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Jeff Costa's List: 1960's Culture through Music

  • Sep 09, 12

    "America at this moment," said the former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in 1945, "stands at the summit of the world." During the 1950s, it was easy to see what Churchill meant. The United States was the world's strongest military power. Its economy was booming, and the fruits of this prosperity, new cars, suburban houses, and other consumer goods, were available to more people than ever before. History has judged it to be the best decade in American History.

    The fun, upbeat, socially-absent feeling of the Twist provides a connection to the idealist lifestyle of the 1950s as the country transitions into the 1960s.

    Listen to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xbK0C9AYMd8

  • Sep 09, 12

    Due to the uncertainty of warfare in Southeast Asia, President Kennedy commissions the Green Beret's to be a Special Forces unit designed to combat global insurgencies through "Flexible Response."

    President Kennedy called "the green beret is a symbol of excellence, a badge of courage, a mark of distinction in the fight for freedom."

    Kennedy's creation shaped the way that future Presidents carry out their duties as Commander in Chief.

    Listen to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0y5GDvN9_OE

  • Sep 09, 12

    The Events of November 22

    12.00 pm
    Arrival at Love Field airport. President Kennedy and the First Lady are in the rear seat. Governor Connally and his wife are in the jump seat. Crowds lined the streets of Dallas to greet the President.

    12:28 pm
    Kennedy's car turns into Dealey Plaza. As the car approaches a state building known as the Texas State Book Depository, rifle shots ring out. President Kennedy is struck in the throat and, then, the head.

    12:36 pm
    The stricken Kennedy is taken to the nearby Parklands Hospital.

    1:00 pm
    The President is declared dead.

    2:00 pm
    Lyndon Johnson, on board Air Force One, is sworn in as the 36th president of America.

    A great national sadness occurred over the death of the young president with so much promise.

    The Byrds captured the mood of the nation with their song, "He was a Friend of Mine." The band performed the song during their appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival on June 17, 1967, where band member David Crosby made controversial remarks alleging that Kennedy had not been killed by Lee Harvey Oswald alone, but was actually the victim of a U.S. Government conspiracy.

    Listen to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=biEVhrL0zoQ

  • Sep 09, 12

    When the Vietnam War started only a small percentage of the American population opposed the war.

    The first march to Washington against the war took place in December, 1964. Only 25,000 people took part but it was still the largest anti-war demonstration in American history.

    As the war continued, more and more Americans turned against it. People were particularly upset by the use of chemical weapons such as napalm and agent orange.

    The decision to introduce a draft for the war increased the level of protest, especially amongst young men. To keep the support of the articulate and influential members of the middle class, students were not called up. However, students throughout America still protested at what they considered was an attack on people's right to decide for themselves whether they wanted to fight for their country.

    Buffalo Springfield's "For What It's Worth" has come to symbolize worldwide turbulence and confrontational feelings arising from events during the 1960s (particularly the Vietnam War). Its prevalent use in film, as well as common sampling and references in other media, has made it something of an icon of Vietnam-era protest songs.

    Listen to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gp5JCrSXkJY

  • Sep 10, 12

    Listen to the song. Then answer the questions

    What does the title reflect?

    What was the Tet Offensive?

    How did the Tet Offensive change public perception of the Vietnam War?

    What does this song tell the listener about those who advocated the war vs. those who fought the war?

    Why would this be a problem for young men facing the draft?

  • Sep 10, 12

    The Counterculture movement made up of mostly white, middle-class college youths who tried to establish a new culture based on love and peace.

    Throughout the mid- and late sixties tens of thousands of idealistic youth left school, work, or home to create what they hope would be a perfect community of love, peace, and harmony.

    Singer/songwriter Bob Dylan provided the anthem for the movement with "Blowin' in the Wind." The song poses a series of rhetorical questions about peace, war and freedom.

    Listen to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TL_FEFMlzVY

  • Sep 10, 12

    During the summer of 1967 many different people came together to build a new society. They wanted a new, individual style.

    The postwar generation tried to build its own culture in the 50's. They refused traditional standards and values.

    Their most important colors were black, red and white - white for the drugs, black for their clothes and the coffee and red for the wine. Their values were radical individualism, an uncontrolled way of life expressed in parties, drugs and free love.

    This "revolution" took place mainly in Haight Ashbury, a small neighborhood in San Francisco. The Haight Ashbury was little more than a few square blocks which stretched from the edge of Golden Gate Park for a half-mile down Haight Street.

    Listen to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_HhwinPw-M

  • Sep 10, 12

    Woodstock was a music and art festival, billed as An Aquarian Exposition, held at Max Yasgur's 600 acre dairy farm in the rural town of Bethel, New York from August 15 to August 18, 1969.

    The festival exemplified the counterculture of the late 1960s – early 1970s and the "hippie era". Thirty-two of the best-known musicians of the day appeared during the sometimes rainy weekend in front of nearly half a million concertgoers.

    Among the performers, there were Janis Joplin, Santana, Richie Havens, Sly and the Family Stone, Jefferson Airplane, Sha Na Na and Jimi Hendrix.

    Jimi Hendrix closed the concert with his unique version of the national anthem.

    Listen to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2ALNd3kIH0

  • Sep 10, 12

    We Shall Overcome is the most powerful song of the 20th century. It started out in church pews and picket lines, inspired one of the greatest freedom movements in U.S. history, and went on to topple governments and bring about reform all over the world. Word for word, the short, simple lyrics of "We Shall Overcome" might be some of the most influential words in the English language.

