Check for Understanding<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n
\r\n
- \r\n \t
- What was the central tension of the 1960s? What were examples of both sides of the tension?<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
II. African American Civil Rights Movement<\/h1>\r\n
\r\n Key Concepts & Terms<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n
\r\n- \r\n \t
- Lunch Counter Sit-ins<\/strong> - Led by Black college students in Greensboro North Carolina, activists sat at the whites-only lunch counter in Woolworth\u2019s Department store. Activists refused to leave without being served and endured abuse and arrests. Inspired copycat demonstrations across the South.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)<\/strong> - Youth activist organization dedicated to ending Jim Crow and fighting for civil rights through nonviolence. It was founded in Raleigh, North Carolina to capitalize on the success of the sit-ins. Eventually they organized key events like the Freedom Rides and March of Washington.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)<\/strong> - Founded in Atlanta, Georgia by Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists in 1957 to coordinate and assist local organizations advocating for Black civil rights, primarily in the South. Played a major part in the March on Washington, the Albany, Birmingham, and Selma campaigns for the end of Jim Crow and voting rights.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Battle of Ole Miss<\/strong> - The violent white supremacist reaction to James Meredith, a Black man, enrolling at the University of Mississippi in 1962. Pro-segregationists clashed with the National Guard on campus, resulting in two deaths and hundreds of injuries.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Birmingham Campaign<\/strong> - A campaign of direct action to end segregation in Birmingham Alabama using the non-violent tactics of boycotts, sit-ins, and marches. Gained national attention with the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing by the KKK which killed four young Black girls and photo and video footage of Bull Connor\u2019s white police force using clubs, fire hoses, dogs on non-violent demonstrators. Ended in success with an agreement to desegregate public accommodations<\/li>\r\n \t
- 1963 March on Washington<\/strong> - Known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It was attended by 250,000 people to protest racial discrimination and advocate for a comprehensive civil rights bill, voting rights protection, segregation of public schools, fair employment practices to ban discrimination in employment, and a federal works program for unemployed workers.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Civil Rights Act of 1964<\/strong> - Significant civil rights legislation that banned segregation in public accommodations and outlawed discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender, and national or religious origin.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Freedom Summer<\/strong> - A grassroots movement led by SNCC that used volunteers, including white northern college students, to register Black voters, teach literacy and civics at Freedom Schools, and promote the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party\u2019s challenge to the Democratic delegation at that summer\u2019s Democratic National Convention. Staff and volunteers continued the campaign after the abduction and murder of three staff\/volunteers.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party<\/strong> - A political party that encouraged Black political participation while challenging the \u201cDixiecrats\u201d, or southern Democrats, who ruled the South by blocking Black voter registration and supporting pro-Jim Crow intimidation and violence. While their delegates were rejected from Democratic National Convention in 1964, their efforts eventually led to reform within the Democratic Party\u2019s convention delegate selection process.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Bloody Sunday<\/strong> - March held in Selma, Alabama in 1965 as part of a voting rights campaign where 600 people were attached on the Edmund Pettus Bridge by local law enforcement who used batons and tear gas. The intense violence played out on national TV and swayed public support to be more favorable to the Civil Rights Movement. Led to the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Black Power<\/strong> - Emphasized racial pride, economic empowerment, and the creation of political and cultural institutions.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Black Panther Party for Self Defense<\/strong> - Founded in Oakland, California in 1966 it was dedicated to Black nationalism, socialism, and armed self-defense in the face of police brutality.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
A. Roots and the Early Movement<\/span><\/h3>\r\nAfrican Americans had been fighting against a variety of racist policies, cultures, and beliefs in all aspects of American life. The war and the Double V campaign for victory against fascism abroad and racism at home, as well as the postwar economic boom led, to rising expectations for many African Americans. When persistent racism and racial segregation undercut the promise of economic and social mobility, African Americans began mobilizing on an unprecedented scale against the various discriminatory social and legal structures.<\/span>\r\n\r\nWhat is referred to as the Civil Rights Movement began in 1954. Litigants (with the help of the NAACP) sued state governments over segregated schools, claiming that schools for African Americans were underfunded and inferior by design. Proponents of segregation claimed that schools did not violate civil rights because they were \"separate but equal.\" The US Supreme Court, in the famous Brown v. Board of Education<\/em> decision of 1954, proclaimed that \"separate but equal\" was a lie, and that the claimants had proven their case. The court then ordered all states to desegregate their schools \"with all deliberate speed.\"<\/span>\r\n\r\nOn May 17, 1954, Chief Justice Earl Warren announced the Supreme Court's decision on segregated schooling in Brown v. Board of Education<\/em> (1954). The court found by a unanimous 9\u20130 vote that racial segregation violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court's decision declared, \"Separate educational facilities are inherently unequal.\" \"Separate but equal\" was made unconstitutional.<\/span>\r\n\r\n
![\"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/text\/wp-content\/uploads\/101st_Airborne_at_Little_Rock_Central_High.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/text\/wp-content\/uploads\/101st_Airborne_at_Little_Rock_Central_High.jpg\")
