and less educated became more
religious
The 3 P’s of the 60’s
1. Youthful population bulge
2. Protest against racism & Vietnam War
3. Permanence of prosperity
1960’s
Sexual Revolution
 Gay Rights
 Anti War (hawks vs. doves)
 Anti Racism

Equal Rights for Latinos
The Farm Worker Movement
* United Farm Workers Organizing
Committee
 Grape boycott in California
 “Brown Power” & Brown Berets
 1968 walk out in Los Angeles

5
Equal Rights for Native
Americans
Poorest health in America
 Eisenhower’s “termination policy”
 1968 President Johnson established the
National Council on Indian Opportunity
 American Indian Movement
* “Trail of Broken Treaties”
* Sioux incident

6
Women Fight for Equality
The Feminine Mystique by Betty Friedan
 Feminism- belief that women should have
economic, political and social equality.
 National Organization for Women (NOW)
* childcare in the workplace
* gender discrinimation
* Roe v. Wade

8
Age of Aquarius
•
•
•
•
Conventional wisdom & ideas were under
attack by the counterculture movement
Grew from white middle class youth
“tune in, tune on, drop out”
San Francisco area was known as the
“hippie capital”
The New Counterculture
Kent State
Massacre
1970


National Guardsmen
opened fire on
student protestors in
Ohio, killing four
13


The Times They Are A Changin’
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.
If your time to you
Is worth saving'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again
And don't speak too soon
For the wheel's still in spin
And there's no tellin' who
That it's namin'.
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin'.
Come senators, congressmen
Please heed the call
Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'.
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'
Decline of the Counterculture
By the 1970’s the movement had ended
 Main flower children fell victim to drugs
and mental breakdowns.
 Young people in the 70’s became more
concerned with finding a job
 “revolutionary terrorism”
 Caused the political spectrum to change
from liberal to conservative

One Pager
Do you believe the counter culture of the
sixties was constructive or destructive to
the American way of life?
Give Examples from videos, songs etc.