Further Social Activism in the 1960s
Encouraged by the success of the antiwar and civil rights
movements during the 1960s, many groups launched their own movements
to redress perceived wrongs in American government and society.
The Youth Movement
Many reform movements during the 1960s sprang
from the college-age population. College attendance soared during
the decade, and college campuses became centers for protest movements.
While it must be noted that the majority of college students did
not engage in such protests, the minority that did was both significant
and vocal. Leading the youth movement was the Students for
a Democratic Society (SDS), a group founded in 1962. The
SDS aimed to create a “New Left” in the U.S. in order to mobilize
support for leftist goals throughout the nation. Students sat-in,
marched, and rallied to end mandatory ROTC programs, halt military research,
address racism, and, most prominently, to express their disgust
with the Vietnam War. The antiwar cause inspired huge rallies, draft-card
burning, and harassment of anyone connected to the military.
Notable student protests included a mass demonstration
at Columbia University in the spring of 1968, which resulted in
a temporary shutdown of the school, and the fall 1969 March
Against Death, in which about 300,000 people marched in a
long, circling path through Washington, D.C., for 40 hours straight,
each holding a candle and the name of a soldier killed or a village
destroyed in Vietnam.
The youth movement began to fade following a series of
violent crackdowns on protesters. In the most infamous, on May 4,
1970, students at Kent State University in Ohio who were protesting Richard
Nixon’s expansion of the Vietnam War into Cambodia were met
by armed National Guardsmen and inundated with tear gas. Then a
panicking troop of guardsmen fired into the crowd, killing four
and wounding nine; two of the dead had not even been a part of the
demonstration. Events like this sapped the student movement of its
zeal, and college campuses grew steadily quieter.
The feminist movement, which had grown somewhat dormant
in the 1950s, reawakened in the U.S. during the 1960s. The most
prominent symbol of this resurgence was the 1963 publication of
Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique,
which urged women to break free from the domestic role and seek
“something more.” JFK created the Presidential Commission on the
Status of Women, which issued a report in 1963 detailing the inequalities between
men and women in the American workforce. The Civil Rights
Act of 1964 prohibited sexual as well as racial discrimination
in hiring practices. The National Organization for Women (NOW)
formed in 1966 to lobby Congress, file lawsuits, and publicize the
feminist cause. By 1970, more than 40 percent of all women worked
outside the home.
Spurred on by the publication of Betty Friedan’s The
Feminist Mystique, the feminist movement reawakened in
the 1960s. Organizations like NOW pushed for change at the national
level to promote equality.
Many women involved in the liberation movement had gained
experience in the antiwar or civil rights movements and dedicated
the same tactics to the feminist cause. They encouraged women to
meet in small groups to discuss their problems and met in larger
groups to burn bras and beauty items seen as demeaning. They founded
health centers geared toward women and advocated abortion education.
In 1970, the Women’s Strike for Equality saw tens of
thousands of women nationwide hold demonstrations to demand the
right to equal employment and legal abortions. Pro-choice activists
gained a major success in 1973, when the Supreme Court legalized
abortion in the landmark decision Roe v. Wade.