Political Revolt in the 1960s
The Beatles
Revolution /Revolution 1 You say you want a revolution Well you know We all want to change the world You tell me that it’s evolution Well you know We all want to change the world But when you talk about destruction Don’t you know you can count me out Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright Alright alright You say you got a real solution Well you know We’d all love to see the plan You ask me for a contribution Well you know We’re doing what we can But when you want money for people with minds that hate All I can tell you is brother you have to wait Don’t you know it’s gonna be alright Alright alright You say you’ll change the constitution Well you know We all want to change your head You tell me it’s the institution Well you know You better free your mind instead But if you go carrying pictures of chairman mao You ain’t going to make it with anyone anyhow Don’t you know know it’s gonna be alright Alright alright ‘Revolution 1’ recorded first in May 68, but released on ‘White’ album in Nov 1968.’ Revolution’ recorded July 68 and released as b-side to ‘Hey Jude’ on 26 Aug in US)
The Rolling Stones
Street Fighting Man Everywhere I hear the sound of marching, charging feet, boy/Cause summers here and the time is right for fighting in the street, boy/But what can a poor boy do/Except to sing for a rock n roll band/Cause in sleepy London town/There's just no place for a street fighting man/No Hey! think the time is right for a palace revolution/But where I live the game to play is compromise solution/Well, then what can a poor boy do/Except to sing for a rock n roll band/Cause in sleepy London town/ There's just no place for a street fighting man/No Hey! said my name is called disturbance/Ill shout and scream, I'll kill the king, I'll rail at all his servants/Well, what can a poor boy do/Except to sing for a rock n roll band/Cause in sleepy London town/There's just no place for a street fighting man/No Released 31 August 1968
Civil Rights Showed that people could bring about change Articulate, christian, respectable, non violent? Grass roots and leadership Global sense of civil rights Brown decision (1954) Montgomery Bus Boycott (1955-6) Little Rock, Arkansas 1957
Civil Rights in the 1960s Sit in movement, Greensboro’, N.C. 1960 Freedom Rides, 1961 Birmingham, 1963 Freedom Summer, 1964 Civil Rights Act (1964) Selma, Alabama, 1965 Voting Rights Act (1965)
The fragmentation of the movement Watts Riot 11 Aug 1965 34 killed, 3,500 arrests Newark, Detroit etc 1967 King and Chicago, 1966 4, April 1968 Malcolm X and the Black Muslims (killed 21 Feb 1965) SNCC, CORE and the Black Panthers
Alabama Soul, and by late 1960s, funk: James Brown, Otis Redding, ella Fitzgerald, Marvin Gaye, Sly and the Family Stone. Rock (Hendrix) Jazz: John Coltrane ‘Alabama’. (Spiritual dimension.) ‘A Love Supreme’ (1964) (a watershed). Died 17 July 1967 Free Jazz Ornette Coleman, Coltrane Sun Ra, Cecil Taylor, Albert Ayler
The New Left Students for Democratic Society (1961) The Port Huron statement (1962) The Free Speech Movement, 1964 Spread to other campuses, and to other countries The significance of Bob Dylan.
The counterculture Sex, and drugs and rock’n’roll Music key – radio, records, tours. Reaches young people across the globe Dylan and Beatles take on countercultural elements Acid tests Haight Ashbury CC and New Left convergence. ‘Yippies’ Jefferson Airplane ‘Volunteers’ (1969)
The anti war movement Vietnam teach ins, 1965 SDS organise march, April 1965. 20,000 attend. International Days of Protest, 1965 and 1966 Protest grows March on the Pentagon, 1967 Grovesnor Square, London, March and October 1968. Violence and arrests.
1968 A tumultuous year Tet offensive Splits in Civil Rights and New Left King and Kennedy Assassinated. Democratic National Convention, Chicago Nixon elected
Paris, May 1968 2 May 1968 After ongoing struggle shut down Uni of Paris at Nanterre. 3 May, Students at Sorbonne show support. Occupied by police. 6 May Thousands of students, lecturers and radicals marched in Paris towards the Sorbonne. Met with baton charges and tear gas. Missiles thrown
Back from the brink of Revolution 10 May; Further march and conflict Trade Unions join in with 1 day general strike 18 May Factory Occupations of up to 2M. 29 May De Gaulle flees to Germany 30 May march, counter march and election called. June election victory for Gauliists Unrest continued.
Be Realistic. Demand the Impossible! Marxists, Socialists, Trotskyites, Anarchists and Situationists ‘The objectives were self-management by workers, a decentralization of economic and political power and participatory democracy at the grass roots’. Turn down pay solutions The world beyond Paris PCF: students as ‘false revolutionaries’. Urging workers to return and seeing electoral advantage. Realism or selling out?
The Prague Spring Unrest from 1966 Dubceck became first sec of the Communist Party in early 1968 ‘Socialism with a human face’ 5 April 1968. Move towards greater democracy, end of censorship and related reforms ‘Warsaw Pact’ invasion 20/21 August John Palach protest, 19 Jan 1969 Dubceck reversed reforms, before being replaced in April 1969
Conclusion Violence and the limits of the system A revolution that never was? Richard Nixon elected President in 1968 Order ‘restored’ in Paris and Prague Feminism, Identity politics and the end of the cold war The ‘triumph’ of neo-liberalism? Counterculture as consumerism Personal freedom and the long 1960s