Chapter 23, Sec 1, 2, 3: Things to Know
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What is counterculture?
What did the baby boom generation value?
What is a generation gap?
How did the deaths of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix lead to the end of the
counterculture movement?
Why did the second wave of feminism differ from the first wave of feminism?
What was one of the two major goals that NOW worked toward when it was
first founded?
What was Roe v. Wade?
Who was Cesar Chavez?
What did the Chicano Movement do?
The American Indian Movement confronted the government through what
measure?
What main demand of Native American advocacy groups was met with the
passage of the Indian Self-Determination Act of 1975?
Why was the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966 significant?
In what way did the US government expand the rights of people with disabilities
in the 1960s and 1970s?
Chapter 23: An Era of Protest and Change
Why It Matters
• Woodstock was a dynamic expression of a
counterculture that arose in the 1960s. Members
of the counterculture adopted values that ran
counter to mainstream culture. They rebelled
against long-standing customs in dress, music,
and personal behavior. The counterculture both
challenged the values of mainstream American
society and unleashed a movement to reassert
traditional values.
Section 1: The Counterculture
• The counterculture was rooted in the social and
political events of the 1950s.
– What is counterculture?
• It was a 1960s lifestyle challenging traditional mainstream values.
It was also known as the Beat movement and had emphasized
freedom from materialism and the importance of personal
experience.
• The civil rights movement introduced the idea of social and
political protest.
– What did the baby boom generation value?
• Youth, spontaneity, individuality, and spirituality. These so called
hippies promoted peace, love, and freedom. They experienced
with new styles of dress and music, freer attitudes toward sexual
relationships, and recreational drugs.
The Counterculture
• Their values were so different from traditional
ones that many social analysts described the
resulting situation as a generation gap.
– What is a generation gap?
• A lack of communication between adults and youths.
– The music industry rushed to produce music the baby
boomers liked; designers copied the styles the hippies
introduced, and universities were forced to change
college courses and rules to accommodate them.
– People used the trinity of the counterculture to define
the youth generation – sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.
The Counterculture
• Rock bands such as the Beatles and Bob Dylan
made protest songs that highlighted civil rights
and the peace movements.
– Rock music became a staple for the baby boomer
generation.
– The art of people such as Andy Warhol also displayed
the rebellious side of the baby boomer generation.
– Literature also helped the generation express itself.
Novels by Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson blurred
the lines between reporting and political activism.
The Counterculture
• Members of the counterculture also rejected many
traditional restrictions on sexual behavior in what
became known as the “sexual revolution.”
– Many hippies lived in communes, or small communities in
which the people there have common interests and share
resources.
– The sexual revolution was one of the strongest indicators
of the generation gap.
– Nearly two-thirds of the population over the age of 30
opposed premarital sex, but the majority of those under
29 did not.
– The sexual revolution led to a more open discussion of sex
in the mainstream media.
The Counterculture
• The Haight-Asbury district in San Francisco was an
area where hippies flocked to in 1967 to experiment
in drug use, wore unconventional clothing, and
listened to rock music and speeches by political
radicals.
– The problem here lies in the fact that high drug use
resulted in drug abuse which led to increased crime rates.
– Many hippies explored Buddhism and other Eastern
religions, while others sought spirituality by living in
harmony with nature.
– These beliefs had a lasting impact on the budding
environmental movement.
The Counterculture
• Drug addictions and deaths from drug overdoses
rose, leading to an end to the counterculture.
– How did the deaths of Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix
lead to the end of the counterculture movement?
• Young people realized drugs were deadly.
– The movement’s values were becoming increasingly
shallow and self-centered.
– When the counterculture fell apart, most hippies
abandoned their social experiments and melted right
back into the mainstream society.
Section 2: The Women’s Rights
Movement
• Historians often refer to the women’s movement
of the 1960s and 1970s as the second wave of
feminism, or the theory of political, social, and
economic equality of men and women.
– Why did the second wave of feminism differ from the
first wave of feminism?
• Because modern women wanted full equality with men, not
just the right to vote.
