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A Time of Upheaval, 1968–1974

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A Time of Upheaval, 1968–1974 CHAPTER 29 A Time of Upheaval, 1968–1974 orothy Burlage grew up in southeast Texas. She learned to be a proper Dsouthern belle as well as a self-reliant “frontier woman” who knew how to ride a horse, shoot a gun, and fix a flat tire. Her conservative Southern Baptist parents taught her to believe in the brotherhood of man and also to conform to the conservative values of her community, which was steeped in the lore of its slaveholding past. At the University of Texas she watched with awe as black students her age engaged in a civil-rights struggle she likened to a holy crusade. Dorothy left the sorority that disapproved of her interest in the civil- rights movement and moved into the university’s only desegregated dormi- tory. She joined the Christian Faith-and-Life Community, a residential reli- gious study center, where she imbibed a heady brew of liberal Christian existentialism. Its commitment to nonviolence and radical change propelled Burlage into the civil-rights movement and its quest for the “beloved com- munity.” The young activists in SNCC became her political model, their CHAPTER OUTLINE ethos her moral beacon. Dorothy Burlage attended the founding conference of SDS in 1962. She The Youth Movement felt a part of history in the making. It exhilarated her to be together with like- The Counterculture minded idealists from different backgrounds, all eager to create a better world. “It was a rare moment in history and we were blessed to be given that 1968: The Politics of Upheaval opportunity,” she later recalled. She gloried in being surrounded by peers Nixon and World Politics Domestic Problems and Divisions The Crisis of the Presidency 905 906 CHAPTER 29 A Time of Upheaval, 1968–1974 who shared her values, who reaffirmed her view of the ■ What were the main causes and consequences of world, and who validated her activities. Burlage the politics of upheaval in 1968? remained involved in the explosive activities of SDS for ■ What fundamental changes in American foreign poli- the rest of the decade, until disillusioned by the constant cy were made by President Nixon? need to be “more radical and more willing to take risks to ■ How did Richard Nixon’s political strategy reflect the prove yourself.” Turning away from political agitation, racial upheavals and radicalism of this era? she initially thought the women’s movement “frivolous, that there were people who were genuinely poor and ■ What were the main causes of the Watergate scandal? people who were genuinely discriminated against because of color. And I didn’t see women as such an THE YOUTH MOVEMENT oppressed class at that time.” Later she would, and share their rage. In the 1950s the number of American students pursuing In 1970, feeling herself “a lost soul,” Dorothy decid- higher education rose from 1 million to 4 million, and ed to go back to school to become a child psychologist. the number doubled to 8 million in the 1960s. By then, Dissatisfied with radical politics, she turned to providing more than half the U.S. population was under thirty better care for children and running a counseling center years of age. Their sheer numbers gave the young a col- for women. Yet she still rejected the liberal consensus lective identity and guaranteed that their actions would and longed to feel as committed to fundamental change, have force. as engaged in unbridled protest, as she had in the 1960s. Most baby boomers followed conventional paths in Fiery commitment and engagement would be char- the 1960s. They sought a secure place in the system, not acteristic of many of Dorothy’s peers, on the right as well its overthrow. They preferred beer to drugs, and football as the left. American youth spawned a tumultuous stu- to political demonstrations. They joined fraternities and dent movement and convulsive counterculture that sororities and majored in subjects that would equip gave the decade its distinctive aura of upheaval. They them for the job market. Whether or not they went to exploded the well-kept world of the 1950s, when “nice” college—and fewer than half did—the vast majority had girls did not have sex or pursue careers, when African their eyes fixed on a good salary, a new car, and a tradi- Americans feared to vote or assert themselves. They tional family. Many disdained the long-haired protesters revived both the left and right. Then, disillusioned with and displayed the same bumper stickers as their elders: the slow pace of change, many became, and remained, “My Country—Right or Wrong” and “America-Love It or preoccupied with themselves—which unexpectedly Leave It.” transformed the nation. Tens of thousands of young people mobilized on the Richard Nixon was both an agent in and beneficiary right, joining organizations like Young Americans for of the era’s upheavals and political realignment. He Freedom (YAF). These youths idolized Barry Goldwater, barely won the presidency in 1968, but continuing con- not John Kennedy. They