Hes young, hes charismatic. He had platformed on a number of promises. So this should give a little bit of context where the Womens Movement is coming into play as we work through some of these overview issues. Now, the 60s, as much promise as there was, we also know there are a lot of issues, particularly racial issues. But there was a period of great change, warfare, and for those who did find promise in the 1960s, there were those who didnt get access to that. And so there are a number of individuals and groups fighting for that access. If you look at the 1960s, we had the 1967 detroit riots, a series of political assassinations, jfk in 1963. In 1968, he also have the assassinations of Martin Luther king jr. And bobby kennedy. So there is also a lot of fear about what this change means and a lot of people are reacting to that. Focussing in on jfk because were going to be talking mostly about women in the Civil Rights Movement today. We will be focussing in on other womens experiences on wednesday. But to given you an idea, jfk was initially hesitant. We have a leg ski now of him as a major shaker in the Civil Rights Movement, but he was very hesitant and cautious about the Civil Rights Movement in the initial year or so of his presidency. He was very concerned about alienating southern politicians and voters because were still in a period of deep segregation in the south. Fwu in 1963, he issues the report to the American People on civil rights. This is his response to black americans who argued with him that you made this response to civil rights and youre not making very much progress on them. And he realized that civil rights wasnt just a general issue, but that it was a moral issue for the nation. And so he starts moving beyond some of that initial hesitation. So that signaled there was a change happening at the administrative level. But after kennedys assassination later that year, the question is will that progress continue . Will the promises that jfk offered come to fruition and there are concerns about linen baines johnson, his Vice President who takes over in 1963, but johnson was very shrewd as far as politics go and he takes the legislation and the content of that earlier speech and he incorporates that into what would become the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Now this act was part of the Great Society legislation, this domestic policy platform that lbj adopts after becoming president. The Civil Rights Act prohibited discrimination based on race, color, sex, national origin. It was designed to inhibt unequal application of Voter Registration requirements, Voter Registration in schools, public accommodations, etcetera. Now, this act was significant, but it still takes time for the administration to implement those pieces, particularly in areas where people were not as keen on this legislation. Johnson also puts forth the Voting Rights act of 1965, which some say is the most significant piece of the Civil Rights Era legislation. But this prohibited Racial Discrimination in voting. Now this is all well and good, but during both jfk and lbjs presidencies, we also see a significant increase in our involvement in the vietnam war. Its r in viets name, it is known as the american war. It started in 1955 for us, lasted until 1975, but its really the 60s that we see that credit. We go from having fewer than a thousand troops in 1959, by 1963, we have about 16,000 troops involved. Of the start of 1964, we have 23,000 troops and by the end of 1964, lbj has increased troop presence to 184,000 troops. So you can see that rapid increase in the 1960s. This also is a periods where we see deployment of Ground Troops for the first time. And so americans are becoming more conscious of what our involvement in vietnam means. And youre going to see a rise in protest movements, antiwar protests in particular. Fatalities in the vietnam war, also, the more troops you put in, the more lives will be lost. At the end of the vietnam war, over 58,000 americans are killed. That is a significant number and a reason for protests in the u. S. But protesters were also keenly aware of the fatalities happening in vietnam. Not just soldier, but civilian casualties. Estimates range from 966,000 vietnamese soldiers and civilians to upwards of 3. 8 million, depending on which records youre looking at. There are hundreds of thousands of cambodians killed during the war. And women are playing a very Important Role in these antiwar protests. Part of it you see the increase in draft issues. Women are not being drafted, but their husbands, their sons, men in their life are. So theyre home trying to get involved in this movement. Were also in the era of the Civil Rights Movement. Now its a movement that has a very long history. We are going to see significant strikes happening in the fiction and 60s as the Movement Fights for Constitutional Rights and protections that are being granted to americans everywhere. The Civil Rights Movement is going to inspire a series of other movements during this time period. Some more well known than others. The womens Rights Movement, what well be talking about as the second wave of feminism well define what that means in a american. Mexican americans are fighting for bilingual Program Necessary schools, worker protections, the unionzation of farm workers, you have indigenous americans demanding the federal government recognize land rights and indigenous sovereignty. Theyre seeking control over inge ding news lands and resources and attempt