– The civil rights movement both inspired women to
demand gender equality and taught them ways to get
it. It also brought black and white women together,
strengthening their shared cause.
The Women’s Rights Movement
• Several years after she wrote The Feminine
Mystique, Betty Friedan helped establish the
National Organization for Women (NOW).
– NOW set out to break down the barriers of
discrimination in the workplace and in education.
– Its first goal was to bring about the passage of the
Equal Rights Amendment.
– What was one of the two major goals that NOW
worked toward when it was first founded?
• Protecting reproductive freedom. They wanted the right of
a woman to make the decision of having an abortion. The
other goal was to get the ERA passed.
The Women’s Rights Movement
• The NOW organization was considered by some to
be too tame.
– These people believed in a more radical approach to
fight for women's rights.
– Not everyone was for the women’s rights movement.
Some actually opposed the women’s rights
movement.
• Phyllis Schlafly was a conservative political activist who
denounced women’s liberation as a “total assault on the
family, on marriage, and on children.” With her help, the
ERA fell three states short of becoming a constitutional
amendment.
The Women’s Rights Movement
• The women’s movement did have lasting effects even
though it faced several setbacks. Women gained
legal rights that had been previously denied.
– Several laws and bills were passed helping women:
• The Civil Rights Act of 1964 gave feminists a legal tool. It included
a clause called Title VII that outlawed discrimination on the basis
of sex.
• The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) was set
up to enforce the federal prohibition on job discrimination.
• Title IX of the Higher Education Act of 1972 banned discrimination
in education.
• The Equal Credit Opportunity Act in 1974 made it illegal to deny
credit to a woman just because of her gender.
The Women’s Rights Movement
• Some feminists considered their most important
legal victory to be in the 1973 Supreme Court
decision of Roe v. Wade.
– What was Roe v. Wade?
• The 1973 Supreme Court case on abortion. It assured
women the right to legal abortions. The case and its
decision was highly controversial at the time and still is
today.
– The workplace was the last thing to change for
women.
• The percentage of women in the workplace rose from 30
percent in 1950 to more than 60 percent in 2000.
The Women’s Rights Movement
• Despite these gains, the average woman still earns
less than the average man, partly because many
women continue to work in the jobs that pay less.
– Some have referred to this situation as a “pink collar
ghetto.”
• Whether this is because of discrimination, or because women
who shoulder family responsibilities often have limited job choice,
remains a matter of debate.
• Some believed that there was a glass ceiling over the heads of
women, allowing them to only reach certain heights in the
workplace.
• These situations have caused a feminization of poverty, making
the working woman get the lowest paying jobs with the fewest
benefits. Many of these poor women are single mothers.
Section 3: The Rights Revolution Expands
• The next expansion of the civil rights movement
was for minority groups. These groups still faced
discrimination and poverty across the nation.
– The Latino population was growing throughout the
nation.
– Mexican Americans, known as Chicanos, have always
made up the largest group of US Latinos.
– Chicanos had been coming to America in high
numbers since the bracero programs in 1942. They
settled in communities across the nation where they
faced severe discrimination.
The Rights Revolution Expands
• Who was Cesar Chavez?
– He was the Latino union leader. He fought for the rights
for farm laborers, who were among the most exploited
workers in the nation. These workers were known as
migrant farmworkers.
• They labored for long hours in deplorable conditions, with no
benefits.
– Chavez merged his union with the United Farm Workers
(UFW) union which was for Filipino farm laborers.
• They were committed to nonviolent tactics and implemented a
workers’ strike and consumer boycott of table grapes.
• In 1975, California passed a law requiring collective bargaining
between growers and union representatives. The farmworkers
won their battle for rights.
The Rights Revolution Expands
• While Chavez focused on farmworkers’ rights, a
broader Mexican American social and political effort
grew, which came to be known as the Chicano
Movement.
– What did the Chicano Movement do?
• It increased Latinos’ awareness of their history and culture.
– Chicano students at high schools and universities
demanded educators to teach more about their culture
and heritage.
