by A. M. Gilbert

Created on: December 09, 2011

Following World War II, many young Americans began to question (and, in many cases, ultimately reject) the established values and cultural norms of their parents. This pattern manifests itself explicitly in the cases of the evolving African-American Civil Rights Movement and the emergence of new archetypes for the young American in the “hippies” and the “New Left.”

Consideration of attitudes characteristic of the Civil Rights Movement yields a bit of a dichotomy; in the early years, the Movement was known for its reliance on non-violent protest and an emphasis on respectability, but during the 1960’s a darker tone colored the rhetoric of movement leaders. After the assassinations of both Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and President John F. Kennedy in 1963 and the bombing of a church in Birmingham in 1965, true anger was evident in many blacks as they wondered if turning the other cheek remained an appropriate course of action (or inaction, as the case may be). Even with the passage of the Voting Rights Act, it became nearly impossible to have faith in the government to expediently reexamine the treatment of blacks and seek to tangibly improve their lives. Thus, the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense, which celebrated Black Power, gained traction pushing a confrontational political agenda working for real change (as opposed to a passive one rooted in hopes for respectability), thereby moving leaders such as Malcolm X to the other end of the protest spectrum from their predecessors.

A similarly dramatic shift is seen in the general youth population of the United States. The attacks on Pearl Harbor in 1941 led to a swell of patriotism and support for entering World War II; the American adventure in Vietnam, however, led to an unprecedented level of backlash. Americans finally saw the true horrors of war on the nightly news and they could not justify the conflict as they always had before. Blind support for the government ceased to be an option. The college-aged population became largely disillusioned with traditional American values and sought to redefine such broad parameters as the function of authority, the propriety of war, the place of mass consumerism, and the definition of masculinity. With their long hair and thoroughly politicized perspectives on everything, both those who appeared as hippies and those in the New Left made it clear that they were not interested in maintaining their parents’ America, which they viewed as something of an abject failure.

Comparing the examples of the Civil Rights Movement and the new social classes of young America, one can find a uniform proclivity toward forcing progress; accepting the existing orders of society and giving the government the benefit of the doubt held little appeal for those who craved real change.

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