III. The Struggle for Equal Rights
• Many struggles for minority groups in 1960’s
to gain equal rights:
A. Civil rights for African Americans
B. American Indian Movement
C. Equal rights for Hispanic Americans
D. Women’s Liberation Movement
C. Struggle for Equal Rights: Hispanics
Hispanic Americans/Latinos
• 1970’s Fastest growing minority group in the
U.S.
– 1960 3 M
– 1970 9 M
– 2000 35 M
– 2014 55 M (28%)
– Account for 1/3 of legal immigration since 1960 +
large numbers of illegals (7-12 M)
• Puerto Ricans; Cubans; Mexicans; Central Americans;
South Americans
• Cesar Chavez and Dolores Juarez found United
Farm Workers Union in California
– organize mostly Mexican agricultural laborers in
California and southwest
– Promote consumer boycotts of grapes, strikes
• Aligned themselves with the civil rights movements
• Appealing to Hispanic identity and pride
• Young Hispanics begin referring to themselves as
Chicanos & demonstrating for Hispanic studies
programs and bilingual education in schools
Hunger Strikes – Chavez & Robert Kennedy
• Rodolfo Gonzalez of Mexican descent
– Boxer; poet; political activist
– Founder of Chicano movement
– founds Crusade for Justice 1966
• Community based civil rights organization
• Opens private hispanic school in Colorado
I Am Joaquin
by Rodolfo Corky Gonzales
Yo soy Joaquín,
perdido en un mundo de confusión:
I am Joaquín, lost in a world of confusion,
caught up in the whirl of a gringo society,
confused by the rules, scorned by attitudes,
suppressed by manipulation, and destroyed by modern society.
My fathers have lost the economic battle
and won the struggle of cultural survival.
And now! I must choose between the paradox of
victory of the spirit, despite physical hunger,
or to exist in the grasp of American social neurosis,
sterilization of the soul and a full stomach.
Yes, I have come a long way to nowhere,
unwillingly dragged by that monstrous, technical,
industrial giant called Progress and Anglo success....
I look at myself.
I watch my brothers.
I shed tears of sorrow. I sow seeds of hate.
I withdraw to the safety within the circle of life -MY OWN PEOPLE
[…]
• Texas: Latinos launch a political party –
advocating separatism
• Puerto Ricans in New York establish the Young
Lords
Prejudice suffered by Mexican Americans
Link to video: A Class Apart:
http://opb.pbslearningmedia.org/resource/5074
08f8-572f-4d7c-ad97-0580cdc56f33/a-classapart/
D. Women’s Liberation Movement
A Few Facts & Figures
• World War II had brought more women than ever
before out of the home into work. By 1960, 36
percent of all women sixteen and older- 23 million
women-worked for paid wages. But although 43
percent of women with school-age children
worked, there were nursery schools for only 2
percent- the rest had to work things out themselves.
• Women were 50 percent of the voters-but (even
by 1967) they held 4 percent of the state legislative
seats, and 2 percent of the judgeships. The median
income of the working woman was about one-third
that of the man. And attitudes toward women did
not seem to have changed much since the
twenties.
Source: Howard Zinn, A People’s History of the United States,
Chapter 19: Surprises
nd
2
wave of Feminism
• Fought all forms of male dominance
– Fought against domestic violence
• Women needed protection at the job level
– E.g. flight attendants
• Demanded Anti-discrimination laws
– Equal pay for equal work/job opportunities
• NOW: National Organization of Women 1966
• Gloria Steinem: founded Ms. Magazine 1972
– After Black Power, Women’s Liberation
– Supported abortion rights
N.O.W. Statement of Purpose
We, men and women who hereby constitute ourselves as the National
Organization for Women, believe that the time has come for a new
movement toward true equality for all women in America, and toward
a fully equal partnership of the sexes, as part of the worldwide
revolution of human rights now taking place within and beyond our
national borders.
The purpose of NOW is to take action to bring women into full
participation in the mainstream of American society now, exercising all
the privileges and responsibilities thereof in truly equal partnership
with men . . .
There is no civil rights movement to speak for women, as there has
been for Negroes and victims of discrimination. The National
Organization for Women must therefore begin to speak.
Source: NOW Statement of Purpose, October 29, 1966.
Milestones
• Birth control pill approved by the FDA 1960
– 1962 1.2 million
1965 6.5 million American women
• Betty Friedan: Feminine Mystique bestseller in 1963
• Title IX part of the Education Amendments of 1972
– “No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex,
be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits
of, or be subjected to discrimination under any education
program or activity receiving federal financial assistance.”
– Prohibited sex discrimination in education
– More opportunities for women’s and girls’ athletics
• Supreme Court Decision 1973 Roe vs. Wade
– Legalization of abortion during 1st trimester
Feminist Victories and Defeats
• Equal Rights Amendment
– Idea had been around for a long time (1920s – Alice
Paul)
– Congressional Approval in 1972
– Amendment did not achieve ratification; fell 3 states
shy
Phyllis Schlafly - outspoken critic
“stop taking our privileges”
dependent wife benefits + selective service
registration
Forms of Protest
•
•
•
•
Legislation
Bra Burning
Protests/Marches
Strikes
Miss America, 7 September 1968
In Atlantic City hundreds of US feminists gathered to protest against
the meat market beauty pageant, leading to one of the funniest,
but most inaccurate founding myths of second wave feminism,
which is that women burned their bras to symbolise their
emancipation from patriarchy. Anyone who’s tried to burn a bra –
let alone one of those opaque flesh-coloured postwar girdle things
– knows they don’t burn well. The under-trussings were in fact
sloughed off and dumped into Freedom Trash Cans, along with high
heels, fake eyelashes, copies of Cosmo and Playboy, mops, pots and
pans – all items the protesters defined as “instruments of female
torture”. The protest triggered a new and now mainstream critique
of everything from “performative femininity” to the objectification
of women, beauty ideals and domestic labour exploitation.
Source: The Guardian, “Ten direct actions by women that changed
the world”, October 12th, 2015
Video: Women’s Liberation
Movement 1950’s -1970’s
19’24
Video BBC Hard Talk – Gloria Steinem
0 – 4’10
• How has the struggle for women’s rights
changed since the 1960’s/1970’s?
Conclusion: Equal Rights Movements
In what ways were the various struggles
among minority groups in the United States
similar and in what ways where they distinct?