\r\n\r\nSchool desegregation was a tense experience for all involved. The Little Rock Nine were the first to integrate schools in Arkansas. Their escorts, the 101st Airborne Division of the U.S. Army, protected students who took that first step in 1957. Wikimedia.<\/em><\/span>\r\nB. The Montgomery Bus Boycott and Direct Action<\/span><\/h3>\r\nThe first mass demonstration in the movement came in December 1955, in Montgomery, Alabama. Rosa Parks, an NAACP activist, refused to give up her seat on a bus to a White passenger. She was arrested and convicted of violating a local law. This triggered a response from local African American leaders, who formed the Montgomery Improvement Association to launch a protest movement. They chose for their leader young Baptist minister of extraordinary charisma and ability: Martin Luther King Jr. In King's first major leadership role, he organized a boycott of Montgomery busses in order to bankrupt the public bussing system; the boycott continued for about a year, when the Supreme Court intervened, ordering the city to desegregate bussing. The city complied, and the movement had won its first victory.<\/span>\r\n\r\nThe Montgomery Bus Boycott lasted from December 1955 until December 20, 1956, when the Supreme Court ordered their integration. The boycott not only crushed segregation in Montgomery's public transportation, it energized the entire civil rights movement and established the leadership of the MIA's president, a recently arrived, twenty-six-year-old Baptist minister named Martin Luther King Jr.<\/span>\r\n
C. Sit-Ins, Freedom Rides, and Direct Action in the 1960s<\/span><\/h3>\r\nThe tone of the modern U.S. civil rights movement changed at a North Carolina department store in 1960, when four African American students participated in a sit-in at a whites-only lunch counter. The 1960 Greensboro sit-ins were typical. Activists sat at segregated lunch counters in an act of defiance, refusing to leave until being served and willing to be ridiculed, attacked, and arrested if they were not. This tactic drew resistance but forced the desegregation of Woolworth's department stores. It prompted copycat demonstrations across the South.<\/span>\r\n\r\nCivil Rights protesters at Woolworth's Sit-In, Durham, NC, 10 February, 1960. Library of Congress.<\/em><\/span>\r\n\r\nIn the following year, 1961, civil rights advocates attempted a bolder variation of a sit-in when they participated in the Freedom Rides. Activists in the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) organized interstate bus rides following a Supreme Court decision outlawing segregation on public buses and trains. An interracial group of Freedom Riders boarded buses in Washington, D.C. On the initial rides in May 1961, the riders encountered fierce resistance in Alabama. Angry mobs composed of KKK members attacked riders in Birmingham, burning one of the buses and beating the activists who escaped.<\/span>\r\n
D. Birmingham, the March on Washington, and the Civil Rights Act<\/span><\/h3>\r\nThe following year, 1963, was perhaps the decade's most eventful year for civil rights. In April and May, the SCLC organized the Birmingham Campaign, a broad campaign of direct action aiming to topple segregation in Alabama's largest city. SCLC leader Martin Luther King Jr. was jailed, prompting his famous handwritten letter urging not only his nonviolent approach but active confrontation to directly challenge injustice. The campaign further added to King's national reputation and featured powerful photographs and video footage of white police officers using fire hoses and attack dogs on young African American protesters.<\/span>\r\n\r\nThat summer, civil rights leaders organized the August 1963 March on Washington. On the steps of the Lincoln Memorial, King delivered his famous \"I Have a Dream\" speech, an internationally renowned call for civil rights that raised the movement's profile to new heights and put unprecedented pressure on politicians to pass meaningful civil rights legislation.<\/span>\r\n\r\n
![\"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/text\/wp-content\/uploads\/March_on_washington_Aug_28_1963.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/text\/wp-content\/uploads\/March_on_washington_Aug_28_1963.jpg\")
\r\n\r\nThis photograph shows Martin Luther King Jr. and other Black civil rights leaders arm-in-arm with leaders of the Jewish community during the March on Washington on August 28, 1963. Wikimedia.<\/em><\/span>\r\n\r\nPresident Lyndon Johnson took Kennedy's stalled civil rights bill, ensured that it would have teeth, and navigated it through Congress. The following summer he signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, widely considered to be among the most important pieces of civil rights legislation in American history. The comprehensive act barred segregation in public accommodations and outlawed discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender, and national or religious origin.<\/span>\r\n\r\n![\"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/text\/wp-content\/uploads\/Lyndon_Johnson_meeting_with_civil_rights_leaders.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/text\/wp-content\/uploads\/Lyndon_Johnson_meeting_with_civil_rights_leaders.jpg\")
\r\n\r\nLyndon B. Johnson sits with Civil Rights Leaders in the White House, including Martin Luther King Jr. Wikimedia.<\/em><\/span>\r\nE. Voting Rights and the Great Society<\/span><\/h3>\r\nIn March 1965, activists attempted to march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, on behalf of local African American voting rights. \"Bloody Sunday\" featured peaceful protesters attacked by white law enforcement with batons and tear gas. After they were turned away violently a second time, marchers finally made the fifty-mile trek to the state capitol later in the month. Coverage of the first march prompted President Johnson to present the bill that became the Voting Rights Act of 1965, an act that abolished voting discrimination in federal, state, and local elections.<\/span>\r\n
F. Black Power and the Later Civil Rights Movement<\/span><\/h3>\r\nDespite substantial legislative achievements, frustrations with the slow pace of change grew. Tensions continued to mount in cities, and the tone of the civil rights movement changed yet again. Activists became less conciliatory in their calls for progress. Many embraced the more militant message of the burgeoning Black Power Movement and Malcolm X, a Nation of Islam (NOI) minister who encouraged African Americans to pursue freedom, equality, and justice by \"any means necessary.\"<\/span>\r\n\r\n
![\"Like](\"http:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/text\/wp-content\/uploads\/3d01847v-1000x651.jpg\")
\r\n\r\nLike Booker T. Washington and W. E. B. Du Bois before them, Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, pictured here in 1964, represented different strategies to achieve racial justice. Library of Congress.<\/em><\/span>\r\n\r\nAt a June 1966 civil rights march, Stokely Carmichael told the crowd, \"What we gonna start saying now is black power!\" The slogan not only resonated with audiences, it also stood in direct contrast to King's \"Freedom Now!\" campaign. The political slogan of Black power could encompass many meanings, but at its core it stood for the self-determination of Black people in political, economic, and social organizations.<\/span>\r\n\r\nIn 1966, Huey Newton and Bobby Seale formed the Black Panther Party in Oakland, California. The Black Panthers became the standard-bearers for direct action and self-defense, using the concept of decolonization in their drive to liberate Black communities from white power structures. The Black Panthers worked in local communities to run \"survival programs\" that provided food, clothing, medical treatment, and drug rehabilitation. They focused on modes of resistance that empowered Black activists on their own terms.<\/span>\r\n\r\n![\"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/text\/wp-content\/uploads\/Black_Panther_DC_Rally_Revolutionary_Peoples_Constitutional_Convention_1970.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/text\/wp-content\/uploads\/Black_Panther_DC_Rally_Revolutionary_Peoples_Constitutional_Convention_1970.jpg\")
