Youth and the Counterculture of the 1960s [APUSH Review]

Alright, here's where I tell you that youth culture in the 1960s went positively crazy, what with all the liberalism and the long hair and the, uh, relations of the intimate nature. And you, my dear pupil, have been invited to that counterculture party, so if you're ready to get them brain cows milked, let's get to it. Okay, so the Baby Boom generation came of age in the 1960s and were thus influenced not by the sacrifice and patriotism of the Great Depression and World War II, but rather by the frothing cauldron of cultural change that occurred during the Civil Rights Movement. And as a result, the actions of young people were a profound catalyst for change in the 1960s. And the first big change you need to know is that some youth organizations pushed for even greater liberal reforms. Greater than what, says you? Well, says I, remember what I said a few videos ago, namely that the rollout of Lyndon B. Johnson's sweeping policies in the Great Society, which built on the foundation laid by the New Deal, marked the high point of modern liberalism in American history. In other words, if you were alive in the 1960s and you were a liberal, then, as we say here in the South, you were happier than a bird with a French fry. But, as it turned out, only the older liberal birds were happy about the French fry, while the younger liberal birds were like, you look so stupid with that French fry. Or to say it plain, during the 1960s, a growing movement of young Americans rejected the old liberalism of the New Deal and Great Society eras. And this rejection included, but was certainly not limited to, a sharp criticism of federal activism from the federal government and civil rights legislation, anti-poverty programs, and the various Cold War interventions inspired by the containment policy. And if you're following along closely, you might be tempted to think that what I'm talking about here is a new generation of conservative youth who despised liberalism and wanted to kick it to the curb, as is the custom of conservatives. But no, these young people didn't reject the major tenets of liberalism because they were conservative, but because they felt that the old liberalism had not been liberal enough. In fact, they had come to believe that the old liberalism was too cautious and too bureaucratic to actually make any meaningful progress in the pursuit of correcting social injustices. And so, in 1961, Tom Hayden, a college student who had learned the ropes of grassroots activism from his participation in voter registration drives sponsored by the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, created what he called the New Left. And so to that end, Hayden played a significant role in the growth and influence of the banner organization for the New Left, namely the Students for a Democratic Society. And in 1962, the SDS published its Port Huron Statement, which outlined the beliefs of this new movement, which included a condemnation of the immorality of Cold War foreign policy as well as the military-industrial complex. Additionally, the statement called for a return of political power by advocating for policies that facilitated a more participatory democracy. Furthermore, the statement took aim at the growth and seemingly unlimited power of the executive branch in conducting military policy throughout the world. And then it also called for more drastic efforts to eliminate the social systems that created poverty and racism. On this count, advocates of the New Left pointed out that while the old Left guard cheered the passage of civil rights legislation, there was a big difference between legal freedom and real freedom for minorities. In other words, while the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act eliminated racial discrimination on paper, segregation still existed and urban poverty remained largely untouched. And so the New Left pushed for policies that would not only address surface racism, but also work to solve the problems of systemic racism that laws and policies by their very nature could not reach. And then the real moment for the growth and national emergence of the New Left came during the Vietnam War. And that is a saucy tale which I shall tell presently. But first, let me mention that if you want to get a 500 APUSH national exam, then you might want to check out my Heimler Review Guide, which has everything you need to study as fast as possible, not to mention a healthy dose of sass. And you may procure it if you so desire at the link in the description. Okay, so the cauldron of the New Left is starting to bubble, and here comes the Vietnam War to get that thing steaming like a boss. Yes, the New Left grew in membership and influence at the very same moment that the U.S. was escalating its war in Vietnam. And it was the New Left's perception of the deep and abiding immorality of this war that radicalized many members of this movement and led to widespread anti-war protests, and I'm going to tell you about three of them. First was the arrest and conviction of the heavyweight champion boxer Muhammad Ali. So in 1967, Ali refused to submit to the Vietnam military draft when his number was called. And that's because, he explained, as a Muslim, his conscience would not allow him to fight in a war not commanded by Allah. And so Ali, like many other draftees, sought an exemption from the war as a conscientious objector. But if you'll recall from the video on the Vietnam War, President Lyndon Johnson was facing the increasing pressure of the unpopularity of this war and a growing resistance to the draft. And so when someone as popular and well-known as Muhammad Ali was making headlines as a conscientious objector, well, you know, Johnson got real grumpy. Anyway, in the end, Ali was sentenced to five years in prison and made to pay a $10,000 fine, not to mention he was stripped of his boxing titles. And to be clear, this sentence was about as extreme and harsh a penalty a person could receive for refusing to comply with the draft. But the court who tried him wanted to make an example out of Ali and therefore quell any other anti-war sentiment that