to go preserve indigenous cultures and women take a key role in that, as well. This is also the era of the lgbt movement. Yes. Go ahead. This is where gay and lesbian individuals at the time are focussing on ending discrimination on the basis of compel orientation. This will particularly take off at the end of the 1960s with the stonewall incident in 1969, but were going to start to see how that movement is taking shape in response to the Civil Rights Movement. So this is sorted of our context in which women are operating, women are recognizing their roles and the ways in which they can affect change locally and nationally. So if we think about second wave feminism, this idea of feminism as a wave is really the result of martha wainwrights New York Times article the second feminist wave. Prior to this, people werent thinking about feminism in those terms, but she argues, quote, feminism, which one might have supposed as dead as a polish question is, again, an issue. So right now, as shes writing about it, making the case that this isnt new, that women have a history of activism and fighting, that it is just now becoming a National Issue once again. She says proponents call it the second feminist wave, the first having ebbed after the gloerus victory of suffrage and disappeared finally into the sandbar of togetherness. Now, there are some issues with the terminology, this idea of the wave as a metaphor. Feminist historian Linda Nichols argues that yes, this can be a very useful term in terms of reminding people that the Current Movement had a pass. But it can be reductive. It suggests whether explicitly or implicitly, that each wave of feminism is some sort of monolith, that it has a unified agenda, that women of all types are fighting together for the same common causes. And it implies also that feminism peaks at certain times and recedes at others. And so it ultimately can ignore the conflicting golds, ideaels, agendas of different groups of women. For example, the women well be talking about today, black womens experiences in activism is not going to be the same as white womens experiences. And their goals are not going to necessarily be the same. Women in the workforce, for example, equal pay, equal work. On its head, that sounds like it would apply to all women. But the issue is that the despite the fact that women of color and white women might both be fighting for equal pay for equal work, it ignores the fact that women of color, black women especially, made less than their white female counterparts. So there is a race issue along with the gender issue that is not affecting white womens activism. Women are fighting for things like contraception and Birth Control. We will see landmark cases which gave women, married and unmarried, the right to use Birth Control. We have griswold versus connecticut in 1965 which had struck down a law stating that married couples would not use Birth Control or inform themselves about it going back to the come stock law era. So this particular court case allowed married couples to access contraception and contraceptive information. Its not going to be until 1972 that eisenstat versus buried, that argues that unmarried women should have the same access to contraceptive use and information, as well. By the end of the 1960s, over 80 of married women of the child bearing age were using contraception. Part of this is made possible because in 1960, the federal government made approval of the Birth Control pill. So this made it easier for women to take personal control over their bodies as opposed to other contraceptive methods. Women are fighting for the end of Sexual Harassment and domestic violence. The criminalization of marital rape, for example. That doesnt start until the missed 1970s. So throughout this time period that were talking about, the 1960s, as women are fighting for control over their lives and bodies, marital rape is not a crime in any state. Women are fighting for equality. Betty fernand comes out during this time period and she argues that women are fighting for this thing that has no name, this systemic issue, this systemic sexism that taught women that their place is in the home, that they should find joyment and fulfillment in caring for that home and raising up their husbands, rearing children, having children, theres another issue for you as a woman if you couldnt have children. And that if women cooperate find enjoyment or fulfillment in their role as housewives, it was because they were broken and per verse, its their problem. And ferdinand says i thought there was something wrong with me because i didnt have an orgasm waxing the floor. Shes putting it out there. Shes unafraid. But shes working in a context, the National Organization for women who are fighting for the equal rights amendment, it is formed in 1966. Protest the miss America Pageant as sexist, paternalistic, argues that women are being judged purely on their physical appearance, despite the fact that organizers of the pageant were like, oh, but theyre also talking to you about their plans for the world and what they know. The protesters were like, absolutely not. This is a huge issue. But contrary to popular belief, its not like all the women are out there, you know, going to dumpsters and throwing their bras in and burning everything. Its not how that works. Theres no bra burnings. I mean, there might have been one. One. As they protest the miss America Pageant, however and in various other protests against these sexist ideals, they are