The Counter-Culture Unit 8 Cornell E: How did the ideals and lifestyle of the counterculture challenge the traditional views of Americans?

60’s: Era of Social Change Anti-war protest/demonstrations= Media coverage, Tet, My Lai massacre, Violence on Campus, Kent State Women’s movement= N.O.W., Feminism, E.R.A., Roe v. Wade, Civil Rights Movement= Segregation (Jim Crow), Brown v Board of Ed, NAACP, Nonviolent Protest Counterculture movement= hippies, Peace and Love, Sex, Drugs, and Rock n Roll, “do your own thing” Latino movement= La Raza Unida, Caesar Chavez, Delores Huerta, U.F.W., Chicanos

Counterculture The Movement was made up of white, middle-class COLLEGE youths disillusioned by the war in VIETNAM and the INJUSTICES in America during the 1960’s. “HIPPIES” left SCHOOL, work, or home to create an idyllic community of PEACE, LOVE, and harmony.

A. Hippie Culture Sex: “FREE LOVE”= love RELATIONSHIPS that are freely entered into should not be REGULATED by law. Sexual behavior became more CASUAL and PERMISSIVE leading to the sexual REVOLTUTION of the 1960’s and 1970’s. (Playboy: Nov. 1972—over 7 million copies sold)

Drugs: Marijuana and LSD use were promoted as “MIND-EXPANDING” and will help one achieve ENLIGHTENMENT. HAIGHT-ASHBURY in San Francisco was known as the Hippie Capital—LSD was not illegal in California until 1966— JANIS JOPLIN, Jim Morrison (The Doors) and JIMI HENDRIX died from drug overdoses.

Rock n Roll: Hippies embraced rock n roll as its LOUD and RAW anthem of protest BEATLES propelled rock n roll into the mainstream.

Beatlesmania

Rock n Roll: One of the most famous rock concerts was called the WOODSTOCK musical festival. In 1969, 400,000 people flocked to New York to listen to the greatest rock BANDS of the era—it lasted for 3 days.

Woodstock

Woodstock

Jefferson Airplane “White Rabbit”

B. Hippie Commune Community of people living together, SHARING common interests, property, POSSESSIONS, resources, and, in some communes, work and INCOME Reject “TRADITIONAL” American society– MATERIALISM, technology, and war made people hollow (EMPTY).

B. Hippie Commune They do not kill animals = VEGETARIANS.

B. Hippie Commune Traditional marriage is replaced by FREE LOVE. NAKEDNESS and respect for nature, thus living in a natural ENVIORNMENT.

C. Decline of the movement Exodus from society’s conventions and RULES, the hippies had to rely on each other “We FELL APART over who would cook and wash dishes and pay the BILLS”. “do your own thing”—did not work.

C. Decline of the movement Eventually, thousands of Hippies lined up to collect WELFARE—they became dependent on the very society they had once REJECTED.