tv 1960s- Era Counterculture CSPAN July 27, 2014 9:38am-10:01am EDT
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are we done? by the way, the book came out three days ago. be able to smell the ink upstairs if you get a copy and i'll be happy to sign you.or so thank you very much. >> you're watching american history tv, all weekend, every 3.kend on c-span to join the conversation, like us on facebook at c-span history. professor ckles, the of southern california and david favrer, from temple university in philadelphia, thank you very us. for being with as we talk about pop culture in history, you've done a lot of on the counterculture movement. what was that? >> hard to say exactly what it was. it's a much contested term. i see it as those people in the saw and '70s who
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themselves as rebels, reinventing american culture and establishment as they perceived it. >> i often am wondered by the who grew up in the '50s, '60s, and '70s, were the estrogen f the great ration. they fought and serve in world war ii only to see their to grow up as the counterculture. >> that's one of the great imagined heir parents moving very often from cities to suburbs where they would be be the best d possible environment. the children le oved to the inner cities often in safe neighborhoods and reject the kind of comfort of their
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parents. and janice joplin saying hey, man, i want to live super hyper most. i want to do is just basically be like my parents and sit and die in front set.television so they're really pushing back and st the kind of safety security, comfort, they're not that at all. because of the suburbs that they grew up in, where there wasn't a of excitement. so they're reacting to what they deficit in venture american culture. 50 the assassination of the s, mlk, jfk, robert kennedy, the vietnam war, how much did events play into this movement. >> kind of challenges that americans thought was going to be their birthright. war in vietnam in
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particular, opened the questions in the united states. violence of great leaders being struck down in the prime of their lives. think, maybe e american society isn't what we thought it was going to be. and maybe it's time to challenge assumptions that lay behind it. so, yeah, the counterculture is premises inking the based on violence and some of hypocrisy inherent in the american dream. the u've been focusing on feminist movement in this time period. put that in perspective. what was happening in the '60s? >> the civil rights movement, to the new left, the anti-war ovement, are beginning to have new and exciting experiences. ut they're also experiencing sexism in these movements as well. hat creates a kind of
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contradiction. they're also able to experience somewhat freer way by virtue of the birth control pill. but, again, they're also experiencing not only new kinds also greater sexual exploitation. so i think they're in a ituation in which they're facing a lot of contradictions. heightened contradictions that in the flowering of the feminist movement. 1950s, nded of the lucille ball could not been seen as pregnant. dick van dyke show where they slept in separated beds. what a difference. gosh. my >> what you just described. mass media and playing off
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said, it wasn't just young people said i want authentic, i want something more genuine. used the phrase, they wanted risk in their lives, but they their lives.y in so the '60s is a political a cultural there's period of rebellion. when those two hit each other, that t big changes challenge people right where they live in the living rooms and dining rooms and as you said, in their bedrooms. a challenge is the rise of drug use in this time period? >> continuing what you said when people saying, all right, so mom and dad can have a martinis at night and maybe mom taking a sleeping pill something to wake up for his job. y,y can't we do this drug, x, z, marijuana, lsd, the other ha genics.a it's revolutionary. the '60s kids challenging so
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parts of everyday life challenged the limits on consumption, why not marijuana, why not lsd? would add to that, consider panoply of drugs that they were given by student help examination time, for instance, so they could study effectively. widely done. it wasn't unusual to have drugs effectively speed. give soldiers speed in a way to help them perform more efficiently and alertly. >> let's talk about the roots of all of this. we live in the digital information age. '60s, the rise of radio, television, the rise of the really, networks, bringing the events to the home, but also entertainment to the home. nd the changes in media technology.
