2016 Postmortem
Related: About this forumWhat it Was Like in the Sixties
There is a general impression, on the part of many, that the Sixties was a decade-long haze of drugs and free love. I can't really say, since I was born in 1958. I know one person, however, who certainly did not experience it that way. That person is Congressman John Lewis.
John Lewis was one of the original 13 Freedom Riders, who challenged racial segregation on the buses in the South. He also was the Chairman of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee.
In 1961 and 1962, Lewis was arrested. Twenty-four times.
In Anniston, Alabama, Klan members deflated the tires of a bus that Lewis and the other Freedom Riders had boarded. Then they firebombed it.
In Birmingham, Lewis was beaten. In Rock Hill, South Carolina, two white men punched Lewis in the face, and kicked him in the ribs.
In Montgomery, a mob met the bus, took Lewis off the bus, knocked him over the head with a wooden crate, and left him unconscious on the bus station floor.
On one day in 1965, a day known as "Bloody Sunday," Alabama state troopers in Selma hit civil rights demonstrators with tear gas, charged into them, and beat them with clubs. They broke John Lewis's skull.
I've seen the scars on his head.
Somehow, all of that . . . pain . . . forged an outstanding Congressman. A champion on universal healthcare. A forceful proponent of gay rights. An apostle of peace.
This month, for only the second time in his 26 years in Congress, John Lewis faces a primary challenge. I don't know who is running against him, and I don't really care. Whoever he is, he has not earned the job the way that John Lewis has, and he can't do the job the way that John Lewis does it.
I'm just glad that there are people like John Lewis in Congress.
I'm asking you to help re-elect this great man, and this great leader. You'll feel good to help him, just as I feel good to know him. Click here.
Courage,
Alan Grayson
msongs
(67,417 posts)pot, the whole hippie demeanor, did not become the youth social norm until the 60's were pretty much over, although the political aspects did take root at the end of the 60's, preceding the cultural aspects, as a draft to perpetuate genocide has immediate impact while culture takes time
Spitfire of ATJ
(32,723 posts)Woodstock was in 69 so the early 70s were a time of psychedelic rock and black light posters. That was when the Beatles went from guys in matching business suits and haircuts to the hippie outfits and the really long hair. For people into Led Zeppelin and Floyd "Disco Sucks" was a battle cry.
The 60's were little more than a carryover of 50's rock becoming Pop Music and top 40 stations playing things like Petula Clark's "Downtown" or the Beach Boys along with a lot of other "guys in matching business suits" bands. Hell, people had just started to move away from wearing hats in the 60's and guys were still putting crap in their hair to slick it down. Look at crowd photos prior to the late 60s and it's a sea of fedoras and every woman had a variety of hats for every occasion. If they were going out into the sun it had a wide brim to give her shade. Jackie made the pillbox hat really popular.
They came out with a product called "The Dry Look" in the early 70s. "The wet head is dead" was in the commercial and people actually bought it because you HAD to have SOMETHING in your hair,....right?
leveymg
(36,418 posts)It appears that Johnson is another opportunistic DLC centrist, looking to weaken Rep. Lewis at a time that he's vulnerable due to redistricting. If you don't believe me, here's an interview where he lays out his GOP-lite views in a Q&A (Hint: Judge Johnson is pro-nuclear, a flat-taxer, a lock-em-up Blue Dog):
http://www.atlantaprogressivenews.com/interspire/news/2012/05/04/apn-chat-with-michael-johnson-congressional-candidate.html
As for Congressman Lewis, you have to love a man who has a campaign poster like this:
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)midnight
(26,624 posts)BanzaiBonnie
(3,621 posts)I told him I wasn't old enough to get into any trouble, but if I had been older I would surely have headed for the south.
I spoke to him of war, segregation, sex, drugs, and rock and roll too. I explained that it was a time when youth were questioning everything. I explained my feelings that it's good to question authority. You don't have to thow out everything, but keep what works, is good and kind and helpful to people.
He said, thank you grandma for the good talk.
Odin2005
(53,521 posts)From when JFK was assassinated to us getting out of Vietnam.
The early 60s were an extension of the late 50s, the high tide of the Greatest Generation.
By the late 70s the earlier Liberal idealism was giving way to the selfish Libertarian narcissism and resurgent evangelical Christianity that lead to the election of Reagan.
Social historians William Strauss and Neil Howe called the period from 1964 to 1984 an "Awakening" era, a period of extremely rapid cultural turmoil and change triggered as a post-"Crisis era" generation starts to come of age. I call the first half, to 1975, the "Blue Awakening", and the 2nd half, to 1984, the "Red Awakening".
A new Crisis era has started, which is why our country has been spiraling into insanity since the Financial Crisis and Obama's election. My Millennial Generation is akin to the Greatest Generation, and Occupy is akin to the labor activism of the 30's.