Women's liberation movement
The Second Wave of Feminism began in the early 1960s. The Women's liberation movement both influenced and was influenced by the Counterculture. Literature played a crucial role in the success of the movement, Betty Friedan author of the Feminine Mystique. Betty Friedan's book The Feminine Mystique captured the frustration and even the despair of a generation of college-educated housewives who felt trapped and unfulfilled. As one said, "I'm desperate. I begin to feel I have no personality. I'm a server of food and a putter-on of pants and a bedmaker, somebody who can be called on when you want something. But who am I?" Friedan stunned the nation by contradicting the accepted wisdom that housewives were content to serve their families and by calling on women to seek fulfillment in work outside the home and more importantly to chose their place in society. work had such an impact that it is credited with sparking the "second wave" of the American feminist movement. Decades earlier, the "first wave" had pushed for women's suffrage, culminating with the passage of the 19th Amendment that gave women the right to vote in 1920. Now a new generation would take up the call for equality beyond the law and into women's lives.
In the summer of 1966, they launched the National Organization for Women (NOW), which went on to lobby Congress for pro-equality laws and assist women seeking legal aid as they battled workplace discrimination in the courts. They popularized the idea that "the personal is political" — that women's political inequality had equally important personal ramifications, encompassing their relationships, sexuality, birth control and abortion, clothing and body image, and roles in marriage, housework and childcare. As such, the different wings of the feminist movement sought women's equality on both a political and personal level.
The FDA approval of birth control in the late 1960s was another success of the Women's liberation movement. As it empowered women to decide when and how many children they would following Friedan's advice of choosing their place in society. Ultimately, the Women's liberation movement established the idea that women were and important member of society as important as men were. To this day women continue to fight for equality and the 1960s was the era that made it possible for women to began to chose their role in society instead of conforming to the expectations of being a women that were established by a patriarchal society.
In the summer of 1966, they launched the National Organization for Women (NOW), which went on to lobby Congress for pro-equality laws and assist women seeking legal aid as they battled workplace discrimination in the courts. They popularized the idea that "the personal is political" — that women's political inequality had equally important personal ramifications, encompassing their relationships, sexuality, birth control and abortion, clothing and body image, and roles in marriage, housework and childcare. As such, the different wings of the feminist movement sought women's equality on both a political and personal level.
The FDA approval of birth control in the late 1960s was another success of the Women's liberation movement. As it empowered women to decide when and how many children they would following Friedan's advice of choosing their place in society. Ultimately, the Women's liberation movement established the idea that women were and important member of society as important as men were. To this day women continue to fight for equality and the 1960s was the era that made it possible for women to began to chose their role in society instead of conforming to the expectations of being a women that were established by a patriarchal society.
Civil Rights movement
The struggle of African Americans for equality reached its peak in the mid-1960s. After progressive victories in the 1950s, African Americans became even more committed to nonviolent direct action. Groups like the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), made up of African-American clergy, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), composed of younger activists, sought reform through peaceful confrontation.
In 1960 African-American college students sat down at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in North Carolina and refused to leave. Their sit-in captured media attention and led to similar demonstrations throughout the South. The next year, civil rights workers organized “freedom rides,” in which African Americans and whites boarded buses heading south toward segregated terminals, where confrontations might capture media attention and lead to change.
They also organized rallies, the largest of which was the “March on Washington” in 1963. More than 200,000 people gathered in the nation’s capital to demonstrate their commitment to equality for all. The high point of a day of songs and speeches came with the address of Martin Luther King Jr., who had emerged as the preeminent spokesman for civil rights. “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood,” King proclaimed. Each time he used the refrain “I have a dream,” the crowd roared.
The level of progress initially achieved did not match the rhetoric of the civil rights movement. President Kennedy was initially reluctant to press white Southerners for support on civil rights because he needed their votes on other issues. Events, driven by African Americans themselves, forced his hand. When James Meredith was denied admission to the University of Mississippi in 1962 because of his race, Kennedy sent federal troops to uphold the law. After protests aimed at the desegregation of Birmingham, Alabama, prompted a violent response by the police, he sent Congress a new civil rights bill mandating the integration of public places. Not even the March on Washington, however, could extricate the measure from a congressional committee, where it was still bottled up when Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.
President Lyndon B. Johnson was more successful. Displaying negotiating skills he had so frequently employed during his years as Senate majority leader, Johnson persuaded the Senate to limit delaying tactics preventing a final vote on the sweeping Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination in all public accommodations. The next year’s Voting Rights Act of 1965 authorized the federal government to register voters where local officials had prevented African Americans from doing so. By 1968 a million African Americans were registered in the deep South. Nationwide, the number of African-American elected officials increased substantially. In 1968, the Congress passed legislation banning discrimination in housing.
