60s Activism Topic 2

Question 1

Optimism for potential change 1962 Gallup Poll:

Answer 1

55% thought ‘life for people’ would get better 23% said it would get worse

Question 2

Causes of student activism and counter culture

Answer 2

> Longboom - increased affluenced, better educated, more middle class
Large numbers meant people could protest without being targeted in theory
Idealism - encouraged by JFK, more likely to be idealistic when you’re young
Inspired by actions and successes of CRM
Resentment of college authorities

Question 3

SDS - Students for a democratic society 1960

Answer 3

Represented part of the ‘New Left’
Anti war demonstration in Washington 1965
Free Speech Movement

Question 4

Counter culture

Answer 4

> Beat movement infuenced it
Broad - hippies, flower power, all protest
Rejection of convention, defiance of authority
Associated with ‘free love’ and experimenation with drugs like weed and LSD

Question 5

San Francisco’s Haight Ashbury

Answer 5

centre of counter culture, summer of love 1967

Question 6

1967 Human Be In at Golden Gate Park

Answer 6

Alan Ginsberg embraced it, Kerouac thought it degraded counter culture

Question 7

Dr Timothy Leary

Answer 7

psychologist advocated LSD use, fired from Harvard

Question 8

Success of Great Society

Answer 8

Huge number of bills passed
More successful than Kennedy
Many opportunities for lower income groups in education
Lifted millions out of poverty and provided healthcare
Long term legacy
Kept environmental concerns on the agenda

Question 9

Critcisms of Great Society

Answer 9

“The promises of the GS were lost on the battlefields of vietnam” MLK
Too ambitious - war on poverty
“poverty won” Reagan
concrns over costs, not achieving enough, people too dependent on gov aid

Question 10

contraceptive pill 1960

Answer 10

more sexual freedom, critics scrutinised increased promiscuity

Question 11

Impacts of sexual liberation

Answer 11

contraceptive pill

divorce rate increased 100% in 60s and another 82% by 1982

Question 12

Backlash of feminist movement

Answer 12

feminists divided - especially abortion
christian groups opposed social change e.g Phyllis Schlafly
still a pay gap
opposed the ERA - feared the negative impacts on families

Question 13

Equal Rights Amendment

Answer 13

Passed by congress but failed to get agreement from 75% of states

Question 14

Advances for women

Answer 14

• Civil Rights Act 1964 - Gender (limited impact)
• Roe v Wade 1973 Abortion legalised
• Education Act 1972 - no sexual discrimination in school
• Weeks v Southern Bell

Question 15

NOW 1966

Answer 15

founded by Betty Friedan, mainly focussed on employment and channelled this through Johnson - Johnson eventually promised to appoint 50 women to top gov posts

Question 16

Miss America Pageant 1968

Answer 16

it was believed that the pageant turned women into sex objects, the protest involved crowning a sheep, throwing kitchen utensils and burning underwear

Question 17

Problems Hispanic Americans faced

Answer 17

> Living in poverty

>Migrated across California to harvest as many crops as they could, accounted for 80% of welfare cases

Question 18

Leading campaigner - Ceasar Chavez

Answer 18

> 1952 joined community service org (CSO) but CSO wouldn’t organise a chicano labour union
Resigned from CSO in 1962 and founded National Farm Workers association (NFWA)

Question 19

National Farm Workers Association

Answer 19

> Plan to establish a union to provide welfare provision for Chicano workers
Provided a credit union for them to borrow money, insurance scheme, fair treatment

Question 20

Mattachine society

Answer 20

improve rights of gay men, dressed in suits to look conventional, sit in, led to a change in laws but police didn’t comply, they raided bars

Question 21

June 1969

Answer 21

Police raided stonewall inn, 3 days of rioting, violence

Question 22

January 1968

Answer 22

Tet Offensive

Kent State uni protest 1970 over Nixon authorising Cambodia - 4 students killed

Question 23

Who wrote a book in 1963 which inspired another wave of feminism and what was it called?

Answer 23

Betty Friedan; The Feminine Mystique

Question 24

Give the name of a radical women’s campaigner

Answer 24

Jo Freeman

Question 25

Issues which disunited the women’s movement

Answer 25

Militancy/radicalism lost public support, disagreement over demand to legalise abortion, some thought NOW didn’t give enough support for lesbians

Question 26

Which group was set up in the early 1950s to campaign for the rights of homosexual men?

Answer 26

Mattachine Society