What Was The Decade Of Protest Of The 1960s

The 1960s is sometimes referred to as the "decade of protest" for good reason. There were a very high number of protests regarding a range of issues. The biggest movements at the time would have to be The Civil Rights movement and the anti-vietnam war movement. The 1960s started off with a new President, John F. Kennedy. After campaign and finally winning his presidency Kennedy began to try and create what History.com calls, “The most ambitious domestic agenda since the New Deal: the “New Frontier,” a package of laws and reforms that sought to eliminate injustice and inequality in the United States." However, this ran into problems and the plan was blocked. This was one of the many failed plans that sparked America's attention towards equal
This led to social unrest around citizens and many openly opposed the War, protested, or fled elsewhere to avoid the draft. Protest over the war and civil rights eventually strengthened the number of other movements in America. With the success of the civil rights movement and the numbers behind the anti-vietmam agenda encouraged others create other movement about problems plaguing America. They asked questions such as what type of country would treat its own citizens, African Americans, so bad and how could we send our men and women overseas to fight and unnecessary battle. All these questions served to encourage other movements such as the student, women's, and gay rights movements. The women's movement or "feminist" movement was one of the other largest movements which sought for women's equality on a political and personal level. At the time women had a certain role in society which they had practically been expected to be a housewife for the rest of their lives and women became tired of this. World War 2 gave women a glimpse of what would become if women had more rights and
Tavanna.org's article perfectly sums up the goals of this movement, "The feminist movement of the 1960s and '70s originally focused on dismantling workplace inequality, such as denial of access to better jobs and salary inequity, via anti-discrimination laws".(tavanna,1960s-70s American Feminist Movement). Another big movement at the time was the free school movement, also known as the new schools or alternative schools movement. (Wikipedia, Free schools movement). “The free school movement was a reform based movement which sought to educate children according to set of morals, attitudes, and beliefs in direct opposition to those of the dominant culture” (Ron Miller, The History of Free Schools). Miller also summed up the ideologies behind the movement pretty well, “Each of the beliefs above reflected the desire to provide young people love and support rather than viewing students as “raw social or economic material to be molded into some preferred form.” Free schools sought, above all else, to be environments that supported community, purpose, and human meaning. This was the heart and soul of free school ideology. Coincidentally, many of the free schools accomplished this by practicing participatory