America tears itself apart

1
1968

• America tears itself apart

2
Tension Building

• Counterculture
• Rejection of 1950s conventions
• Question authority
• Hippies
• Recreational drugs
• Music
• Drop Out

3
Tension Building
Doves vs.. Hawks

• Vietnam
• News not so good
• Many upset at draft
• Antiwar movement becomes more popular
• People like Martin Luther King, Jr and Robert
  Kennedy openly oppose war
• Eugene McCarthy becomes the anti-war candidate

4
Tension Building

• Civil Rights
• Race riots in Newark and Detroit in previous year
• Many new civil rights leaders begin to advocate
• Use of violent protest
• Black-only movements
• Group like Black Panthers represent a new kind of
  civil rights activist

5
Tet Offensive
US Troops fight off Viet Cong at Hue

• January 30, 1968
• Major Viet Cong attack
• Many Americans become convinced that Viet Cong
  will never surrender
• January 1968 60 of Americans support the war
• March 1968 Only 41
• Johnson losing the war at home

TV Journalist Walter Cronkite at Hue
6
LBJ Withdraws
LBJ, LBJ, How many kids did you kill today? -
Popular Protest Chant

• March 31, 1968
• Eugene McCarthy had just won New Hampshire
  primary with 42 of vote
• LBJ announces de-escalation of US forces in
  Vietnam
• Also announces that he will neither seek nor
  accept the nomination for a second term
• Doves view this as huge victory

7
King Assassination
When white America killed Dr. King, she declared
war on us. - Stokely Carmichael

• April 4, 2008
• Martin Luther King, Jr. killed
• James Earl Ray is suspected assassin
• Despite calls for calm, civil rights advocates
  turn increasingly to violence
• Stokely Carmichael leads riot in Washington, DC

King shortly before assassination
King family at MLKs coffin
James Earl Ray
8
Students Occupy Columbia

• April 23, 1968
• Mark Rudd
• Chairman of Columbia Students for a Democratic
  Society (SDS)
• Students occupy several buildings to protest war
• Police crack down
• 150 protesters injured, 700 arrested

9
RFK Assassination

• June 5, 1968
• Robert Kennedy wins California primary
• Emerges as strong anti-war candidate
• After victory speech is shot by Sirhan Sirhan
• To protest US support for Israel
• RFK dies the following day

Kennedy giving victory speech
Americans become disenchanted and cynical maybe
some things will never change?
Kennedy wounded after shooting
Sirhan Sirhan
10
Yippie Movement
Sacred cows make the tastiest hamburger -
Attributed to Abbie Hoffman

• Abbie Hoffman
• Youth International Party
• Anti-authoritarian
• Guerilla Theatrics Groucho Marxists
• Stunts designed to draw attention and point out
  the absurdity of the war
• e.g., applied for a permit to levitate the
  Pentagon
• Hoffman announce Yippies going to Chicago to
  protest Democratic Convention

11
Democratic Convention

• August 28, 1968
• Yippies Festival of Life
• Mayor Richard Daly orders crackdown on protests
• Police and protesters clash repeatedly
• Hoffman and others tried for conspiracy found
  innocent
• Hubert Humphrey becomes Democratic nominee

With George McGovern as President we wouldnt
have Gestapo tactics in the street of Chicago -
Sen. Abraham Ribikoff
12
Nixon Elected

• November 5, 1968
• Richard Nixon (Republican)
• 43.4
• Hubert Humphrey (Democrat)
• 42.7
• George Wallace (Independent)
• 13.5