preview

How Important Was The Civil Rights Movement In The 1960's

Good Essays

The 1960s were an important decade of change. Minorities, women, and young people, challenged the norm (mostly white and male). The conflicts, especially the ones about the civil rights of African-Americans, were frequently violent. By the end of the decade the country was still mostly white and male but drastic measures had been taken to deal with the unfairness in American society. The civil rights movement took the attention of white and black Americans during 1960s. For African-Americans the 1960s was a new beginning. Protests led by Martin Luther King, Jr. were against segregationists in the southern states, racist whites in the South often reacted with violence. Eventually President John F. Kennedy was forced to send in federal …show more content…

Feminists successfully lobbied for reforms in divorce and abortion. Protests against the war in Vietnam (because young men of were drafted) were usually waged on college campuses all over the country. In the 1960s young people became more outspoken. The Beatles and other bands would change music and would determine what kids listened too. In San Francisco, other young people called hippies were trying to make a new system of their own based on free love, loud music, sharing property, and unfortunately drugs. Drug use was very popular during the 1960s. LSD (acid) (made illegal 1966) and marijuana were the drugs of choice in the early years. The smell of burning marijuana was always in the hippie scene. Pot and acid definitely contributed to the way of life and inspired some of the most outrageous accomplishments. As the joke goes, "If you can remember the '60s, you must not have been there." There was definitely a downside to drug use: addiction caused the deaths of talented young people such as Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin, and the increasingly violent drug trade opposed the hippies' ideals of love and peace. Stanley Milgram was born to Samuel and Adele Milgram. Samuel and Adele

Get Access