\r\n\r\nThe Black Panther Party used radical and incendiary tactics to bring attention to the continued oppression of Black Americans. This 1970 poster captures their outlook. Wikimedia.<\/em><\/span>\r\n\r\nMLK was assassinated in April 1968, by a White supremacist, and the civil rights movement began to decline. One reason was that the movement had succeeded in eliminating Jim Crow laws in the South, and many people considered its goals accomplished, even though racism remained in many forms. Furthermore, radical organizations like the Black Panthers turned many moderates away from the movement, and the urban riots disenchanted others.<\/span>\r\n<\/div>\r\n\r\n Check for Understanding<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n
\r\n- \r\n \t
- How is this the peak of the long civil rights movement from after the Civil War?<\/li>\r\n \t
- How did the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s differ from earlier civil rights movements?<\/li>\r\n \t
- How was the Civil Rights Movement connected with Christianity?<\/li>\r\n \t
- What were the major accomplishments of the Civil Rights Movement? What challenges did they commonly face? What goals remain unaccomplished?<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
III. The Second Women's Right Movement<\/h1>\r\n
\r\n Key Concepts & Terms<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n
\r\n- \r\n \t
- <\/li>\r\n \t
- The Feminine Mystique<\/em><\/strong> - A bestselling nonfiction book, written by Betty Frieden, the book is often credited with sparking the second-wave feminist movement. Based on the experiences of suburban housewives who were unhappy despite having material wealth and families because they were unfulfilled from housework, marriage, and children. The work was later critiqued for its singular focus on the issues of white upper-class women.<\/li>\r\n \t
- National Welfare Rights Organization<\/strong> - A group founded in 1966 to advocate for economic justice through greater access to welfare, and empowering recipients in policymaking. Was formed in response to politically motivated, and often racist stereotypes and attacks on welfare in the 1950s.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Consciousness-Raising Groups<\/strong> - A strategy of second wave feminism. These groups were places for women to congregate and discuss their lived experiences. Women then used the commonalities of the experiences to draw conclusions about the political root of women\u2019s issues and inequalities.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Women\u2019s Strike for Equality<\/strong> - A nationwide one-day strike from paid and unpaid labor to march and to celebrate the 50th anniversary of women\u2019s suffrage. Organized by NOW in 1970, the primary goals were legal abortion access, equal opportunity in the workforce, and free childcare.<\/li>\r\n \t
- National Organization for Women<\/strong> - Founded in 1966, this group was critical for second wave feminism. Dedicated to equality for all women in the U.S. through concrete legal actions and policies, particularly in the workplace, education, politics, and family life.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\nThe feminist movement also grew in the 1960s. Women were active in both the civil rights movement and the labor movement, but their increasing awareness of gender inequality did not find a receptive audience among male leaders in those movements. In the 1960s, then, many of these women began to form a movement of their own. Soon the country experienced a groundswell of feminist consciousness.\r\n
A. The Presidential Commission and Betty Friedan<\/h3>\r\nAn older generation of women who preferred to work within state institutions figured prominently in the early part of the decade. When John F. Kennedy established the Presidential Commission on the Status of Women in 1961, former first lady Eleanor Roosevelt headed the effort. The commission's official report, a self-declared \"invitation to action,\" was released in 1963. Finding discriminatory provisions in the law and practices of industrial, labor, and governmental organizations, the commission advocated for \"changes, many of them long overdue, in the conditions of women's opportunity in the United States.\"\r\n\r\nBetty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique<\/em> hit bookshelves the same year the commission released its report. Friedan had been active in the union movement and was by this time a mother in the new suburban landscape of postwar America. In her book, Friedan labeled the \"problem that has no name,\" and in doing so helped many white middle-class American women come to see their dissatisfaction as housewives not as something \"wrong with [their] marriage, or [themselves],\" but instead as a social problem experienced by millions of American women.\r\n
B. Welfare Rights and Consciousness-Raising<\/h3>\r\nThe 1960s also saw a different group of women pushing for change in government policy. Mothers on welfare began to form local advocacy groups in addition to the National Welfare Rights Organization, founded in 1966. Mostly African American, these activists fought for greater benefits and more control over welfare policy and implementation. Women like Johnnie Tillmon successfully advocated for larger grants for school clothes and household equipment in addition to gaining due process and fair administrative hearings prior to termination of welfare entitlements.\r\n\r\nYet another mode of feminist activism was the formation of consciousness-raising groups. These groups met in women's homes and at women's centers, providing a safe environment for women to discuss everything from experiences of gender discrimination to pregnancy, from relationships with men and women to self-image. The goal of consciousness-raising was to increase self-awareness and validate the experiences of women. Groups framed such individual experiences as examples of society-wide sexism, and claimed that \"the personal is political.\"\r\n
C. The Women's Strike for Equality and the National Organization for Women<\/h3>\r\nThe end of the decade was marked by the Women's Strike for Equality, celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of women's right to vote. Sponsored by the National Organization for Women (NOW), the 1970 protest focused on employment discrimination, political equality, abortion, free childcare, and equality in marriage.\r\n\r\n
![\"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/text\/wp-content\/uploads\/03425v.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/text\/wp-content\/uploads\/03425v.jpg\")
