was a of the people 14-year-old boy. [indiscernible] thehe guy who appeals to confederate officer to spare the boy, that was the guy who got unlucky numbers. -year-old boy go. [applause] >> you are watching american history tv, all weekend every weekend on c-span3. to join the conversation, like us on facebook. illinoisversity of professor kevin schultz talks about the politics of 1960's and what freedom meant to different groups. including students, women, african-americans, and latinos. he describes how the goals of these groups are often at odds with the federal government. minutes.es about 15 50 ultz: obviously today we're going to talk about the 1960's. stephen stills wrote it. crosby stills nash and young. it talks about -- he wrote the song after a protest. they put a law on how long people could be outside of bars in los angeles. all of the young people protested. i don't want to go to bed at 10:00. i want to party at the whiskey a go go. right? the cops came, they beat some heads. there was a protest. stephen stills writes this song all about the contentious nature of the 1960's. the thing about that song as a key protest song, you nice know -- you guys know it all. it was written 40 years ago 50 years ago. the thing about that song is it's not so much a protest song i'm right and you're wrong, but , it is about look at what's happening to our society. battle lines being drawn. it's a key song of the 1960's. not because it's a good lefty song or a good conservative song, but because it talks about the rise of this contentious nature that we know of as the 1960's. there are a lot of misconceptions about the 1960's. one of the key things that i want to learn today, going to repeat this. one of the key themes of the 60's is call for freedom. people want freedom. in the 1960's, the cost of that individual freedom might be the greater good. the story of this lecture in the 1960's is going to be the rise of these calls for freedom. at the expense of the greater good. that sounds bad, but when you think about what the greater good was doing, why does the civil rights movement happen? the greater good was not necessarily creating an equal environment for everyone area -- why does the women's rights movement happen? women were treated as distinctly second-class citizens in a lot of ways. that's the theme of the lecture. it really plays on what we learned since world war ii. america comes together and what does fdr say the words about? the four freedoms. two freedoms from something, the two freedoms for something. society in the 1950's gets incredibly wealthy as we stop making bombs and start making frisbees. but they're all of these rules in this conformity. and, starting in the 1960's. it comes to a head in the 60's. all of a sudden, people want to bust out of that box. they want to bust out of contained society that has been successful in a lot of ways. richest society in the history of mankind. but a lot of people feel that it's still defying and not originally satisfy. the busting out of that, declaring their freedom from conformity. that's what the 1960's is about. that's going to be the theme of the lecture today. does that make sense? calls for freedom. instead of the story. normally i serve the story. instead of the story, i'm going to show bunch of pictures to start us off. i think there's so much about the 60's that generally misunderstood. i went and looked at some images of the 60's. evidently, if you google search the 60's, this is the kind of stuff that you get. hippies, flower power. all of that kind of stuff. this is a halloween costume you can buy. to be a 60's kind of person. this is the poster you can buy. can buy this poster. you are in tune with the 1960's radicalism. this was a miniseries that appeared on nbc television about 10 to 15 years ago. it was all about flower power and family experiencing what it's like to have a daughter become a hippie. in our popular mind, popular culture especially the 60's are really perceived to be this. hippies, flower power smoking pot all that kind of stuff area of course, they're way more complicated than that. you guys know what this is? jfk getting assassinated. 1963. in the 60's, people listened to music. we talked about of his presley lifetime. we have bob dylan up there. one of my favorites, jimi hendrix. people went on picnics. i want to wear the shorts every time i give this lecture. not the haircut but the shorts. the civil rights movement which , we talked about last lecture, really heats up. even changes course toward the end. we talked about that. remember this image? martin luther king. the assassination of martin luther king. calls for freedom. freedom must be lived. it's called the freedom movement. african-americans are not alone. these are images of women's liberation. liberation of course is just another word for freedom. women's liberation. don't call me girl. this is the rise of the chicano movement in the united states. cesar chavez unionizing a lot of latino farmworkers in california. trying to protest and bring their protest to national prominence. we must understand the highest form of freedom carries with it the greatest measure of discipline. stay true to the cause and you will be free. all of these movements for freedom. and yet, we must not forget that in 1968, this guy becomes president. you know who this is? richard milhouse nixon. the simpsons took his middle name. he wins in 1968. some of the things he advocates for our free market, freedom. freedom is a call from the left and the right in the 1960's. it is a real challenge to the postwar society that emerged out of world war ii. if you remember what we talked about, it was premised on government control little bit of the economy. it happened during the new deal. it happened or will or two. -- it happened during world war