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>> good insight. i mean, some people call this is tv generation. . s ose that came in the 1960 were the first generation on television. today it seems so funny that the narrow pipe of information will be so explosive, it was in many ways, for the first time people things on national television. the civil rights movement would ot have existed as it did without national representations of racial injustice. so totally true. media -- what was the '60s? the medium is the message? the tv generation saw things generation had seen before. it did affect consciousness. up?you want to follow >> i would say about vietnam tv was -- as -- that shots of age, the merican soldiers wounded, napalm, i mean that was very consciousness raising.
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i know we haven't had images of stark, really, since wartime. that was mobilizing of anti-war consciousness in america. point you underscore the of the draft and the impact that that had on this generation? > if television is the simulation of all of this in the world, the draft or young men ade the reality of a war in asia immediate. means t anyone by any went to vietnam and was going to be drafted but it was possible young man at least to face the decision, should i go to war, is this the right war? me?his war going to kill well, we haven't since the that m war faced generational immediacy when it came to war. >> did the government explain what was that all about? it's what you're told and what it is.
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so there's a hypocrisy in the vietnam. most americans understood it as a struggle of good and evil. to take over ing an innocent democratic country in the south. freedom forpreserve those people in south vietnam aggression. it wasn't the true story. the story about civil war and a story about a nation becoming autonomous. hard to get that knowledge. that's when the anti-war movement in some ways served as alternative set of information as well as activities. >> really going back to the point, the real divide you had in families where the served in world war i, some might have questioned, some said you salute smartly and you serve. >> i think this is true. asn't this true in robert mcnamara's own family where craig, i believe his son was someone who opposed the draft, war.sed the and that absolutely happens in families.
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because it wasn't just young a ple who began to discern credibility gap. cronkite said over time we're seeing a gap. there was a credibility gap that motivated and animated civil protesters going back to world 0s in the end of war ii. we fought for our country, soldiers, this is how we're treated? the rhetoric so much in play in early war years, america is and coming democracy up against the reality on the round was something that was radicalizing for many, many young people. led them to civil rights. eventually when we begin to happening in t's vietnam, has them -- brings them
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out to the streets to fight war. t the vietnam joplin, the beatles, the music of the 1960s, how did genre of ct the americans and what they were going through. >> musicians like the beatles, stones, janice joplin, re in some ways following what they're learning from their peers and cohorts and also leading them. he reflection of it and authentic of what young people are feeling. rolling stones are saying. give voice to those feelings, make them heard so others say, yeah, that's what i'm feeling also. so i think that's why amazingly lives.that music still it had something authentic to it that resonated with people and does. >> what about the other culture elements, movies, fashion, what people saup and more? well, the fashion absolutely.
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think about carney street kids saw what american s the british invasion, the fashions that are coming out of the british invasion, the right?h music invasion, it's a funny sort of situation. because if you think about it, like john lennon and paul mccartney and mick jagger and all of the guys, really, mostly, were involve in he british invasion were looking longingly at america. they thought it was the greatest, right? the hippest, the greatest. and they see something a little different. not so sure it's so great. what do you mean you don't know muddy waters is, right, i think one of the exchanges that happened between one of the the reporter who was interviewing hip. young course were as american kids looking longingly at england and the fashions short out of there, the
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skirt, the short hair, twiggy, and the different sounds, recycled american r&b in many respects. an ou have a title that's easy cocktail conversation. the barbra streisand chair for what? the barbara streisand chair of contemporary studies in southern california, yes? that mean?s what is her involvement in this reserge? > barbra streisand, in her infinite wisdom endowed a chair. and i believe on the fourth or to occupy or hold his chair at the university of southern california. and it goes to somebody whose rooted in is really the scholarship around gender of women andtudies men and society and the university of southern california is one of the first studies programs to
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actually move towards a onsideration of gender and relations between men and women more broadly. she has been a benefactor is much appreciated. >> as you look at what happened in the '60s, this generation now, parents and grandparents now very quickly, moving into retirement. yeah. it's interesting to see televisions to say how should with joy your retirement the people of the 1960s to the '60s. lived in connishne consciousness. the '60s very much lived. on that, explain in historical terms why it was such decade. tant >> it was pivotal in many ways americans many