    "We Shall Overcome" has it roots in African American hymns from the early 20th century, and was first used as a protest song in 1945, when striking tobacco workers in Charleston, S.C., sang it on their picket line. By the 1950s, the song had been discovered by the young activists of the African American civil rights movement, and it quickly became the movement’s unofficial anthem.

    In August 1963, 22-year old folksinger Joan Baez, led a crowd of 300,000 in singing "We Shall Overcome" at the Lincoln Memorial during A. Philip Randolph's March on Washington. President Lyndon Johnson, although himself a Southerner, used the phrase "we shall overcome" in addressing Congress on March 15, 1965, in a speech delivered after the violent, "bloody Sunday" attacks on civil rights demonstrators during the Selma to Montgomery marches, thus legitimizing the protest movement.

    Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. recited the words from "We Shall Overcome" in his final sermon delivered on in Memphis on Sunday March 31, 1968, before his assassination.

    "We Shall Overcome" was sung days later by over fifty thousand attendees at Dr. King's funeral

    Listen to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkNsEH1GD7Q

  • Sep 10, 12

    he 1963 bombing of the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church, which killed four young girls, shocked the city of Birmingham and the world.

    Fourteen-year-olds Cynthia Wesley, Carole Robertson and Addie May Collins, as well as 11-year-old Denise McNair, were killed in a church washroom when the bomb detonated. Twenty-two others were injured.

    In 1963, Birmingham was known as one of the South's most segregated cities. That same year, newly-elected Gov. George Wallace physically barred two African-American students from entering the University of Alabama. And Birmingham's Commissioner of Public Safety, Eugene "Bull" Connor, sparked controversy with his use of fire hoses and attack dogs to disperse civil rights protesters.

    The Sixteenth Street Baptist Church was a well-known meeting place for civil rights activists, where Martin Luther King Jr. and others planned marches, sit-ins and other nonviolent protests. That fact made the building a target, but no one expected an attack to come during the crowded Sunday morning services.

    Listen to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHxG2b4rAlA

  • Sep 10, 12

    People Got to Be Free" is a song released in 1968 by The Rascals. Written by group members Felix Cavaliere and Eddie Brigati and featuring a lead vocal from Cavaliere, it is an upbeat but impassioned plea for tolerance and freedom during the turbulent 1968.

    Listen to the song. Then answer these questions.

    What is the mood of the song?

    Explain the artist answer to racial inequality.

    What is the “train of freedom”?

    Listen to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sastKEBZhXY

  • Sep 10, 12

    April 5th, 1968 was the day after the murder of civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Most major cities in the U.S. were whirling with chaos. Looting, rioting, assault. A surprising reaction to the death of a man whose life was dedicated to non-violence.

    In Boston, a James Brown concert was scheduled for that night. The city was going to cancel it, but one councilman convinced the mayor to televise the James Brown show. James Brown performed what was arguably one of the greatest shows of all time that night and dedicated it to King’s life and memory. Boston was the only major city that did not have major riots that weekend.

    It was just after this that James wrote an anthem for his people “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud." He wanted children to grow up with a sense of pride in themselves as strong Black people.

    Listen to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2VRSAVDlpDI

  • Sep 10, 12

    The 1960s were marked by several notable assassinations:

    November 2, 1963 – Ngo Dinh Diem, President of Vietnam, along with his brother and chief political adviser, Ngo Dinh Nhu. Assassinated by Duong Hieu Nghia and Nguyen Van Nhung in the back of an armoured personnel carrier.

    November 22, 1963 – John F. Kennedy, President of the United States. Kennedy was assassinated on 22 November 1963 while in his open convertible car riding in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas.

    February 21, 1965 – Malcolm X. Assassinated by members of the Nation of Islam in New York City.

    April 4, 1968 – Martin Luther King, Jr., civil rights leader. Assassinated by James Earl Ray in Memphis, Tennessee.

    June 5, 1968 – Robert F. Kennedy, United States Senator. Assassinated by Sirhan Sirhan in Los Angeles, California, taking California in the presidential national primaries.

    Listen to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f29_mQI9K6U

  • Sep 09, 12

    "The women's movement of the 1960s and 1970s drew inspiration from the civil rights movement. It was made up mainly of members of the middle class, and thus partook of the spirit of rebellion that affected large segments of middle-class youth in the 1960s. "

    The groundwork laid in the 1960s enabled change to occur during the 1970s. Activists like Betty Friedan, who founded NOW, and Gloria Steinem, who founded the magazine Ms., were able to keep women's issues on the front of the political agenda. Women earned a measure of equality with the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade.

    Aretha Franklin's powerful song "Respect" became an anthem for the Women's Rights Movement.

    Listen to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FOUqQt3Kg0

  • Sep 09, 12

    Opening with the death of singer Buddy Holly and ending near the tragic concert at Altamont Motor Speedway, we are able to frame the span of years the song is covering-1959 to 1970-as the "10 years we've been on our own" of the third verse. It is across this decade that the American cultural landscape changed radically, passing from the relative optimism and conformity of the 1950s and early 1960s to the rejection of these values by the various political and social movements of the mid and late 1960s.

    Listen to the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0Y_XRiJsCI

  • Sep 10, 12

    Choose one of the following and write a two page typed paper. In addition create a Voki explaining your position to the class.

    1. Using songs from the 1960s and today, compare teenage rebellion and attitudes toward changing the world.

    2. Choose one or more of the issues or problems addressed in the songs and select a current song which comments on a similar issue. The current song might have a similar or different point of view. Compare and contrast the two songs’ attitudes toward the topic.

    3. Select a historical event from this time period and discuss in terms of the views and attitudes illustrated in discussion of this unit.

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