ii. bureaucracies were taking over. it was premised on friendly corporate relationships with the government area huge amounts of federal dollars were being spent on the defense industry helping to prop up this economy that needed help after the war. society and that. we can suburbanites. remember asia do all the pictures of the straight lines in the middle of the potato field. planting those houses everywhere, usually in pretty straight lines with no trees. people follow the rules of society. if you follow the rules, you too could have a 1200 square foot house in levittown. which to us sounds unappealing, but if you grew up in the great depression in chicago in a small apartment building your dad was always looking for work, that house sounds fantastic rosie the riveter have to go home and have children. that the social expectation. the number of children skyrockets. there are these complaints. the sense that where conformist society and we need to bust free from conformity. what happens in the 1960's is people start pushing back. in the start of the 1960's, actually looks a lot like the 1950's in your imagination. that 50's idea lasts through 61 only in 64, 65, 66 two things , 62, 63. start changing into what we just saw as the 1960's. in 1960, this is john f. kennedy. i have down here, playboy millionaire catholic for president. he was the son of a very wealthy man. he made a ton of money and the liquor industry. in the movie industry, and he really wanted his sons to not be businessmen working on the margins, he wanted them to be presidents or senators. there's a scene in one of my favorite movies, the godfather , where don vito is sitting there looking at his youngest son michael who is about to take over the mafia empire and he says michael, i never wanted this for you. i wanted you to be senator corleone. and instead you became a mafioso . that's what joseph kennedy wanted. his sons were given the best education money could buy. they went to harvard. it was actually the oldest on e that he was priming for the presidency. the oldest son gets killed in world war ii. the second oldest who becomes the heir apparent. after the war on world war ii, he runs for the house in massachusetts race from. he gets elected and becomes a senator. had a very young age, he's 43 years old. one of the things that was inspiring about him was not just the rhetoric. he had a very powerful way of speaking to people. he was very charming and very comfortable in front of cameras . he looked good. he had good looks they said. he was unafraid to use those looks on a variety of women as you guys probably all know. to great effect i should say. the people who were starting to complain about the conformity of the 1960's, they saw this young guy as a way out. it was an incredibly close election in 1960. he just squeaked by. this is the famous election where lot dead people in chicago vote. candy wins illinois, and goes on to win the presidency. in his inaugural address, he gives one of the -- he says one of the most famous lines in presidential history. there are a handful of these. this is one of them. i am sure you guys know it. ask not what your country can do for you, but when you can do for your country. do you ever think about what it means? ask not what your country can do for you but ask what you can do for your country. what can you do to improve the whole of society? don't ask about your own individual freedoms. ask what you can do to make our country better. you guys get that? just to give away the lecture, it's hard to imagine at the end somebody saying this area so -- some by saying this. so many calls for freedom had happened in the decade of the 1960's. he comes into office filled with hope. and promises of change in some ways. it is the cold war. and everyone assumes that the cold war is going to be what dominates his presidency. sure enough, in the beginning it does. the focal point this time is cuba. and islands 90 miles off the coast of florida. like many latin american countries there are revolutions. like many occasions the united , states tries to intervene. cuba, the revolution is in 1958, castro takes charge. he is a communist. the united states tries to unseat him, but it doesn't work. the bay of pigs disaster. you can read about it in the textbook. it doesn't work at all. slowly but surely, castro goes to cuba's economy and they start kicking out all the american businesses, nationalizing things like oil refineries. we start kicking out american businesses. united states gets very interested. in 1962, the united states puts an embargo on cuba. we are not allowed to export or import from cuba. which of course still exists, although there is much discussion about lifting it. funny story about the embargo. john s kennedy really loved cuban cigars. the day before he is about to sign the embargo, he asked his press secretary to buy as many cuban cigars as he could get his hands on. he gets his hands on 1200. 