By then, however, a civil rights movement supported by court decisions, congressional enactments, and federal administrative regulations was irreversibly implanted into the American life. The major issues were about implementation of equality and access, not about the legality of segregation or disenfranchisement. The arguments of the 1970s and thereafter were over matters such as busing children out of their neighborhoods to achieve racial balance in metropolitan schools or about the use of “affirmative action.” These policies and programs were viewed by some as active measures to ensure equal opportunity, as in education and employment, and by others as reverse discrimination.
The courts worked their way through these problems with decisions that were often inconsistent. In the meantime, the steady march of African Americans into the ranks of the middle class and once largely white suburbs quietly reflected a profound demographic change.
In 1960 African-American college students sat down at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter in North Carolina and refused to leave. Their sit-in captured media attention and led to similar demonstrations throughout the South. The next year, civil rights workers organized “freedom rides,” in which African Americans and whites boarded buses heading south toward segregated terminals, where confrontations might capture media attention and lead to change.
They also organized rallies, the largest of which was the “March on Washington” in 1963. More than 200,000 people gathered in the nation’s capital to demonstrate their commitment to equality for all. The high point of a day of songs and speeches came with the address of Martin Luther King Jr., who had emerged as the preeminent spokesman for civil rights. “I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood,” King proclaimed. Each time he used the refrain “I have a dream,” the crowd roared.
The level of progress initially achieved did not match the rhetoric of the civil rights movement. President Kennedy was initially reluctant to press white Southerners for support on civil rights because he needed their votes on other issues. Events, driven by African Americans themselves, forced his hand. When James Meredith was denied admission to the University of Mississippi in 1962 because of his race, Kennedy sent federal troops to uphold the law. After protests aimed at the desegregation of Birmingham, Alabama, prompted a violent response by the police, he sent Congress a new civil rights bill mandating the integration of public places. Not even the March on Washington, however, could extricate the measure from a congressional committee, where it was still bottled up when Kennedy was assassinated in 1963.
President Lyndon B. Johnson was more successful. Displaying negotiating skills he had so frequently employed during his years as Senate majority leader, Johnson persuaded the Senate to limit delaying tactics preventing a final vote on the sweeping Civil Rights Act of 1964, which outlawed discrimination in all public accommodations. The next year’s Voting Rights Act of 1965 authorized the federal government to register voters where local officials had prevented African Americans from doing so. By 1968 a million African Americans were registered in the deep South. Nationwide, the number of African-American elected officials increased substantially. In 1968, the Congress passed legislation banning discrimination in housing.
By then, however, a civil rights movement supported by court decisions, congressional enactments, and federal administrative regulations was irreversibly implanted into the American life. The major issues were about implementation of equality and access, not about the legality of segregation or disenfranchisement. The arguments of the 1970s and thereafter were over matters such as busing children out of their neighborhoods to achieve racial balance in metropolitan schools or about the use of “affirmative action.” These policies and programs were viewed by some as active measures to ensure equal opportunity, as in education and employment, and by others as reverse discrimination.
The courts worked their way through these problems with decisions that were often inconsistent. In the meantime, the steady march of African Americans into the ranks of the middle class and once largely white suburbs quietly reflected a profound demographic change.
Conclusion
The Counterculture generation took part in the women's liberation movement, the civil rights movement, the LBTG movement& the environmentalist awakening. The two movements mention on this page are the most influential and the ones that reached greater success. Today women can enjoy the same right as men at least legally there is still way to go to reach what organizations such as NOW and ERA intended but we have come a long way. Today women are encourage to go to college and have more say in society than they did before the 1960s. As Betty Friedan urged women to do decades ago women now chose their place in society.
The civil rights movement had the most notable impact in the American Society and was the one movement that was fully achieved. Today Africa American are able to enjoy the same rights as their white counterparts. Schools have been integrated and discrimination had become unacceptable not only from African Americans but also for other minority groups.
Among the other social movements that are not mentioned in the page are the LBTG movement that seek to ensure equal rights for people who do not identify with the binary genders and are homosexual, transgender, etc. The Native American also spoke up during the 1960s and were listened to for the first time in centuries. The Latinos were also among the groups that raised their voice during the 1960s.
Overall the 1960s and the Counterculture closed the door to the Conservative and Conformist ideals that were observed in the previous decades and opened the door to Liberalism and acceptance our differences.
The civil rights movement had the most notable impact in the American Society and was the one movement that was fully achieved. Today Africa American are able to enjoy the same rights as their white counterparts. Schools have been integrated and discrimination had become unacceptable not only from African Americans but also for other minority groups.
Among the other social movements that are not mentioned in the page are the LBTG movement that seek to ensure equal rights for people who do not identify with the binary genders and are homosexual, transgender, etc. The Native American also spoke up during the 1960s and were listened to for the first time in centuries. The Latinos were also among the groups that raised their voice during the 1960s.
Overall the 1960s and the Counterculture closed the door to the Conservative and Conformist ideals that were observed in the previous decades and opened the door to Liberalism and acceptance our differences.