EDITOR’S NOTE: The following is the third is a series of columns examining reasons why the 1960s protest, long hair, sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll died so quickly, lifted from a book never published.
As said earlier, the ’60s protest movements were rooted essentially in civil rights and the efforts against the Vietnam War. Virtually everyone who became involved was anti-racism and anti-war. These were the two issues that united almost everybody.
But as time wore on into 1969 and 1970, other “liberation” movements started cropping up, clamoring and competing for attention, watering down the original purpose and sending too many young folks off in different directions. This splintering phenomenon, which was described admirably in a “POV” documentary, also created bickering between former political allies.
There were differences between pacifists and hard-core members of Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). The former still believed non-violence was the way to victory over the warmongers. The latter was exhorting comrades to “Bring the war back home.”
The former saw SDS as simply vying with the establishment for the power, the latter saw the non-violent group as ineffective and naive.
In the civil rights movement there was deepening division between the followers of Dr. Martin Luther King and the more militant groups such as the Black Panthers. The nature of the argument was similar to that of the two opposing factions against the war.
So instead of marching together, we were marching separately. Some blacks didn’t trust us whites and didn’t want anything to do with us. Some SDS types didn’t want to get involved with the pacifist crowd.
And beyond these serious schisms were other liberation campaigns, including:
- The women’s movement, led by Kate Millet, Gloria Steinham and Matina S. Horner, which was advancing the idea that the fairer sex could do just about anything as well as men and that they should be paid the same for equal work.
Of all the movements of the ’60s, this one probably has enjoyed the most success going into the 21st century, but it’s come at a price.
One of the most unfortunate parts of this movement was a few incidents in which women felt as if they weren’t getting support from the male leftists. Too often, when a woman would ask what she could do help fight racism and the prosecution of the war in Vietnam, she was told she could do background things like make posters. That was tantamount to asking her to make coffee and cookies and be a good little girl and stay in the background.
But Mary Ellen Burton said when she and her roommates made sandwiches and provided soft drinks for the protesters at Seidman House on the night of Jim Wasserman’s arrest, “That’s what we (women) did back then. Most of us were more followers than leaders. We didn’t feel totally comfortable with roles as followers, but we had been conditioned.”
“I suppose I should have stayed home and baked cookies.” — Hillary Rodham Clinton, 1992
Too many men dropped the ball on understanding what great allies women could be. Perhaps it was because of the perception that women didn’t have to put their lives on the line in those rice paddies half a world away Perhaps it was because women and men always will be at odds on some things.
Frankly, I think we’re still learning how to treat women fairly, and we still have a long way to go.
- Gay liberation wasn’t getting the global attention of the women’s movement, but it was somewhat of a force nonetheless. Once again, we leftists dropped the ball because we hadn’t yet figured out that gays didn’t choose to be the way they were; for them it was as natural as being left-handed.
Too many members of the New Left wanted gays to keep their sexual orientation to themselves, figuring the movement already had enough negative publicity.
This is difficult to acknowledge, but few of us understood the need to embrace the women’s and gay liberation movements. Though we didn’t insult or harass them, we still inadvertently treated them like second class citizens.
- The environmental movement interestingly had its first annual Earth Day on April 22, 1970, once again drawing attention away from that nasty war and away from our national disease of racism. The environmentalists, as valid as their movement seemed to be to us, even competed with the famous John Lennon-Yoko Ono anti-war sentiment of “Give Peace a Chance” with their own “Give Earth a Chance.”
The trend was getting to be obvious. By 1968 most young activists were focused on two big issues and most agreed in our stands. By the start of 1970, it seemed that nearly everybody was off doing their own things.
To paraphrase Abraham Lincoln, “United we stand, divided we fall.”