1200. he delivers them to the president, and three minutes later he signs the embargo. jfk got his cigars. that's not the end of the story of course. now that cuba doesn't have a friend in the united states, it needs trading partners. cuba is a communist country. who will they picked to be there keep partners? the soviet union. as the soviet union and cuba become closer partners the , soviet union says hey there's a country where friendly with 90 miles from the coast of florida. i wonder if they would let us put some nuclear weapons on that island. so that we can be right in range of the united states. they plan on it. they start building facilities in cuba. they start putting warheads on ships and sending them to the island. reconnaissance photos, of which this is one, of american spy planes look at this and say, you know what they are doing? they are building places to store these weapons. then, the united states discovers that these ships have left the soviet union caring these weapons. on tv, jfk says the soviet union should turn the ships around. no weapons and cuba. this is what comes to be called the cuban missile crisis. this is the closest we ever came to having all-out nuclear war nuclear powers. the soviet union says were knocking internships around. -- we are not going to turn our ships around we are entitled to , arm our allies. anyway you have weapons in , turkey and in italy which is in striking distance of the soviet union. how is this different that. -- from that? what ensues is remarkable for 13 days television is covering with get closer. television is covering with every single day. people start writing wills. they start plotting for the destruction of humanity. there are also its of negotiations taking place. gets closerhe ship and closer to cuba. finally, after 13 days there is an agreement. on paper, that agreement is the united states agrees never to invade cuba again. and the soviet union will no longer plan on putting office of weapons in cuba. they turn the ships around. secretly, the u.s. also agrees to take weapons out of italy and turkey. this a bit of a quid pro quo there. kennedy is hailed as a hero. one commentator said he placed the scariest and a anyone has ever played and he won. there's a pretty decent movie about the scope 13 days. it talks about the anxiety every day. the end could come. i guess we also live like that. but maybe not without much fear. jfk is a cold warrior, but he's also facing the challenges of the cold war trying to maybe back it down a little. he's willing to use diplomacy in pulling nuclear weapons out of italy and turkey. he also slowly but surely gets engaged in the civil rights movement. this isn't really because he wants to get engaged, it's because the civil rights movement forces him to be engaged with it. the citizens really created the modern civil rights movement. public spectacles anyone can be a part of. martin luther king picks up on this and he starts his confrontational method. having anybody dress-up in really nice sunday close and go march for freedom and get arrested and invites all the cameras to show up. and these pictures are going to mobilize america to fight for civil rights. one of those people that gets mobilized is john f. kennedy. by the end of his presidency, he has this great line here. 100 years of delay have passed its president lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs are not fully free. they are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice from social and economic oppression. and this nation, for all its hopes will not be fully free until all its citizens are free. he's cautiously endorsing civil rights. why? not because he's this advocate of civil rights, because of images like this. remember it was this image that he said made him sick. these visceral images of the civil rights movement. they prompt him to act. kids getting counted by fire hoses to stop them from marching. before you can see through any of this change that's being pushed upon him. this happens. november 22, 1963. he is shot. have you seen the footage of this? missing.tty her it's gross. pronounced dead shortly thereafter, but basically he was dead when the bullet hit his head. an unbelievably tragic events. but of course, just the beginning of all of these assassinations take ways throughout the 19 to these. this is really the first prominent one. pretty soon we will have not been asked and martin luther king. robert kennedy. it is sort of starting this violent push back. of course, we can talk forever about the conspiracy theories and who killed jfk and stuff like that. you know the onion? they have a great newspaper from 19 -- i guess it's november 23 that says jfk killed by fbi. fidel castro, the cia, the mafia. all of these conspiracy theories the people who may have had a hand in it. more importantly for our story though is what happens next? who's president now? well at this guy. lyndon baines johnson. lbj. here's jackie kennedy a the hours after president kenny was dead. she is still wearing the same outfit. she standing next lbj as he is sworn in on air force one. lbj's great. he's from texas. they call him big daddy. really tall guy. you can kind of see outselling is right here. he became a lefty during the new deal. the 1930's. that's what he became a democrat. that's when he became politically engaged. you remember the new deal. bunch ofing to throw a stuff against the wall, see what sticks. this is the energy. these are the kinds of programs that he becomes a part of and it becomes his sort of calling. he gets involved in the new deal in texas in the 1930's. then he goes on into the house of representatives and the senate. he becomes one of the most powerful members of the senate. he same as this is called the johnson treatment. if you don't believe -- if you don't vote the way he wants you to vote, he gets in your face and talks with you and insults you. the johnson treatment. he becomes a really skilled leader pushing legislation through. but he's also got this sort of kennedy had hollywood good looks he was from boston and spoke well in front of people. lbj is from texas. he's got a rough edge around him. one of the great joys of being an american citizen. about every three or six months or so, somebody discovers a new recording of either lbj are next -- or nexen. you realize how hilarious or awful or funny these people are. there is one circulating right now about lbj ordering pants from his taylor. he is a very crass man say. in the middle of the phone call he lets the huge belch out. he's burping and is walking around. he's not making any sense in using foul language. it's pretty fun to listen to. if you weren't