The 60’s
The sixties and seventies were known as the era of lost innocence. It was a time when society opened their eyes and woke up to reality of what was going on around them. It was the beginning of a racial revolution, rise of anti-authority, and of course the all to well-known Vietnam War. Martin Luther King Jr. would lead the way in the revolution of equal rights for people of color. His motivation through action and speeches encouraged the people that it was okay to stand up for what you believed in and not to back down. Through his encouragement for change came the black panthers. Which was a group organized of African Americans to help lead the way in change and bring further support to the communities. It was led by a very well educated law student named Huey P. Newton and street smarts Bobby Seal. Together they rallied the communities and started a revolution. This is what had started the change that happened in people’s minds.
Then the Vietnam War would start, which would soon over shadow the struggle that was happening among Americans. In the beginning of the war Americans were all for it and were ready to give their all to war efforts. After watching years pass by and seeing no result they began to question what the point of the war was and why our troops were still there. The Vietnam War being the first every televised war is what also had a major key factor in American retaliating to war. They had the ability to watch what was happening in the midst of battles, they saw their loved ones being injured and killed. Being able to watch these tragic scenes encouraged the people to rise up and question the intention behind this war. Many of the people would join together and fight for peace and to end the war. This being the era of hippies (“peace not war”) many Americans resisted their movement because of their involvement in drugs and speaking though music. Hippies believed in peaceful protest gathering by the hundreds to stand outside and just show in number how much they wanted the war to end.
Soon the average American saw that the hippies had the right idea which is when I believe they took to writing Bizz Johnson. Woman and men took to pen and paper and expressed their discern for the war. For example the letter I read in class was from a man named John Jaekal who wanted to know what care our wounded soldiers would receive when they returned home. He stated how we spent millions on weapons and air strikes but none on the people controlling the weapons and fighting the war. One of the very apparent things about the war that affected the soldiers was the mental state they came home in. Many of the people didn’t know how to react to the soldiers when the returned home. Often times they were treated as outsiders because they had PTSD from the brutal war. The people didn’t know how to react to this; I still believe to this day this is an issue we deal with.
The sixties and seventies were a time of revolution. I believe this is when America finally woke up to the issues in our own country. Martin Luther King Jr. and the black panthers led the way to social acceptance in the rise against authority, when the racial revolution took place. The hippies carried it out by wanting to end the Vietnam War with peace and love. If I was in this time period I would have been a hippie trying to fight for the soldiers to come home and fighting for their health. All in all reading over the document and watching the documentaries made it real that we are capable of rising up to fight for change. In today’s society I feel like we just wouldn’t be able to do those sorts of things because people are so self-centered within each other.