taking tokens or symbols or items that they feel represent oppression. So, the bra might be one of those, but theyre also running around collecting playboys and setting those on fire. You dont hear about that. I think thats far more interesting than setting a bra on fire. Theyre taking items from the home mops, brooms, whatever. Theyre destroying these ideals in a physical form. But frameworks like frudans the feminine mystique, theyre specific, if you get down to it, to white, middleclass women. Despite the demands of equal pay for equal work, its one thing if youre being denied the opportunity to work because you want to work, but its another thing to be denied the opportunity to work when you need to work. And when it came down to the families during the 1960s, far more women of color needed to work to supplement Household Incomes because even men of color are making less than their white counterparts. And so, again, theyre fighting for different things. Another example is that the right to contraception and contraceptive knowledge. While black and white women are fighting for that information, fighting for that right, fighting for access to abortions, theres something that black women have to focus on that is not part of the mainstream feminist movement, and that is to stop the forced sterilization of people of color and people with disabilities, because that had not been a lived experience of most white women at the time, there was not part of that mainstream feminist movement. So, there are a lot of different examples of how race and nationality, ethnicity, can play a role in the different lived experiences of women in the 1960s. You know, weve talked quite a bit about how that operated in the 30s, 40s, 50s, but despite the vast changes of the 1960s, were still seeing some of those same issues playing out. We know, for example, that black women specifically are playing a very prominent and Important Role in the Civil Rights Movement. Yet, how often do you hear their names . Who are you most likely to hear about or think of when you hear the phrase Civil Rights Movement . Youre most likely to hear Martin Luther king, you know, malcolm x and names like that, mostly all men, not the women. Exactly. First name thats probably going to come to mind is Martin Luther king jr. He is sort of the face that we associate with the movement. Malcolm x, partially because of his controversial nature, but he is a prominent figure. You might also think about john lewis or stokely carmichael. If you do think of a woman, you might think of rosa parks. But when ive asked my history students in the past if they can name another woman aside from rosa parks, it is often very difficult for them to do so. Many women in the Civil Rights Movement are facing gender discrimination and Sexual Harassment from within the movement. So, theyre facing external and internal pressures and harassment. According to the National Museum of africanAmerican History and culture, the 1963 march on washington provides us a really clear and concrete example of this. While the march pushed for equality, while women were instrumental in helping to organize and put the march together, the event was purely dominated by men. The formal program excluded women from speaking. No women were invited to be part of the delegation for meeting president kennedy later in the day. But, as well talk about some key individuals, i could go on and on all day about different women involved in the movement, but today were going to focus in particularly on those who took the stance of either education or who were student activists, because i thought for this class, with each of you being students, you can make some personal connections with their experiences. But black women are serving as strategists, advocates, activists, organizers, educators, and leaders in the Civil Rights Movement, despite the dangers of participating in the movement. Not only do they have to fear the same physical violence that their male counterparts were subject to, they had an added component that they had to fear, and that was Sexual Violence perpetrated against them. But these women participated anyway. So, ill start by introducing you to septima poinsettia clark. She was born to a formerly enslaved man, peter poinsette, and his wife, victoria warren anderson. She is the second of eight children. And she fought, spent her life fighting for Educational Rights for black individuals. She graduated from the Avery Normal Institute in 1916, which was the first accredited secondary school for africanamericans in charleston, where she grew up. After graduating, she taught in segregated schools throughout much of South Carolina. While doing so, she earned a bachelors degree from Benedict College in 1942, a historically black college. And she also, a few years later, in 1946, earned a masters degree from hampton institute, now hampton university. During that entire period, she recognized that, despite her best efforts, these segregated schools, no matter what she did, if they didnt have the same resources, the same funding as all white schools, her efforts to educate could only go so far. And so, she continued to fight for equal Educational Opportunities and rights. In 1956, she lost her job as an educator because South Carolina banned membership in the naacp, and she refused to comply. She had been a longstanding member of the naacp. And because of her work with the organization, she was ultimately hired to become the director of workshops at Highlander