counter_culture_dp

=Counterculture=
 * Home | 1960s | Civil Rights | JFK | Viet Nam | **Counter Culture ** |

In 1970, 58.4% of the US was 34 years old or younger. During the 1950s the economic boom allowed many families the facility to send their children to college. Bonding and group polarization made college campuses the perfect breeding ground for protest movements. Also, many of the younger generation renounced the zeitgeist and system of their society.

Youth who felt that wealth was unfairly distributed and that the US was a based a plutocracy organized into the New Left. Of the New left was the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS est. 1959). Its 1962 declaration called for an end to "apathy and urged citizens to stop accepting a country run by big corporations and big government." The main focus of the SDS was to protest the Vietnam War.

Another prominent movement was the Free Speech Movement (originating in the University of California, Berkeley). It began as a result of campus restrictions on the distribution of literature and the recruiting of volunteers for political causes. It also targeted university practices: professors rarely taught there own classes; that job was left to graduate students; a myriad arbitrary rules were imposed.

This all culminated in a massive sit-in on December 2, 1964. More than 700 protesters were arrested. This only sparked more protests. The issue went all the way to the Supreme Court. The Court ruled in favor of the protesters: the Civil Rights Act an the Constitution both uphold the freedoms to speech and assembly.