The 60's

There has never been a decade quite like the sixties; the diversity, conflicts, hope, anger, the music. The 60s decade was a decade of change. Not only were those changes evident in pop culture, music, & fashions;  they changed the course of history.

As you watch the film in class read the corresponding sections in the text:

41.3 Marriage Families and a 'Baby Boom'

44  Civil Rights Revolution: "Like A Mighty Stream"

45.1 Redefining Equality: From Black Power to Affirmative Action

47 The Age of Camelot

49 Emergence of a Counterculture

50 - The United States Gets Involved in Vietnam

51.4 Growing Opposition to the War

Answer these questions in your final essay.  One paragraph per answer.

I. Why did the counterculture fall apart?

II. Were the 60's good or bad for America? Why?

III.  What lessons did the 60's teach us?

IV,  Which character in the film did you relate to most?  If you were them what would you have done differently?

V. Would you have wanted to live during the 60's?  Why or Why not?

  

Women Demand Equality: NOW!

 

In 1966, the National Organization for Women established that a key goal of the feminist movement was the passage of the Equal Rights Amendment, a proposed Constitutional amendment guaranteeing equal rights for women. It had been introduced in Congress in 1923, then passed in 1972 with the condition that 38 states had to ratify it for it to become part of the Constitution. Support was bipartisan and ratification seemed like a sure thing, needing only eight more states.

Then came a housewife and mother of six from St. Louis named Phyllis Schlafly. She believed that the amendment would damage the role of women and the American family and had to be stopped. She took her cause on the road to political rallies, TV talk shows and state assemblies, where she plied legislators with fresh bread and pie.

By 1977, she had built a coalition – rooted in evangelical Christians, Catholics and political conservatives – that eventually stopped the E.R.A. three states short of ratification.

That coalition also provided a base for Ronald Reagan’s presidential victory in 1980, and established Schlafly’s reputation among friends and foes as one of the most effective political organizers in modern American history.

Despite Schlafly’s victory against the ERA, many of the causes she railed against – abortion rights, same-sex marriage, women serving in the military – become realities of American life, protected by law. But Schlafly continued to plead her cause, right up until she died at age 92 in 2016.

The ERA has not passed, despite recent attempts to revive it.

1) What were the arguments for and against the Equal Rights Amendment?
2) What strategies were the most effective at defeating the E.R.A.?
3) How did the defeat of the E.R.A. relate to the rise of conservatism in the 1980s?
4) How was the concept of American womanhood being redefined throughout the 1970s?
5) The video makes it clear that not all American women held the same beliefs about the role of women within society during the 1970s. Why do you think women in the U.S. held different perspectives on the Equal Rights Amendment? What does this debate reveal to us today about the unique pressures women faced in the 1970s?

Civil Rights: Like a Mighty Stream

 

Brown v. Board of Education inspired hopes that African Americans could achieve equal rights in American society. After decades of segregation and discrimination, African Americans were willing to take incredible risks to stand up against unfair laws. But just what types of risks would they and other civil rights activists be willing to take? Read the seven statements that follow, and record whether you believe each is true or false.

The Civil Rights Movement: True or False? 1. On the first day of a bus boycott to protest segregation in Montgomery, Alabama, 90 percent of the city's African American riders stayed off the buses. 2. Leaders of the Montgomery busy boycott brought their case before the Supreme Court, which declared segregation unconstitutional. 3. On the first day of desegregation at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, nine African Americans students faced an angry White mob that tried to stop them from attending school. 4. After college students staged a "sit-in" at an all-White lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, to protest segregation, the city became the first large Southern city to end segregation. 5. The protests led by children in Birmingham, Alabama, were considered successful because police arrested few participants. 6. Around 250,000 people traveled from around the country to Washington, D.C., to participate in a 1963 demonstration protesting racial discrimination. 7. In 1964, Freedom Summer participants in Mississippi faced violence, including beatings, bombings, and shooting, and at least six people were murdered.

TV Values

What cultural norms and values did television reflect during the 1950s? 

What cultural values does television programming reflect today?

Leave It To Beaver is a show remembered by some as an example of a simpler time in America. A time before today's modern anything-goes mentality and it's culture of crassness. A time when traditional family values ruled the day. It is remembered by others as seemingly taking place in an alternate universe that bore no resemblance to reality evenwhen it was new.

I watched a lot of Leave it to Beaver in my childhood, as it was on every afternoon in re-runs, but it wasn’t until seeing it in adulthood that I appreciated to what extent the show does not merit its reputation as a phony part of a repressive Fifties monoculture. Yes, it depicts a world that probably never existed, and yes, like most of what was on television at the time, it under-represents diversity. There are no homosexuals (although who can be entirely sure about Mr. Rutherford?), few black people, and very limited controversy. Within its contained world, however, Leave it to Beaver promotes honesty and personal responsibility over the values of social status or self-interest. It also overturns (usually, anyway) the assumption that dishonesty is an accepted, and even expected, mode of behavior.