Other movements from the 1960s

2: Women's Liberation

Movement

• Through protests and marches, women

confronted social and economic barriers

in American society.

⚬ The rise of the women’s movement

during the 1960s advanced women’s

place in the work force and in society.

• The theory behind the women’s

movement of the 1960s was feminism:

⚬ the belief that women should have

economic, political, and social

equality with men.

Women Fight for Equality

Open Ended

How does feminism resemble what Civil Rights activists were fighting for?

• Feminist beliefs had gained momentum during the

mid-1800s and in 1920 won women the right to vote.

⚬ While the women’s movement declined after this

achievement, it reawakened during the 1960s,

spurred by the political activism of the times.

• In 1950, only one out of three women worked for

wages.

• By 1960, that number had increased to about 40

percent.

• Still, during this time, certain jobs were considered

“men’s work” and women were shut out.

⚬ The jobs available to women—mostly clerical

work, domestic service, retail sales, social work,

teaching, and nursing—paid poorly

• The country largely ignored this

discrimination until President Kennedy

appointed the Presidential

Commission on the Status of Women

in 1961.

⚬ In 1963, the commission reported

that women were paid far less

than men, even when doing the

same jobs.

⚬ Furthermore, women were seldom

promoted to management

positions, regardless of their

education, experience, and ability.

• These newly publicized facts awakened

many women to their unequal status

in society.

Let's Rewind a Little

• During the 1950s, writer Betty Friedan seemed to be living

the American dream.

⚬ She had a loving husband, healthy children, and a house

in the suburbs.

• According to the experts—doctors, psychologists, and

women’s magazines—that was all a woman needed to be

fulfilled. Why, then, wasn’t she happy?

• In 1957, after conducting a survey of her Smith College

classmates 15 years after graduation, she found she was not

alone.

⚬ Friedan eventually wrote a book, The Feminine Mystique,

in which she addressed this “problem that has no name.”

• During the 1960s, women answered Friedan’s question with a

resounding “no.”

• In increasing numbers they joined the

nation’s African Americans, Latinos, and

Native Americans in the fight for greater

civil rights and equality in society

• The Feminine Mystique, which captured

the very discontent that many women

were feeling, quickly became a bestseller

and helped to galvanize women across the

country.

• By the late 1960s, women were working

together for change.

Immediate Impact of Women's Movement

• The women’s movement gained strength with the

passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and the

Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC).

⚬ By 1966, some women argued that the EEOC

didn’t address women’s grievances.

• That year, 28 women, including Betty Friedan,

created the National Organization for Women (NOW)

to pursue women’s goals.

⚬ NOW members wanted child-care facilities that

would enable mothers to pursue jobs and

education.

⚬ NOW also pressured the EEOC to enforce more

vigorously the ban on gender discrimination in

hiring.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUoaBm8TZIU

• NOW’s efforts prompted the EEOC to declare sex-segregated job

ads illegal and to issue guidelines to employers, stating that they

could no longer refuse to hire women for traditionally male jobs

• In its first three years, NOW’s ranks swelled to 175,000 members.

⚬ A number of other women’s groups sprang up around the

country, too

• In 1968, a militant group known as the New York Radical Women

staged a well-publicized demonstration at the annual Miss

America Pageant. The women threw bras, girdles, wigs, and other

“women’s garbage” into a “Freedom Trash Can.”

⚬ They then crowned a sheep “Miss America.”

• Around this time, Gloria Steinem, a journalist, political activist,

and ardent supporter of the women’s liberation movement, made

her voice heard on the subjects of feminism and equality.

Poll

Do you think that the Women's Liberation Movement accomplished what it set out to achieve?

• Yes, completely

• No, not at all

• Somewhat, but there is a long way to go still

• What did they want?

3: Latinos and Native

Americans Seek Equality

• During the 1960s, the Latino population in the United

States grew from 3 million to more than 9 million.

⚬ Each group has its own history, its own pattern of

settlement in the United States, and its own set of

economic, social, cultural, and political concerns.

• Wherever they had settled, during the 1960s many

Latinos encountered ethnic prejudice and

discrimination in jobs and housing.

⚬ Most lived in segregated barrios, or

Spanish-speaking neighborhoods.

⚬ The Latino jobless rate was nearly 50 percent

higher than that of whites, as was the percentage

of Latino families living in poverty

• As the presence of Latinos in the United States grew, so too

did their demand for greater representation and better

treatment.

• During the 1960s, Latinos demanded not only equal

opportunity, but also a respect for their culture and heritage.

• César Chávez-a Mexican-American farm worker was known

for trying to organize a union for California’s mostly

Spanish-speaking farm workers.

⚬ Thousands working on California’s fruit and vegetable

farms did backbreaking work for little pay and few

benefits.

• César Chávez believed that farm workers had to unionize,

that their strength would come from bargaining as a group.

Multiple Choice

Why would the Latino movement want not only equal opportunity, but respect for their cultural heritage?

• Because they encountered discrimination

• Because they couldn't find a house

• Because the Latino Movement represented many cultures and heritages

• All of the above.

• In 1962, Chávez and Dolores Huerta established the

National Farm Workers Association.

⚬ Four years later, this group merged with a Filipino

agricultural union (also founded by Huerta) to form

the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee

(UFWOC)

• Chávez and his fellow organizers insisted that California’s

large fruit and vegetable companies accept their union as

the bargaining agent for the farm workers.

• In 1965, when California’s grape growers refused to

recognize the union, Chávez launched a nationwide

boycott of the companies’ grapes.

⚬ Chávez, like Martin Luther King, Jr., believed in using

nonviolence to reach his goal.