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challenged conventional wisdom. culture, how they dressed. meant to be a man, a woman, patriotic. what it meant to dissent. those hard big questions all of exploded in some ways simultaneously. we do live with the legry of century od a half later. >> the legacy is the role of the and the movement sexuality you touched on earlier. >> we would not have gay marriage. would not have discussions about the sort of -- well, about to expansion of marriage include include. happened.t have to be critical of the ways it culture and social landscape is the notion of it as being political. essentially, the ways in which
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lived their lives, who did the cooking? who did the cleaning up? had sex e, yes, even togethe togethe together. those were not issues. eminism is really about ngaging on the ground with the of ly important issues some which are within the four walls of the house or the apartment, show casing that, thinking through relations of power. o laws around domestic violence, around rape, those without have happened feminism. just wouldn't have happened. sometimes i a person who's political could be understood in were prescriptive. we wouldn't have bill clinton so
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lili around the mon can lewinsky scandal if it had not een the idea that the person was political and politicians and their personal law should be held accountable. it wasn't going be a situation feminism e we get changing consciousness in which a president could have affairs and this would remain unremarked upon. if you were to put together a time capsule of some of the most 1960s thatents of the shaped a generation, what would it?include in >> the one that opened the door f people rethinking the everyday lives. i think the civil rights template.created a so we can start with john f. '63 edy's assassination in
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sered people's assassination and changed people forever. the '64 civil rights act. the '65 march in selma. '67, the flowering of haigt ashbury. the list goes on, wood stock, altimont. >> what would you include in that time capsule? brown, actually. i think that james brown brings a message of black pride that unprecedented. >> it's -- i'm black and i'm proud. player need the record too. >> so that was important. seeing him on the "ed sullivan show." at the ed tammy show,
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that's earlier. that's an important moment. power moment when stokley carmichael and others of black power is very important. i would say the miss america which in 1968, feminists atlantic city. >> a barrel -- >> a big barrel. >> a barrel in their james brown record. hippy beads. >> but they did not burn a bra. no bras were burned. bras were ple think burned in the miss america contest. they thought about it and they didn't. why did it become a myth? >> because it had been discussed. , too good toration pass up. it literally doesn't happen. but they were on to something. i think robin morgan. absolutely sure of this,
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morgan, you can see how the media could turn it against him. this me conclude with question from both of you. david farber, you're not only studying this period, but you through it. >> i'm a kid. 60smore of a 70s kid than a kid. i was born then. i have a profound memory of park to go see the hippi ippies as i thought of the demonstrators at the time. i had hair not much longer than i had now. in the park saw me. he said, hey, girly, where are you going? i'm like at a football, give me a break. but it spoke to the gender period.ges of that that's my memory of the '60s. i do remember hearing janice lynn perform in washington, d.c. everybody wants to know was she great, was she fabulous?
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at that particular concert, he wasn't. that would be one of the earing, if not the best experiences we had in the 1960s. >> alice eackles in the niversity of southern california and david farber from thank you ersity, very much. >> thank you. >> 40 years ago, the watergate led to the only resignation of the american president. american history tv revisits 1974 and the final weeks of the administration. considering impeachment of the president and power. rge of the >> what you have here are the questions about what the framers had in mind, the questions of activities that had been found out by the committee nd by the senate watergate committee were indeed impeachable. and thirdly, can we prove that nixon knew about them
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even authorized them. years later on c-span 3. >> oliver wendell holmes jr. including how his time as a soldier affected his career. the supreme court historical society hosted this event. >> welcome to the supreme court. it is great to see so many people here for the supreme court historical society's second lecture of the 2014 government lecture series. the society was formed in 1974 by chief justice warren burger with the notion of promoting public understanding of the history of the court. it does that in many ways through lectures like these, through the publication three times a year of the journal of supreme court history, and through the ac
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