\r\n\r\nWomen march during the \"Women's Strike for Equality,\" a nationwide protest launched on the 50th anniversary of women's suffrage, August 26, 1970. Library of Congress.<\/em><\/span>\r\n\r\nAll of these issues foreshadowed the backlash against feminist goals in the 1970s. Not only would feminism face opposition from other women who valued the traditional homemaker role to which feminists objected, the feminist movement would also fracture internally as minority women challenged white feminists' racism and lesbians vied for more prominence within feminist organizations.\r\n\r\n \r\nIV. The Chicano Movement<\/h1>\r\n
<\/h1>\r\n
\r\n Key Concepts & Terms<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n
\r\n- \r\n \t
- Chicano Movement<\/strong> - El Movimiento, a social and political movement that advocated for rights and empowerment of Mexican Americans in the U.S. Contained various groups and goals such as farmworkers, education reform, desegregation and political representation. Was unified by Chicano pride and identity.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Mexican American Political Association<\/strong> - Founded in 1960 in California, the group was dedicated to increasing political participation and representation by electing Mexican-Americans to office, educating the community on issues, and conducting voter registration.<\/li>\r\n \t
- United Farmworkers of America<\/strong> - A labor union that represented many Mexican-American and Filipino-American laborers, particularly in a grape-strike in 1965.<\/li>\r\n \t
- National Chicano Youth Conference<\/strong> - Organized in 1969 in Denver by the Crusade for Justice. The conference had workshops and lectures on art, civil disobedience, and political philosophy. Attendees planned student walkouts in California, Arizona, Texas, New Mexico, and Colorado.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Plan Espiritual de Aztl\u00e1n<\/strong> - Landmark document of the Chicano movement that was drafted at the Denver Youth Conference in 1969. Named after Aztl\u00e1n, the ancestral home of the Aztec people. It outlined the goals of the nationalist movement, including unity, economic power, equitable and relevant education, cultural pride, and political liberation.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
A. Roots: Juan Crow Racism and Early Advocacy<\/span><\/h3>\r\nChicanx and Latinx communities have played an important role in the development of civil rights frameworks and policies in the United States. While these contributions are often overlooked, Chicanx and Latinx advocates have helped to establish principles of non-discrimination, mount legal struggles against racist policies, and mobilize multiracial coalitions for social and economic justice. This work has been carried out by generations of activists and made a lasting impact on U.S. and transnational legal structures.<\/span>\r\n\r\nThroughout the early 20th Century, the United States was in an era of Jim Crow and Juan Crow Laws, which legally enforced racist segregation policies that separated facilities and services for white people and excluded communities of color. Official segregation policies were matched by virulent racism and violence. The simultaneous dehumanization of both Black and Latinx communities can be seen in public signs that read, \"No Dogs, No Negroes, No Mexicans.\"<\/span>\r\n\r\n
![\"Racist](\"https:\/\/socialsci.libretexts.org\/@api\/deki\/files\/119536\/7.2.1_No_Dogs-Negroes-Mexicans_-_Racist_Sign_from_Deep_South_-_National_Civil_Rights_Museum_-_Downtown_Memphis_-_Tennessee_-_USA.jpg?revision=2&size=bestfit&width=600&height=450\")
\r\n\r\nRacist sign from Memphis, Tennessee that reads, \"No Dogs, Negroes, Mexicans.\" National Civil Rights Museum. CC-BY 2.0.<\/em><\/span>\r\n\r\nOne brutal instance of coordinated white supremacist terrorism occurred in Los Angeles in 1943, in what historians call the Zoot Suit Riots. During World War II, the deployment of massive numbers of working-age men into war created vacancies in the domestic labor force. The growing Mexican and Mexican-American community in places like Los Angeles caused anxiety for elites in power interested in maintaining the status quo racial hierarchy. In 1943 in Los Angeles, white American sailors claimed that they were taunted by Pachucos, and proceeded to attack any Latino wearing a zoot suit on the street. When the police arrived, they arrested the victims of these crimes rather than the assailants.<\/span>\r\n\r\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/socialsci.libretexts.org\/@api\/deki\/files\/119535\/7.2.2_Mexican_American_youths_detained_for_questioning.jpeg?revision=2&size=bestfit&width=600&height=479\")
\r\n\r\nMexican American youths detained for questioning during the Zoot Suit Riots. UCLA Library Digital Collections. CC BY 4.0.<\/em><\/span>\r\n\r\n![\"A](\"https:\/\/socialsci.libretexts.org\/@api\/deki\/files\/119537\/7.2.3_Zoot_Suit_-_Centro_Cultural_Universitario.jpg?revision=2&size=bestfit&width=600&height=400\")
\r\n\r\n\"Zoot Suit - Centro Cultural Universitario\" by Fernando Messino, Flickr is licensed CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.<\/em> <\/span>\r\nB. Civil Rights and Legal Advocacy<\/span><\/h3>\r\nThe League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) was a frontrunner in the struggle for civil rights, as it was formed in 1929. Members were involved in Hernandez v. Texas<\/em>, which dealt with the exclusion of Mexican-American people from jury service. In its unanimous decision, the Supreme Court affirmed in 1954 that equal protection does in fact apply to Mexican-origin people, as well as multiple racial groups who have experienced historical marginalization and systemic oppression.<\/span>\r\n\r\nEven as the legal structures of racial segregation began to falter, Latinx communities still experienced exclusion and discrimination in all arenas of life. Public schools were failing Chicanx and Latinx communities. Students were receiving sub-par educational preparation, resulting in the lowest reading rates and graduation rates of any racial or ethnic group. This also contributed to Chicano and Latino men being drafted in disparate numbers for the Vietnam War. American labor markets restricted opportunities to well-paid jobs and representation in unions, forcing Chicanx and Latinx people into underpaid employment with poor working conditions.<\/span>\r\n
C. Identity Politics and Chicanismo<\/span><\/h3>\r\nThe term Chicano was used first as a derogatory term against Mexican American communities, and activists reclaimed the term to give it a positive meaning associated with self-determination. The Chicano movement originated as a set of diverse local and regional struggles for social justice, civil rights, and political representation throughout the U.S. Southwest and Midwest. Activists, men and women, young and old, demanded equal rights under the law, an overhaul of the educational system, access to decent housing, community-run healthcare, and an end to police brutality and the Vietnam War.<\/span>\r\n\r\nThe word Chicano<\/em> was initially considered a derogatory term for Mexican immigrants, until activists in the 1960s reclaimed the term and used it as a catalyst to campaign for political and social change among Mexican Americans. The Chicano movement confronted discrimination in schools, politics, agriculture, and other formal and informal institutions. Organizations like the Mexican American Political Association (MAPA) and the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund (MALDF) buoyed the Chicano movement and patterned themselves after similar influential groups in the African American civil rights movement.\r\n