his arrest might inspire. But here's where I tell you Ali's arrest had the exact opposite effect. Instead of calming anti-war sentiment, it actually set it on fire, and that fire soon spread to inspire other anti-war protests. And that leads us to the second example of youth anti-war protests, and that was the 1967 March on the Pentagon. So just four months after Ali's arrest, the SDS, in conjunction with several other groups, organized a massive anti-war demonstration held in front of the Pentagon. And once there, demonstrators publicly denounced President Johnson's escalation of the war because it always seemed that the president promised that just a little more pressure and a few more troops would bring the war to a close. But that never seemed to be true, and it never seemed to be enough. Additionally, the president also assured the American people that the U.S. was on the verge of victory, but that narrative was starkly contradicted by constant television reports from journalists on the ground in Vietnam. And so these perceived lies provided enormous amounts of kindling for the fires of their protests. Additionally, the demonstrators also protested the injustice of the draft. And that's because draft laws could forcibly conscript 18-year-olds to fight in the war while the voting age in most states was 21. Therefore, protesters highlighted the injustice of being forced to fight an immoral war while having no political agency to change the policy. Anyway, the march on the Pentagon marked a turning point in youth-led activism in the 1960s and brought the anti-war movement into national focus. Like, no longer was anti-war sentiment decentralized and on the fringe. It was now represented in mass and centralized groups of organized protests. Additionally, it demonstrated to those in the halls of power that the new left could not be ignored. Now, in terms of policy, the march didn't actually change that much in the short term. But four years later, states ratified the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18. And then third, probably the most notorious example of youth-led anti-war protest occurred in 1970 at Kent State University. So here, several thousand students gathered to protest Richard Nixon's announcement that he was widening the scope of the Vietnam War by initiating a series of bombing raids on Cambodia, which was ironic since he campaigned on promises to de-escalate the war. Now, the gathering began as a peaceful protest, but soon the Ohio National Guard showed up and ordered the crowd to disperse. And when the students did not leave, the guardsmen fired tear gas into the gathering and some students responded by hurling rocks back at the soldiers. And long story short, things escalated very quickly. And in the midst of confusing signals and orders, the National Guard opened fire on the protesters, killing four students and wounding nine others. And as a result, the members of the new left were even more radicalized after the federal government had used deadly force to silence their protest against what they considered an immoral war. And then in the wider population, public opinion on the war became even more sharply divided, and people's trust in their own government sank to a new low. Okay, and finally, let's talk about everyone's favorite youth phenomenon during the 1960s, and that's the counterculture. So while the new left was a more formal manifestation of youth activism in the 1960s, far greater numbers of young people were drawn to a more generalized rejection of cultural norms that they inherited from their parents. And so, counterculture youth cast off the restraints of societal conformity and overturned cultural norms by means of experimental drug use, rebellious styles of clothing, changes in sexual norms, and embracing new tastes in music. Now, the most iconic image of this movement was the hippie who dressed in ways completely foreign to traditional American culture. The most visible manifestation of the hippie movement was in San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district where hippies gathered into a kind of communal living based on countercultural ideals and drug use and the music of the era. And together, they ingested prodigious amounts of marijuana and psychedelic drugs like LSD, which they considered fundamental to the hippie mindset and created the occasion for the unification of the community. Additionally, counterculture youth rejected the sexual norms of their parents and embraced what they called free love. And so obviously, this commitment was a patent critique on the sexual norms of their parents' generation. Additionally, the hippie movement prized informality. Like, not only did their clothes and general appearance critique the prim and proper styles of the 1950s, they also valued informality in their music. For example, their parents liked to listen to the fine-tuned, well-trained voices of the Croners like Frank Sinatra. But in stark contrast to that, a key figure of the counterculture music scene was Bob Dylan, who indeed wrote lyrics like a poet but whose singing sounded like a lawnmower with a bad case of post-nasal drip. And hey, no judgment from this guy. Like, I love Bob Dylan and he's just using what the good Lord gave him and I am altogether here for him. Anyway, one of the crowning achievements of the counterculture movement was the Woodstock Music Festival held in 1969 in which almost 400,000 people were in attendance. They were free, some were naked, many were high as a kite, and for several days they listened to music from folks like Jimi Hendrix and Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young and Joan Baez who gave voice to their cultural rebellion. But the truth is, the body and mind can only go on for so long being assaulted with powerful psychedelic drugs and so by the 1970s, the counterculture had kind of fizzled out because of those excesses. Laura, you can click here to watch all my other Unit 8 videos or you can click here to grab my A-Push Heimler Review Guide which has everything you need to help you get a 5 on that national exam. I'm glad you came around and I'll catch you on the flip-flop. Heimler out.