– Much of the movement’s energy was focused on attaining
political strength for Latinos, what some called “brown
power.”
– The party worked for better housing and jobs, and it
successfully brought six Hispanics to sit in Congress.
The Rights Revolution Expands
• Native Americans suffered a long history of
discrimination and suffered high poverty,
unemployment, and suicide.
– In 1961, the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC) formed,
with the goal of preserving native fishing rights in the
Northwest.
– They expanded their aims to broad civil rights for Native
Americans and in 1968 founded the American Indian
Movement (AIM).
– AIM focused first on helping Indians living in urban ghettos
but later moved to addressing all civil rights issues,
particularly to secure land, legal rights, and selfgovernment for Native Americans.
The Rights Revolution Expands
• In the 1960’s a group of Native American Indians
occupied Alcatraz Island, a former prison in San
Francisco Bay which had closed in 1963.
– Members of the Sioux tribe claimed it was their land
under a treaty provision granting them unused federal
land.
– About 100 American Indians representing 50 tribes
joined the occupation.
• Despite efforts of the Coast Guard to evict them, they
remained in control of the island until mid-1971.
The Rights Revolution Expands
• The 1970s saw another series of confrontations.
– The American Indian Movement confronted the
government through what measure?
• A march from San Francisco to Washington, D.C. The event
was called the “long march,” which happened in 1972.
• Upon arriving at the capital, they took control of the Bureau
of Indian Affairs building. They temporarily renamed it the
Native American Embassy, suggesting Native Americans are
treated as foreigners.
• The government would take back the Bureau when the
Indians left after a week of protesting. Before they left, they
caused nearly $700,000 worth of damages.
The Rights Revolution Expands
• AIM would later stage a dramatic confrontation at the historic site
of Wounded Knee. This came about due to the awareness that
was raised about the treatment of Native Americans in a book
about the event.
– In late February of 1973, AIM took over the village and refused
to leave until the government agreed to investigate the
conditions of reservation Indians.
• Federal authorities put Wounded Knee under siege; two Native
Americans were killed in the resulting gunfire. The event ended in May
after the government pledged to reexamine native treaty rights.
– Later, the Indian Self-Determination Act of 1975 would be
passed.
– What main demand of Native American advocacy groups was
met with the passage of the Indian Self-Determination Act of
1975?
• It granted tribes greater control over resources on reservations.
The Rights Revolution Expands
• In the same way that many activists worked to extend
peoples’ rights and to protect the environment,
others worked to protect the rights of consumers and
Americans with disabilities.
– Ralph Nader led the reemergence of the consumer rights
movement in the 1960s and 1970s.
• Nader was a lawyer who began to investigate whether flawed car
designs led to increased traffic accidents and deaths.
• He wrote a book that sparked Congress to pass the National
Traffic and Motor Vehicle Safety Act in 1966.
• Why was the National Traffic and Motor Vehicle
Safety Act of 1966 significant?
– It recognized the right of consumers to buy safe cars.
The Rights Revolution Expands
• Historically, the nation had treated people with
disabilities as being defective.
– By the 1970s, people with disabilities were making great
strides toward expanding their rights.
– Disabled veterans also took part in this activism.
– The JFK administration called for change by establishing
the Panel on Mental Retardation in 1961 to explore ways
for the government to help people with intellectual
disabilities.
– Eunice Shriver, Kennedy’s sister, started the Special
Olympics.
– In what way did the US government expand the rights of
people with disabilities in the 1960s and 1970s?
• Congress passed laws guaranteeing them access to education.
In Conclusion…
• The counterculture that came around in the 1960s and
1970s was considered a defiance to all things that the baby
boomers had obeyed in previous years. It ended with the
conclusion that drugs were actually deadly.
• Women’s rights were something that had been a long time
coming. The second wave of feminism would
fundamentally change Americans life – from family and
education to careers and political issues.
• Minority groups and the disabled experienced
discrimination just as women did during this era. Activists
worked to expand rights for two broad groups: consumers
and people with disabilities. Their success, again, was
limited, but would create a stepping stone for future
presidents and legislation.