D. Cesar Chavez and Agricultural Labor<\/h3>\r\nCesar Chavez became the most well-known figure of the Chicano movement, using nonviolent tactics to campaign for workers' rights in the grape fields of California. Chavez and activist Dolores Huerta founded the National Farm Workers Association, which eventually merged and became the United Farm Workers of America (UFWA). The UFWA fused the causes of Chicano and Filipino activists protesting the subpar working conditions of California farmers on American soil. In addition to embarking on a hunger strike and a boycott of table grapes, Chavez led a three-hundred-mile march in March and April 1966 from Delano, California, to the state capital of Sacramento. The pro-labor campaign garnered the national spotlight and the support of prominent political figures such as Robert Kennedy.\r\n\r\n
![\"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/text\/wp-content\/uploads\/Untitled-11.jpg\"](\"https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com\/text\/wp-content\/uploads\/Untitled-11.jpg\")
\r\n\r\nThe 1966 Rio Grande Valley Farm Workers March (\"La Marcha\"), August 27, 1966. The University of Texas-San Antonio Libraries' Special Collections.<\/em><\/span>\r\nE. El Movimiento: Students Lead the Way<\/span><\/h3>\r\nA major influence on Chicanxs mobilizing in California took place on March 5, 1968, when 22,000 students walked out of their classes at Garfield, Roosevelt, Lincoln, Belmont, and Wilson High Schools in East Los Angeles. Also known as the East L.A. Blowouts, this demonstration brought attention to 26 demands, including changes in academics, administration, and facilities, as well as recognition of students' rights and humanity. Students' peaceful protests were met with police violence, and they were arrested and locked behind gates.<\/span>\r\n\r\nStudents and activists were also inspired by El Plan Espiritual de Aztl\u00e1n during the 1969 Chicano Youth Conference hosted by Rodolfo \"Corky\" Gonzalez in Denver, Colorado. This document focused on translating the spirit of protest into organizational principles that can sustain action over time. The seven goals laid out in the plan pertain to unity, economy, education, institutions, self-defense, cultural values, and political liberation. The term Chicanismo was born at this event, and it emphasized the need to come together as Chicanos to make unified claims for racial liberation.<\/span>\r\n\r\nRodolfo \"Corky\" Gonzales was another activist whose calls for Chicano self-determination resonated long past the 1960s. A former boxer and Denver native, Gonzales founded the Crusade for Justice in 1966, an organization that would establish the first annual Chicano Liberation Day at the National Chicano Youth Conference.\r\n\r\n
![\"Corky](\"https:\/\/socialsci.libretexts.org\/@api\/deki\/files\/119543\/7.2.7_Corky_Gonzales.jpeg?revision=2&size=bestfit&width=450&height=600\")
\r\n\r\nCorky Gonzales speaking at a microphone. Penny's poetry pages Wiki. CC BY-SA 2.0.<\/em><\/span>\r\nF. The Chicano Moratorium<\/h3>\r\nOne major issue affecting the Chicanx community, especially Chicano men, was the disparate rate of being drafted into dangerous military service to wage war in Vietnam. Mexican-Americans made up 20% of all casualties in the war, when they only accounted for 10% of the U.S. population at the time. In 1970, the National Chicano Moratorium Committee Against the Vietnam War mobilized a demonstration of 30,000 people in East Los Angeles, which was the largest anti-war protest organized by any single ethnic group in the United States.<\/span>\r\n\r\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/socialsci.libretexts.org\/@api\/deki\/files\/119542\/7.2.6_ELA_Chicano_Moratorium%252C_El_Gallo.jpeg?revision=2&size=bestfit&width=450&height=600\")
\r\n\r\nELA Chicano Moratorium newspaper coverage from El Gallo, including the headline \"Chicanos hold mass march in L.A. despite downpour.\" Ernesto B. Vigil, Wikimedia. Public Domain.<\/em><\/span>\r\n\r\nBy 1970, the Texas-based La Raza Unida political party had a strong foundation for promoting Chicano nationalism and continuing the campaign for Mexican American civil rights.\r\nV. The Hippie Movement and Counterculture<\/h1>\r\n
\r\n Key Concepts & Terms<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n
\r\n- \r\n \t
- Counterculture<\/strong> - A social movement led by young people that rejected mainstream American values and norms in favor of artistic expressions, recreational drug use, communal living, involvement with political protests, and casual sex.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Miniskirt<\/strong> - Not just a clothing item, above the knee skirts were a symbol of youth rebellion and a rejection of the conformity and formality of the 1950s.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Hippies<\/strong> - A youth movement of the 1960s and 1970s who were known for rejecting materialism and embracing psychedelic drugs and music, sexual revolution, and communal living.<\/li>\r\n \t
- LSD<\/strong> - One of the psychedelic drugs embraced by the counterculture and hippie movements as a way to expand an individual\u2019s consciousness.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Rock\u2019n\u2019Roll<\/strong> - American music form with roots in blues, jazz, and country. Orginally led by many Black artists, but was a commercial success with white audiences.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Summer of Love<\/strong> - Summer of 1967 when thousands of young people, particularly hippies, arrived in the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood of San Francisco to protest the Vietnam war, reject materialism, experiment with drugs and sexuality, and practice Eastern religions.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Earth Day<\/strong> - An effort led by Senator Gaylord Nelson of Wisconsin to bring more attention to air and water pollution. Inspired by the student anti-war movement, the original idea was a day of teach-ins and demonstrations in 1970.<\/li>\r\n \t
- National Environmental Policy Act<\/strong> - Major law that was made law in 1970. Requires potential environmental risks and impacts to be taken into account during decisions made by federal agencies. It also requires public participation for the decision-making process for environmental matters.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Silent Spring<\/em><\/strong> - A nonfiction book written by Rachel Carson, published in 1962, that helped activate the environmental movement. The book was a bestseller and revealed the negative impact of pesticides and DDT on the environment and humans.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n \r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_283\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"884\"]
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/americanyawp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/229\/2025\/04\/27.9-300x212.jpg\")