⚬ The union sent farm workers across the country to

convince supermarkets and shoppers not to buy

California grapes.

• Chávez then went on a three-week fast

in which he lost 35 pounds.

⚬ He ended his fast by attending Mass

with Senator Robert F. Kennedy.

• The efforts of the farm workers

eventually paid off. In 1970, Huerta
negotiated a contract between the
grape growers and the UFWOC.

⚬ Union workers would finally be

guaranteed higher wages and other
benefits long denied them.

https://youtu.be/Wznw9TA2jXk

• The activities of the California farm workers helped to inspire

other Latino “brown power” movements across the country.

• In New York, members of the Puerto Rican population began to

demand that schools offer Spanish-speaking children classes

taught in their own language as well as programs about their

culture.

• In 1968, Congress enacted the Bilingual Education Act, which

provided funds for schools to develop bilingual and cultural

heritage programs for non-English-speaking children.

Open Ended

Briefly describe the way the Latino Movement achieved its goals. What role did the Federal Government play in those goals?

• As are Latinos, Native Americans are sometimes viewed as a

single homogeneous group, despite the hundreds of distinct

Native American tribes and nations in the United States.

• One thing that these diverse tribes and nations have shared is a

mostly bleak existence in the United States and a lack of an ability

to control and govern their own lives.

⚬ Through the years, many Native Americans have clung to

their heritage, refusing to blend into mainstream society.

• Native Americans as a group have been the poorest of Americans

and have the highest unemployment rate.

⚬ They have also been more likely than any other group to

suffer from tuberculosis and alcoholism.

• Although the Native American population rose during the 1960s,

the death rate among infants was nearly twice the national

average, while life expectancy was several years less than for

other Americans

Native Americans Struggle for Equality

• In 1961, representatives from 61 Native

American groups met in Chicago and drafted

the Declaration of Indian Purpose, which

stressed the determination of Native Americans

to “choose our own way of life.”

⚬ The declaration called for an end to the

termination program in favor of new

policies to create economic opportunities

for Native Americans on their reservations.

• In 1968, President Lyndon Johnson established

the National Council on Indian Opportunity to

“ensure that programs reflect the needs and

desires of the Indian people.”

• Many young Native Americans were

dissatisfied with the slow pace of reform.

• Their discontent fueled the growth of the

American Indian Movement (AIM), an often

militant Native American rights organization.

⚬ While AIM began in 1968 largely as a

self-defense group against police

brutality, it soon branched out to include

protecting the rights of large Native

American populations in northern and

western states.

Open Ended

Why do you think Native Americans were "angry at slow reform"?

How does the history between the federal government and Native American communities affect the way Native Americans feel about reform/legislation?

4: The Counterculture

Movement

• The ideals and lifestyle of the counterculture

challenged the traditional views of Americans.

⚬ The music, art, and politics of the counterculture

have left enduring marks on American society.

• The counterculture—a movement made up mostly of

white, middle-class college youths who had grown

disillusioned with the war in Vietnam and injustices in

America during the 1960s.

⚬ Instead of challenging the system, they turned

their backs on traditional America and tried to

establish a whole new society based on peace and

love.

• Although their heyday was short-lived, their legacy

remains.

• In the late 1960s, the historian Theodore Roszak

deemed these idealistic youths the

counterculture. It was a culture, he said, so

different from the mainstream “that it scarcely

looks to many as a culture at all, but takes on the

alarming appearance of a barbarian intrusion.”

• Members of the counterculture, known as

hippies, shared some of the beliefs of the New

Left movement.

⚬ Specifically, they felt that American

society—and its materialism, technology, and

war—had grown hollow.

• Throughout the mid- and late 1960s,

tens of thousands of idealistic youths

left school, work, or home to create

what they hoped would be an idyllic

community of peace, love, and harmony.

• The hippie era, sometimes known as the

Age of Aquarius, was marked by rock ’n’

roll music, outrageous clothing, sexual

license, and illegal drugs—in particular,

marijuana and a new hallucinogenic

drug called LSD, or acid.

• Timothy Leary, an early experimenter with the drug,

promoted the use of LSD as a “mind-expanding” aid for

self-awareness.

• Hippies also turned to Eastern religions such as Zen

Buddhism, which professed that one could attain

enlightenment through meditation rather than the

reading of scriptures

• Hippies donned ragged jeans, tie-dyed T-shirts, military

garments, love beads, and Native American ornaments.

⚬ Thousands grew their hair out, despite the fact that

their more conservative elders saw this as an act of

disrespect.

⚬ Signs across the country said, “Make America

beautiful—give a hippie a haircut.”

• Hippies also rejected conventional home

life.

⚬ Many joined communes, in which the

members renounced private property

to live communally.

• By the mid-sixties, Haight-Ashbury in San

Francisco was known as the hippie

capital, mainly because California did not

outlaw hallucinogenic drugs until 1966.

• After only a few years, the counterculture’s peace

and harmony gave way to violence and

disillusionment.

⚬ The urban communes eventually turned seedy

and dangerous.

⚬ Having dispensed with society’s conventions and

rules, the hippies had to rely on each other.

• Many discovered that the philosophy of “do your

own thing” did not provide enough guidance for how

to live.

⚬ “We were together at the level of peace and

love,” said one disillusioned hippie. “We fell apart

over who would cook and wash dishes and pay

the bills.”

• By 1970, many had fallen victim to the drugs they

used, experiencing drug addiction and mental

breakdowns.

• As the mystique of the 1960s wore off, thousands

of hippies lined up at government offices to

collect welfare and food stamps—dependent on

the very society they had once rejected.