sure how to vote in the senate, he would do that kind of stuff. when he becomes president, which is something he always wanted. that's why the onion headline has him in there too. something he always wanted. what he wants to do is revive the new deal. he gives it its own name. it is called the great society. both have good classrooms. every human being has dignity and every worker has a job. the thing i want you to get about the great society. it's like the new deal and he pushes all of this legislation. a lot of it passes. it's kind of a whirlwind. what is tackle poverty. -- what he is trying to do is tackle poverty. tackle racism. but he's doing it in the new deal kind of way. he's doing it with government programs. he's doing it with your accuracy area remember the beginning of the lecture. there's a tunnel coming from underneath that's pushing for freedom from those kinds of boxes. he's trying to educate everybody. every human being has dignity. every worker has a job. the way he's doing it is going to be against the push of the times. that make sense? what he does is admirable. he pushes the civil rights laws we talked about on monday. the civil rights act of 64. the civil rights act of 65. the civil rights act of 68. he's pushing all of these things. he's one of the greatest presidential speeches he gives after selma. "we shall with, overcome." and he pushes for voting rights legislation. he pushes all the civil rights laws through. but for lbj, class is more important than race. he wants to solve economic problems and the race problem will take care of itself. you can argue with that, but it's not an insubstantial argument. what he really wanted to do with end poverty. the war on poverty. that's one of his phrases. the war on poverty. he starts this bewildering series of programs to make america more fulfilled. in education, he starts headstart. he financed preschool forget to can afford it. he wants all americans to get to -- give to the country. it's like let's go to clean up the lake and pick up trash. let's go volunteer in this way. but for these people to work. -- let's put these people to work. like the new deal, these programs just keep on coming. medicare, which is health care for the elderly. a lot of these public housing programs we now call the projects. some not terribly successful. highway beautification. that was a particular love of his wife. clean air and water act. numerous education asked area he lowered taxes. he's just throwing stuff out there trying to make the united states with full of promise and what he thinks it can be. related to the great society, not technically a part of it but related your designs into law the immigration act of 19 to 25. which is why many of you are here today i would guess. many americans come. he signed the act. he wanted to do the back. this is a chart of immigration. others along. it takes up a little in the 50's. it starts shooting straight up. we're going to get rid of the quotas that were put in place in the 1920's. we're going to have it based on family need on what kinds of jobs we need. unbeknownst to everybody, nobody predicted this. it's not the european to take advantage of this the most. people from asia, latin america, and africa. if you look at the yellow, those are immigrants from asia. europe is blue. it changes the complexion of the united states. lbj has done all of this. congress was a congress of realized dreams. he thinks he has brought america to the millennium and is going to end poverty. he's going to do it with all of these marvelous programs. the reason i have a picture of him with a christmas tree is to prove to you what he thought he was doing. when he like the national christmas tree this is the line he says. these are the most hopeful times and all the years since christ was born in bethlehem. we did it. the great society has been created. but guess what. he is out of sync with the tenor of the times. the pendulum swings back against him. it starts in a way with radicalization of the civil rights movement. calls for freedom from those government programs. freedom from the government bureaucracy. freedom from the housing project. freedom from somebody on high telling us all we are supposed to do and how we are supposed to do it. the civil rights movement changes tone in 1964. the best way to remember it is by black power. stokely carmichael. he was part of sncc, student nonviolent coordinating committee. he was integral in the freedom rides. he wants more on the second civil rights movement. greater equality in economics. in 1966, he gets this dramatic speech. he says our integrationist days are over. if what we need to do is take care of ourselves. buy goods from our own people. protect our own people because the police will help us. what we need is lacked power. -- black power. everybody hears this and they say black power. he looks out at the crowd and says, black power. the slogan is formed. can you blame him? this attitude is reflected in almost yearly riots. usually in the summertime. they become called long hot summer. almost yearly riots dozens of . dozens of riots all across the country. 