Epitomizing the folk music and protest culture of 1960s youth, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan are pictured here singing together at the March on Washington in 1963. Wikimedia.[\/caption]\r\nA. Origins of the Counterculture<\/h3>\r\nThe 1960s wrought enormous cultural change. The United States that entered the decade looked and sounded little like the one that left it. Rebellion rocked the supposedly hidebound conservatism of the 1950s as the youth counterculture became mainstream.\r\n\r\nMuch of the counterculture was filtered through popular culture and consumption. The fifties consumer culture still saturated the country, and advertisers continued to appeal to teenagers and the expanding youth market. During the 1960s, though, advertisers looked to a growing counterculture to sell their products. The new countercultural ethos touted individuality and rebellion.\r\n\r\nA new youth culture exploded in American popular culture. The anxieties of the atomic age hit America's youth particularly hard. Keenly aware of the discontent bubbling beneath the surface of the Affluent Society, many youth embraced rebellion. The 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause<\/em> demonstrated the restlessness and emotional incertitude of the postwar generation raised in increasing affluence yet increasingly unsatisfied with their comfortable lives. American youth embraced rock 'n' roll. They listened to Little Richard, Buddy Holly, and especially Elvis Presley.\r\n
B. The Counterculture in the 1960s<\/h3>\r\nThe counterculture conquered popular culture. Rock 'n' roll, liberalized sexuality, an embrace of diversity, recreational drug use, unalloyed idealism, and pure earnestness marked a new generation. Criticized by conservatives as culturally dangerous and by leftists as empty narcissism, the youth culture nevertheless dominated headlines and steered American culture. Perhaps one hundred thousand youth descended on San Francisco for the utopic promise of 1967's Summer of Love. 1969's Woodstock concert in New York became shorthand for the new youth culture and its mixture of politics, protest, and personal fulfillment.\r\n\r\nEpitomizing the folk music and protest culture of 1960s youth, Joan Baez and Bob Dylan are pictured here singing together at the March on Washington in 1963. Wikimedia.<\/em>\r\n\r\nThe dominant style of women's fashion in the 1950s, for instance, was the poodle skirt and the sweater, tight-waisted and buttoned up. The 1960s ushered in an era of much less restrictive clothing. Capri pants became popular casual wear. Skirts became shorter. When Mary Quant invented the miniskirt in 1964, she said it was a garment \"in which you could move, in which you could run and jump.\" By the late 1960s, the hippies' more androgynous look became trendy. Such trends bespoke the new popular ethos of the 1960s: freedom, rebellion, and individuality.\r\n
C. The Counterculture and Political Activism<\/h3>\r\nIn a decade plagued by social and political instability, the American counterculture also sought psychedelic drugs as its remedy for alienation. For middle-class white teenagers, society had become stagnant and bureaucratic. The New Left arose on college campuses frustrated with the lifeless bureaucracies that they believed strangled true freedom. Lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) began its life as a drug used primarily in psychological research before trickling down into college campuses and out into society at large.\r\n\r\nWhile the ascendance of the hippies would be both exaggerated and short-lived, and while Vietnam and Richard Nixon shattered much of its idealism, the counterculture's liberated social norms and its embrace of personal fulfillment still define much of American culture.\r\n\r\nThe writers, poets, and musicians of the Beat Generation, disillusioned with capitalism, consumerism, and traditional gender roles, sought a deeper meaning in life. Beats traveled across the country, studied Eastern religions, and experimented with drugs, sex, and art. Other Americans took larger steps to reject the expected conformity of the Affluent Society.\r\n
D. Environmentalism and the Counterculture<\/h3>\r\nAmerican environmentalism's significant gains during the 1960s emerged in part from Americans' recreational use of nature. Postwar Americans backpacked, went to the beach, fished, and joined birding organizations in greater numbers than ever before. These experiences, along with increased formal education, made Americans more aware of threats to the environment and, consequently, to themselves.\r\n\r\nBy the time that biologist Rachel Carson published her landmark book, Silent Spring<\/em>, in 1962, a nascent environmentalism had emerged in America. Silent Spring<\/em> stood out as an unparalleled argument for the interconnectedness of ecological and human health. Pesticides, Carson argued, also posed a threat to human health, and their overuse threatened the ecosystems that supported food production. Even before the massive gathering for Earth Day, lawmakers from the local to the federal level had pushed for and achieved regulations to clean up the air and water.\r\n
VI. The American Indian Movement (AIM)<\/h1>\r\n
\r\n Key Concepts & Terms<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n
\r\n- \r\n \t
- National Indian Youth Council<\/strong> - Founded in 1961 with the goals of enforcing and protecting treaty, hunting, and fishing rights through direct action such as fish-ins and marches.<\/li>\r\n \t
- American Indian Movement<\/strong> - Founded in Minneapolis in 1968 by Ojibwe activists, although originally focused on providing aid to indigenous people in urban areas, AIM became focused on self-determination and the fulfillment of broken treaty promises made by the U.S. government.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
A. Native American Power and Its Origins<\/h3>\r\nBut African Americans weren't the only Americans struggling to assert themselves in the 1960s. The successes of the civil rights movement and growing grassroots activism inspired countless new movements. In the summer of 1961, frustrated Native American university students founded the National Indian Youth Council (NIYC) to draw attention to the plight of Indigenous Americans. In the Pacific Northwest, the council advocated for tribal fisherman to retain immunity from conservation laws on reservations and in 1964 held a series of \"fish-ins\": activists and celebrities cast nets and waited for the police to arrest them.\r\n\r\nThe NIYC's militant rhetoric and use of direct action marked the beginning of what was called the Red Power movement, an intertribal movement designed to draw attention to Native issues and to protest discrimination. The American Indian Movement (AIM) and other activists staged dramatic demonstrations. In November 1969, dozens began a year-and-a-half-long occupation of the abandoned Alcatraz Island in San Francisco Bay. In 1973, hundreds occupied the town of Wounded Knee, South Dakota, site of the infamous 1890 massacre, for several months.\r\n
