youth culture USA

Question 1

How did the student population evolve in the 60s and why was it easier for students to protest?

Answer 1

student population had rocketed by the 60s.
mutual inspiration and safely in numbers and without jobs to lose or families to support they thought they should and could protest without risk.

Question 2

What speech by kennedy had a great impact on the student population?

Answer 2

1961, he said “Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.
the student population followed their charismatic and idealistic young president.

Question 3

How did the civil rights movement impact student activism? Give an example

Answer 3

inspired awareness of rights and activism. think SNCC created in 1960

Question 4

Name 4 student-led events or organisations that advocated for the de escalation of the vietnam war?

Answer 4

1959: Student Peace Union established and had 3000 members by 1962. Focus on the escalating Vietnam War

1965: many Unis held a teach-in with anti war lectures and debates, 20’000 participated in Berkeley

1967: New Left organised the National Mobilization Committee to End the War (the Mobe), which organised high-profile demonstrations in Washington’s as part of the Stop the draft Week. Over 100’000 attended the march

Draft cards were publicly burned

Question 5

How were student protests in 1968?

Answer 5

Student protests were violent, ROTC offices and other campus buildings were burned and bombed across the USA.

Question 6

Where does counterculture originate from?

Answer 6

in the 50s Beat Generation, with its spontaneity, drugs, free love and general defiance to authority and convention.

(Beat generation: Post-WW2 writers who rejected materialism and experimented sexually and with drugs)

Question 7

What were the ideas of counterculture?

Answer 7

Rejecting US society’s emphasis on individualism, competitiveness and materialism,
some students in the 60s favoured communal living, harmony.
They listened to music that reaffirmed their beliefs, such as anti-war songs.
they smoked cannabis, which wasn’t accepted.

Question 8

How did hippies come about?
When did hippies start becoming a thing?

Answer 8

From the extreme components of counterculture the hippies developed who took stronger drugs.

mid 60s: atteneded Happenings: events with large, youthful crowds such as Woodstock, in 69

Question 9

How had the hippie population grown by 1967?

Answer 9

Time magazine predicted that hippie enclaves had blossomed in every major US city. Time estimated there to be 300 ‘000 hippies.

Question 10

How did Reagan view the hippie, counterculture, student activism, etc?

Answer 10

1967: Republican politician Reagen, told reporters that student activities can be summed up in three words: Sex, Drugs and Treason.

Question 11

For which reasons did counterculture scare middle america?

Answer 11

1969: Woodstock Rock festival in New York, worried middle America of youth culture and behaviour

1969: famous happening at California, where one audience member was stabbed by a member of the Hells Angels, hired by the Rolling stone to keep order. Another was apparently trampled to death.

The young saw liberation and freedom, middle America saw anarchy and worried about youthful behaviour.

Question 12

When was the SDS established, by who and by what was it inspired?

Answer 12

1960: SDS (Students for a Democratic Society) established by Tom Hayden. Inspired by 30s working class radicals and Beat Generation.

Question 13

Which big event including the SDS and SNCC happened in 1962?

Answer 13

1962: SDS, SNCC, CORA and the Student Peace Union meet at Port Huron, Michigan. Their statement called on college students to change the political and social system, to liberate the poor, the non-whites, and all enslaved conformity.

Question 14

What did the SDS emphasise on?

What did the SDS look for?

Answer 14

emphasised the potential of the individual, currently stifled by the impersonal nature of the big Unis, bureaucracy and centralization of all power.

SDS called for participatory democracy and looked forward to the emergence of a New Left, consisting of younger people to awaken Americans from national apathy.

Question 15

What is the New LEft?

Answer 15

New left: term used by SDS to differentiate themselves from the Communist Old left of the 30s.

Question 16

outline one protest by the SDS as well as how their behaviour changed over time

Answer 16

SDS became increasingly political, attacking racism, the military industrial complex, the Vietnam War
1965: SDS anti war demonstration in Washington caught national attention

Question 17

Were the counterculture movement and the New Left similar or opposites?

Answer 17

New Left and counterculture overlapped but were not synonymous. CC distracted New Left recruits and alienated potential sympathisers such as US Labour, which might otherwise have supported New Left’s anti- capitalism.

Question 18

Which other groups were linked to the New Left

Answer 18

The Yippies and the SNCC

Question 19

Who were the Yippies?

Answer 19

radical student group, created by Abbie Hoffmanin 1967, the free speech and anti-war movements of the late 1960s

Question 20

How did the New Left develop into 1968?

Answer 20

By 1968 New Left was increasingly divided, different groups seemed to be trying to outdo each other in a radicalism that only served to antagonise most Americans.

Question 21

What did the Mobe and the Yippies get up to in 1968? How did students and the city of Chicago react to these claims?

Answer 21

Mobe, the Yippies, called on young people to disrupt the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. They spread rumours that they were going to put LSD in the city’s water supply.$

30 ‘000 members of the New Left arrived in Chicago. Major Daley mobilised around 12’000 police and banned marches.

Question 22

How did thie event in chicago influence the next presidential elections?

Answer 22

Events in Chicago influenced many voters’ support for the presidential candidate for law and order in 1968, Richard Nixon.

Many Americans were tired of student protests and violence. Historian William Chafe described Nixon’s victory as a watershed. Traditional US values had been reasserted and the left had become increasingly extreme, and reaction had set in on the right. That did not mean the end of student unrest tho.

Question 23

What major event occurred in 1969?

Answer 23

1969: Moratorium, USA’s biggest anti war protest. 10’000 marched on the White House and in every major city.

Question 24

How aggressive had student protests become in the Nixon years (69-74)

Answer 24

Out of 2179 bombings from 69-70, 56% involved students

Pro-black panthers demonstration set Yale law school library books on fire

Ohio state students demand more black students admission and the abortion of ROTC. Six hours later, 7 students shot, 13 injured, 600 arrested. National guard was called

Question 25

How did students react to Nixon’s invasion of cambodia ?

Answer 25

1970: After Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia for communist sanctuaries, anti-war protests erupted again in over 80% of US universities

Question 26

How were student protests dealt with by Nixon?

Answer 26

by halting the federal scholarships and loans for convicted student criminals or those who had badly violated school campus rules. He adjusted the draft, so that students over 20 were no longer threatened, secretly monitored disruptive groups and took protesters to court.

Question 27

What happened in 1971?

Answer 27

30 ‘000 peaceful students camped out in washington -> the police + military arrested a record 12’ 000.
Most famous court cases were those involving Black Panthers.

Question 28

For which reasons did the New Left begin to die?

Answer 28

authorities were clearly not granting any of their demands.

SDS always rejected traditional leadership culture, and so had dissolved into various groups with different philosophies.

Some SDS members lost interest when Nixon ended draft

Some retreated into communes or/and religion.