68, after martin luther king is assassinated there are thousands of riots. african-americans in the african-american community is frustrated that these programs which are supposed to bring them freedom and greater raleigh are -- greater equality are not working. they're going to do it by themselves. black power. one of the most famous illustrations of this is the black panthers. they're born in oakland in 66 and 67. they spread from oakland around the country. they're going to be the ground soldiers. they're going to arm themselves and make sure the government says what they say they will do. they start armed patrols in the neighborhood, to make sure the police is doing their job. what they say they want is freedom. lbj is sitting there saying i'm passing public rights act. they say we want freedom from the white power structure. this is not working. this attitude is not just coming from the african-american community. it's also coming from students. there are organizations. students for democratic society. up in 64 and 65. one of the main sparks for them growing is what comes to be called the free speech movement. uc berkeley decided to outlaw political activism on campus. students don't always listen to what the dean says. protests start happening. one of the guys sits at the congress of racial equality advocating political change, they arrest him. they put him in the back of a police car and there is a spontaneous rally at berkeley. the students they were teaching lesson instead. a spontaneous protests. the 3000 students, and they surround the car. weinberg is in the car for 32 hours. which is kind of gross when you think about it. they use the car as a platform. to say we need to break free from the structures. we want to push out of this. we want freedom to advocate politics. we want free speech. this sparks the movement on college campuses. he goes to michigan and wisconsin and columbia area -- columbia. college campuses become hotbeds of radicalism demanding freedom. who else wants freedom? women's liberation picks up speed significantly in the mid-1960's. and started a long time ago. we talked about what about women in this class. it really gets ignited in 1963. betty freedom and rights this book called the feminine mystique. she's very well-educated and politically astute. she became a mother and got married. she did the house lifestyle. but she kept writing. she wanted to do a report on what her fellow smith graduates were doing 20 years after college she realized they were all miserable because they were expected to go in the box. they were expected to make his peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. she writes this book feminine mystique. the problem that has no name. women are expected to do this and women don't have the freedom to do what they want to do. this book really ignites the women's liberation movement. betty friedman, in makes this 1966, formally political by starting now. the national organization for women which still exists. this is betty friedman. radical feminist are bubbling up to. they want the end of marriage. it's a male-dominated structural thing anyway. some like my six-year-old daughter want the end of the patriarchal language. when i say hey guys, my six-year-old daughter corrects me, i'm not a guy dad. she's right. gender normatively. these radical feminist start making us aware of these things. not just women bursting for freedom. latinas as well. the chicano movement picks up. it is a great word. fun to say. it means our people. it starts out protesting on apelf of the gr growers in california. anyone know what the political orientation is that comes out of this? la raza. the race. then, there is the cultural stuff. rock 'n roll transforms in the mid to late 1960's. it becomes overtly political not that it wasn't always, but it becomes overtly and directly political. bob dylan famously puts out his acoustic guitar and plugs in his electric guitar and initiates this new sound of rock 'n roll. it won't be your dad's folk music. we are going to plug it in them and scream.n remember the first class and i played some of this guy's music? freedom. that's what we want. sly and the family stone is another one of these. they promote the interracial challenge. jimi hendrix is by far the leader of the bands. the two guys that play back up to them are white guys. we are going to challenge the structure. how else can we challenge it? drugs. drugs proliferate. everybody smokes marijuana. even conservatives although they say that they went on about that theyoutside so could smoke legally. this is someone smoking marijuana for those of you who have not seen this before. i'm not promoting it, this is what you look like when you do too much drugs. that keith richards. he's done a lot of drugs. maybe he looks like it. think of this as a challenge. the useful people are choosing their own forms of recreation. and what is ever useful person's favorite form of recreation? you said it not me. sex. the birth control pill gets perfected in 1963. it's illegal. finally in 1963 in the famous versus griswold connecticut, it gets legalized. it makes sex something that can be enjoyed for pleasure without a significant percentage of the risk of pregnancy. for women who bore the indisputable larger cost of these unintended pregnancies, this is free. -- freeing. liberating. my mom came of age in this period. she talks about how the pill came along and opened up the possibilities for women. but that's how important it was. of course, freedom is not just people pushing from the left. it is people pushing from the right. what you see in the 1960's is a resurgence of conservatism. a resurgence of the conservative movement. it starts by barry goldwater and buckley. two.now the these ronald reagan and richard nixon. they want freedom from the great society. freedom from the bureaucracies of the tax burdens.

Related Keywords

Oakland , California , United States , Texas , Turkey , Florida , Boston , Massachusetts , Illinois , Wisconsin , Russia , Michigan , Washington , District Of Columbia , Connecticut , Berkeley , Hollywood , Maryland , Cuba , Italy , Chicago , Americans , America , Soviet , American , Cuban , Cesar Chavez , Martin Luther King , Ronald Reagan , Barry Goldwater , Los Angeles , Keith Richards , Jimi Hendrix , Betty Friedman , Don Vito , Lyndon Baines Johnson , Bob Dylan , Joseph Kennedy , Stokely Carmichael , Robert Kennedy , Jackie Kennedy , Richard Nixon , John F Kennedy , Fidel Castro , Kevin Schultz ,