B. AIM's Goals and Organizing<\/h3>\r\nThe American Indian Movement was founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. AIM was established initially to address systemic issues of police brutality and racial profiling of urban Native Americans. As the movement grew, AIM broadened its mission to advocate for the full recognition of treaty rights, economic independence, and the revival of spiritual and cultural practices for Indigenous peoples across North America.\r\n\r\nLike the African American civil rights movement before it, AIM used a combination of legal challenges, direct action, and public protest to draw attention to the plight of Native Americans. AIM also emphasized the revival and preservation of Indigenous cultures, languages, and spiritual traditions that had been suppressed by generations of assimilationist federal policy. The Trail of Broken Treaties march in 1972, in which caravans of Native Americans traveled across the country to Washington, D.C., demanded that the federal government honor its historic treaty obligations.\r\n
C. Wounded Knee and the Aftermath<\/h3>\r\nThe dramatic 71-day occupation of Wounded Knee, South Dakota in 1973 became AIM's most high-profile action. AIM members and members of the local Oglala Lakota community occupied the site\u2014the location of the 1890 massacre of Lakota men, women, and children by U.S. cavalry\u2014to protest the failure of the federal government to honor treaties and to challenge the corrupt tribal government of the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.\r\n\r\nAIM used these highly visible demonstrations to expose the ongoing poverty, lack of self-determination, and treaty violations experienced by Native communities across the United States. The 1969 occupation of Alcatraz Island had made use of a provision in an 1868 treaty permitting Native Americans to claim federal lands that had been decommissioned. Though ultimately unsuccessful in their immediate demands, these actions prompted Congress to pass the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, which gave tribes greater control over federally funded programs on reservations.\r\n
D. The Cultural and Political Legacy of AIM<\/h3>\r\nAIM's legacy extended beyond its most dramatic protests. The movement helped revitalize cultural and spiritual traditions across many Native communities, and its advocacy contributed to several significant policy changes. The American Indian Religious Freedom Act of 1978 protected Native peoples' rights to practice traditional spiritual and religious ceremonies. The Indian Child Welfare Act of 1978 established tribal jurisdiction over child custody proceedings, responding to decades of Native children being removed from their families and placed with white families or in federal boarding schools.\r\n\r\nIn 1974, fishing rights activists and tribal leaders reached a legal victory in United States v. Washington<\/em>, otherwise known as the Boldt Decision, which declared that Native Americans were entitled to up to 50 percent of the fish caught in the \"usual and accustomed places,\" as stated in 1850s treaties.\r\n\r\n \r\n
\r\n Check for Understanding<\/p>\r\n\r\n<\/header>\r\n
\r\n- \r\n \t
- What were the similarities and distinctions between the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s (civil rights, Black power, indigenous rights, Chicano movement, second wave feminism, and environmentalism?)<\/li>\r\n \t
- What were some of the major goals and successes of each movement?<\/li>\r\n \t
- In what ways are the goals of these movements not yet achieved?<\/li>\r\n<\/ol>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
VII. Conclusion<\/h1>\r\nIn 1969, Americans hailed the moon landing as a profound victory in the space race against the Soviet Union. But while Neil Armstrong said his steps marked \"one giant leap for mankind,\" the brief moment of wonder only punctuated years of turmoil. The Vietnam War disillusioned a generation, riots rocked cities, protests hit campuses, and assassinations robbed the nation of many of its leaders.\r\n\r\nThe civil rights struggles of the 1940s through the 1970s\u2014African American, feminist, Chicano, countercultural, and Indigenous\u2014reshaped American law, culture, and identity. These movements shared a common demand: that the United States honor the democratic ideals proclaimed at its founding. They did not all succeed equally, and the work of each movement remained unfinished at the close of the era. Yet each movement left a permanent mark: the Civil Rights Acts, the Voting Rights Act, the women's liberation movement, Chicano political representation, the cultural revolution of the hippies, and Native American self-determination were all permanent changes to the fabric of American society.\r\n
VIII. Sources<\/h1>\r\nLocke, Joseph, and Ben Wright, eds. The American Yawp: A Massively Collaborative Open U.S. History Textbook<\/em>. Stanford University Press. Accessed May 27, 2026. https:\/\/www.americanyawp.com<\/a>.\r\n\r\nBassano, David. World History Since 1945<\/em>. Brookdale Community College, 2023. Accessed May 27, 2026. https:\/\/hist-oer.s3.amazonaws.com\/index.html<\/a>.\r\n\r\nGonz\u00e1lez, Amber Rose, Mario Alberto Viveros Espinoza-Kulick, Melissa Moreno, Lucha Ar\u00e9valo, and Eddy Francisco Alvarez Jr. New Directions in Chicanx and Latinx Studies<\/em>. LibreTexts, 2023. https:\/\/socialsci.libretexts.org\/Bookshelves\/Ethnic_Studies\/New_Directions_in_Chicanx_and_Latinx_Studies_(Gonzalez_et_al<\/a>.).","rendered":"
Table of Contents
\nI. Introduction
\nII. African American Civil Rights Movement
\nIII. The Second Women’s Rights Movement
\nIV. The Chicano Movement
\nV. The Hippie Movement and the Counterculture
\nVI. The American Indian Movement (AIM)
\nVII. Conclusion
\nVIII. Primary Sources<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/pressbooks.ccconline.org\/americanyawp\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/229\/2025\/04\/27.1-300x150.jpg\")
Demonstrators march from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, in 1965 to champion African American civil rights. Library of Congress.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n I. Introduction<\/h1>\n
Perhaps no decade is so immortalized in American memory as the 1960s. Couched in the colorful rhetoric of peace and love, complemented by stirring images of the civil rights movement, and fondly remembered for its music, art, and activism, the decade brought many people hope for a more inclusive, forward-thinking nation. But the decade was also plagued by strife, tragedy, and chaos. It was the decade of the Vietnam War, inner-city riots, and assassinations that seemed to symbolize the crushing of a new generation’s idealism. A decade of struggle and disillusionment rocked by social, cultural, and political upheaval, the 1960s are remembered because so much changed, and because so much did not.<\/span><\/p>\n
The 1960s wrought enormous cultural change. The United States that entered the decade looked and sounded little like the one that left it. Rebellion rocked the supposedly hidebound conservatism of the 1950s as the youth counterculture became mainstream. Native Americans, Chicanos, women, and environmentalists participated in movements demonstrating that rights activism could be applied to ethnicity, gender, and nature. In each instance, the decade brought substantial progress and evidence that activism remained fluid and unfinished.<\/span><\/p>\n