supported the war in Vietnam as vulsive events ensured him an overwhelming reelection a necessary part of the long struggle for victory over victory in 1972. Presiding over the most radical changes communism. While many adhered to traditional values, in American foreign policy since the start of the Cold other young conservatives embraced libertarian notions. War, Nixon eschewed ideology and morality in favor of Yet all student activists, the New Right and the New Left, practical, realistic goals. He ended U.S. involvement in saw themselves as part of an upheaval that would funda- Vietnam and inaugurated a period of détente with China mentally change America. and the Soviet Union. But he flouted the very laws he had pledged to uphold, and Nixon’s abuse of power Toward a New Left ignited new storms of protest and a constitutional crisis that did not end until he resigned in disgrace in 1974 to In the 1960s an insurgent minority of liberal arts majors avoid impeachment. Nixon’s legacy was the further disil- and graduate students got the lion’s share of attention. lusionment of many citizens and a public disrespect for This liberal-minded minority welcomed the idealism politics seldom matched in U.S. history. of the civil-rights movement and the rousing call of President Kennedy for service to the nation. They admired the mavericks and outsiders of the fifties: This chapter focuses on five major questions: Martin Luther King, Jr.; iconoclastic comedian Mort ■ In what ways did the furor over the war in Vietnam Sahl; Beat poet Allen Ginsberg; and pop-culture rebel affect the student movement? James Dean. The Youth Movement 907 Determined not to be a “silent generation,” sixty to solicit funds and recruit volunteers near the campus students adopted the Port Huron Statement in June gate, a spot traditionally open to political activities. 1962. A broad critique of American society and a call for Prodded by local conservatives, the university suddenly more genuine human relationships, it proclaimed “a banned such practices. That led Savio to found the new left” and gave birth to the Students for a Democratic Berkeley Free Speech Movement (FSM), a coalition of Society (SDS). Inspired by the young black activists, SDS student groups insisting on the right to campus political envisioned a nonviolent youth movement transforming activity. Savio claimed that the university served the the United States into a “participatory democracy” in interests of corporate America and treated students as which individuals would directly control the decisions interchangeable machine parts. He called on students that affected their lives. SDS assumed that such a system to resist, “There is a time when the operation of the would value love and creativity and would end material- machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick to heart, ism, militarism, and racism. that you’ve got to put your bodies upon the gears and The generation of activists who found their agenda upon the wheels...and you’ve got to make it stop.” in the Port Huron Statement had their eyes opened by More than a thousand students followed Savio into Sproul the images of police dogs and fire hoses in Birmingham, Hall to stage a sit-in. Their arrests led to more demon- the assassination of President Kennedy, and the destruc- strations and strikes by students holding signs that read tion of Vietnam brought so graphically into their homes “I Am a Student: Do Not Fold, Bend, or Mutilate” and by television. Most never joined SDS, instead associating “Shut This Factory Down.” with what they vaguely called “the Movement” or “the By 1965 Mario Savio’s call for students to throw their New Left.” Unlike the Leftists of the 1930s, they rejected bodies upon “the machine” until it ground to a halt had Marxist ideology; emulated SNCC’s rhetoric and style; reverberated on campuses nationwide. Students sat in and were radicalized by the rigidity of campus adminis- to halt compulsory ROTC (Reserve Officer’s Training trators and mainstream liberalism’s inability to achieve Corps) programs, rallied to protest dress codes and pari- swift, fundamental change. Only a radical rejection of etal rules, and marched to demand changes in the grad- compromise and consensus, they presumed, could ing system. They demanded fewer required courses, restructure society along humane and democratic lines. smaller classes, and teaching-oriented rather than research-oriented professors. They threatened to close down universities unless they admitted more minority From Protest to Resistance students and stopped doing research for the military- Returning from the Mississippi Freedom Summer to the industrial complex. Berkeley campus of the University of California in fall The escalation of the war in Vietnam, and the aboli- 1964, Mario Savio and other student activists ventured tion of automatic student deferments from the draft in 908 CHAPTER 29 A Time of Upheaval, 1968–1974 January 1966, turned the Movement into a mass move- won’t go!” By 1968 SDS claimed one hundred thousand ment.
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