The successes of the civil rights movement and growing grassroots activism inspired countless new movements. The broad civil rights movement of the era encompassed the fight for African American equality, the second wave of feminism, Chicano self-determination, the countercultural hippie movement, and the Red Power movement led by the American Indian Movement. Each of these struggles reshaped American society and left a lasting legacy.<\/span><\/p>\n
\n\n Check for Understanding<\/p>\n<\/header>\n
\n- \n
- What was the central tension of the 1960s? What were examples of both sides of the tension?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
II. African American Civil Rights Movement<\/h1>\n
\n\n Key Concepts & Terms<\/p>\n<\/header>\n
\n- \n
- Lunch Counter Sit-ins<\/strong> – Led by Black college students in Greensboro North Carolina, activists sat at the whites-only lunch counter in Woolworth\u2019s Department store. Activists refused to leave without being served and endured abuse and arrests. Inspired copycat demonstrations across the South.<\/li>\n
- Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)<\/strong> – Youth activist organization dedicated to ending Jim Crow and fighting for civil rights through nonviolence. It was founded in Raleigh, North Carolina to capitalize on the success of the sit-ins. Eventually they organized key events like the Freedom Rides and March of Washington.<\/li>\n
- Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC)<\/strong> – Founded in Atlanta, Georgia by Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. and other civil rights activists in 1957 to coordinate and assist local organizations advocating for Black civil rights, primarily in the South. Played a major part in the March on Washington, the Albany, Birmingham, and Selma campaigns for the end of Jim Crow and voting rights.<\/li>\n
- Battle of Ole Miss<\/strong> – The violent white supremacist reaction to James Meredith, a Black man, enrolling at the University of Mississippi in 1962. Pro-segregationists clashed with the National Guard on campus, resulting in two deaths and hundreds of injuries.<\/li>\n
- Birmingham Campaign<\/strong> – A campaign of direct action to end segregation in Birmingham Alabama using the non-violent tactics of boycotts, sit-ins, and marches. Gained national attention with the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing by the KKK which killed four young Black girls and photo and video footage of Bull Connor\u2019s white police force using clubs, fire hoses, dogs on non-violent demonstrators. Ended in success with an agreement to desegregate public accommodations<\/li>\n
- 1963 March on Washington<\/strong> – Known as the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. It was attended by 250,000 people to protest racial discrimination and advocate for a comprehensive civil rights bill, voting rights protection, segregation of public schools, fair employment practices to ban discrimination in employment, and a federal works program for unemployed workers.<\/li>\n
- Civil Rights Act of 1964<\/strong> – Significant civil rights legislation that banned segregation in public accommodations and outlawed discrimination based on race, ethnicity, gender, and national or religious origin.<\/li>\n
- Freedom Summer<\/strong> – A grassroots movement led by SNCC that used volunteers, including white northern college students, to register Black voters, teach literacy and civics at Freedom Schools, and promote the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party\u2019s challenge to the Democratic delegation at that summer\u2019s Democratic National Convention. Staff and volunteers continued the campaign after the abduction and murder of three staff\/volunteers.<\/li>\n
- Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party<\/strong> – A political party that encouraged Black political participation while challenging the \u201cDixiecrats\u201d, or southern Democrats, who ruled the South by blocking Black voter registration and supporting pro-Jim Crow intimidation and violence. While their delegates were rejected from Democratic National Convention in 1964, their efforts eventually led to reform within the Democratic Party\u2019s convention delegate selection process.<\/li>\n
- Bloody Sunday<\/strong> – March held in Selma, Alabama in 1965 as part of a voting rights campaign where 600 people were attached on the Edmund Pettus Bridge by local law enforcement who used batons and tear gas. The intense violence played out on national TV and swayed public support to be more favorable to the Civil Rights Movement. Led to the passing of the Voting Rights Act of 1965.<\/li>\n
- Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)<\/strong> – Youth activist organization dedicated to ending Jim Crow and fighting for civil rights through nonviolence. It was founded in Raleigh, North Carolina to capitalize on the success of the sit-ins. Eventually they organized key events like the Freedom Rides and March of Washington.<\/li>\n
- Lunch Counter Sit-ins<\/strong> – Led by Black college students in Greensboro North Carolina, activists sat at the whites-only lunch counter in Woolworth\u2019s Department store. Activists refused to leave without being served and endured abuse and arrests. Inspired copycat demonstrations across the South.<\/li>\n
- What was the central tension of the 1960s? What were examples of both sides of the tension?<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
- American Indian Movement<\/strong> - Founded in Minneapolis in 1968 by Ojibwe activists, although originally focused on providing aid to indigenous people in urban areas, AIM became focused on self-determination and the fulfillment of broken treaty promises made by the U.S. government.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<\/div>\r\n
- Miniskirt<\/strong> - Not just a clothing item, above the knee skirts were a symbol of youth rebellion and a rejection of the conformity and formality of the 1950s.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Mexican American Political Association<\/strong> - Founded in 1960 in California, the group was dedicated to increasing political participation and representation by electing Mexican-Americans to office, educating the community on issues, and conducting voter registration.<\/li>\r\n \t
- National Welfare Rights Organization<\/strong> - A group founded in 1966 to advocate for economic justice through greater access to welfare, and empowering recipients in policymaking. Was formed in response to politically motivated, and often racist stereotypes and attacks on welfare in the 1950s.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC)<\/strong> - Youth activist organization dedicated to ending Jim Crow and fighting for civil rights through nonviolence. It was founded in Raleigh, North Carolina to capitalize on the success of the sit-ins. Eventually they organized key events like the Freedom Rides and March of Washington.<\/li>\r\n \t
- Lunch Counter Sit-ins<\/strong> - Led by Black college students in Greensboro North Carolina, activists sat at the whites-only lunch counter in Woolworth\u2019s Department store. Activists refused to leave without being served and endured abuse and arrests. Inspired copycat demonstrations across the South.<\/li>\r\n \t