tag:theconversation.com,2011:/ca-fr/topics/the-1960s-48153/articlesThe 1960s – La Conversation2024-03-11T13:10:44Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2246802024-03-11T13:10:44Z2024-03-11T13:10:44ZHow alternative communities have evolved – from pacifist communes to a solution to the ageing population<p>People have sought solace and strength in communal living for thousands of years. But unlike traditional villages bound by kinship or geography, “intentional communities” are deliberately constructed by people who choose to share not just space, but also a specific set of values, beliefs or goals. Such forging of a collective path is often in response to times of social change. </p>
<p>Here are three instances where people have turned to intentional communities to seek sanctuary, purpose and alternative ways of living. </p>
<h2>Second world war</h2>
<p>As the war raged across Europe, one particular group of people was looking for alternative solutions. Conscientious objectors were people who refused to fight for moral or religious reasons. </p>
<p>It is <a href="https://doi.org/10.1093/tcbh/hwy002">estimated</a> that there were around 60,000 male conscientious objectors in Britain. Some took up non-combatant roles, such as medics, but others sought out less conventional opportunities. With farming identified as an exempt occupation, some conscientious objectors joined pacifist “back to the land” communities. </p>
<p>One such community was <a href="https://www.littletoller.co.uk/shop/books/little-toller/no-matter-how-many-skies-have-fallen-by-ken-worpole/">Frating Hall Farm</a> in Essex. It provided a safe haven for those who did not wish to fight in the war. As well as farming, the community lived, ate and worked together. </p>
<p>Another such community was <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/stage/2017/dec/05/conscientious-objectors-lincolnshire-collow-abbey-farm-play-remembrance">Collow Abbey Farm</a> in Lincolnshire. This was a farming cooperative set up by a different set of conscientious objectors. Again, the principles of pacifism, farming and community brought individuals and families together in a time of need. </p>
<p>Many of these communities dissipated after the war ended, having served their purpose as safe havens for pacifists. </p>
<h2>1960s</h2>
<p>Still in the shadow of the second world war, the 1960s blossomed into a more permissive era which allowed for a freer sense of self and expression. This decade heralded a sense of social change with movements such as civil rights and women’s rights emerging. As the decade progressed, so did the different types of intentional communities. </p>
<p>The 1960s commune movement has been described by some experts as a <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9780203615171-18/sixties-era-communes-timothy-miller">hotbed</a> of free love, drug taking and loose morals. But others <a href="https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/mono/10.4324/9780203790656-7/collective-profile-communes-intentional-communities-yaacov-oved">argue</a> they embodied something much more important and were representative of the social changes under way at the time. </p>
<p>In an attempt to escape “straight” society, many young people sought out spaces that allowed them to experiment with alternative forms of living and identity. These were communities that often embraced the non-nuclear family alongside other “counter cultural” ideas such as veganism and non-gendered childrearing. </p>
<p>One well documented example of this is <a href="https://www.braziers.org.uk/buildings-and-land/main-house/">Braziers Park</a> in Oxfordshire. It was a community that formed in the 1950s but flourished in the 1960s and 70s. Braziers was initially set up as an educational community. </p>
<p>Its alternative nature attracted the likes of Rolling Stones frontman, Mick Jagger, and his then girlfriend <a href="https://www.google.co.uk/books/edition/Faithfull/wLGpJ_8I6WYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover">Marianne Faithfull</a>, who had lived there during her early life.
She described it as “otherworldly” in her memoir. Braziers still exists today and now offers courses, workshops and retreats.</p>
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Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/four-reasons-to-consider-co-housing-and-housing-cooperatives-for-alternative-living-99097">Four reasons to consider co-housing and housing cooperatives for alternative living</a>
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<p>Another example was <a href="https://player.bfi.org.uk/free/film/watch-a-beautiful-way-to-live-1971-online">Crow Hall</a> in Norfolk, which was founded in 1965. Although they denied they were a commune, it had all of the marks of being one, with elements such as shared accommodation and collective child rearing. The community operated an open door policy, inviting others to “come find themselves”. It eventually dispersed in 1997. </p>
<p>Like Braziers, some communities set up during the 1960s are still in place today such as <a href="https://www.postliphall.org.uk/">Postlip Hall</a> near Cheltenham, or the <a href="http://www.ashram.org.uk/">Ashram Community</a> near Sheffield. But many others ended as society moved on. Experts who have <a href="https://westminsterresearch.westminster.ac.uk/item/911v7/nineteen-sixties-radicalism-and-its-critics-radical-utopians-liberal-realists-and-postmodern-sceptics">reflected</a> on this period describe it as both a time of freedom and, for others, mistakenly liberal.</p>
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<figcaption><span class="caption">New Ground Cohousing in High Barnet, north London.</span></figcaption>
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<h2>Today</h2>
<p>The <a href="https://diggersanddreamers.org.uk/#">communities scene</a> continues to <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/society/2021/jan/17/is-the-boom-in-communal-living-really-the-good-life">flourish</a> but this time under new challenges such as an ageing population and climate change. It’s difficult to estimate how many such communities exist in the UK, as nobody keeps official figures. </p>
<p>Arguably, some of the same generation who were “tuning in and dropping out” in the 1960s are now seeking equally alternative solutions for their older age. For some, this is to be found in the phenomenon of <a href="https://cohousing.org.uk/news/how-the-rise-of-cohousing-is-enriching-seniors-lives/">“senior cohousing”</a>. These are intentional communities run by their residents where each household is a self-contained home alongside shared community space and facilities. </p>
<p>One example of senior cohousing is <a href="https://newgroundcohousing.uk">New Ground</a> in north London. This is a community of older women, founded in 1998, who took their housing situation into their own hands. Defying some of the more traditional models of housing for older people, such as sheltered accommodation, New Ground is an intentional community for women over 50. They live by the ethos of “looking out for, rather than looking after each other”.</p>
<p>For others, the solution involves joining an intergenerational community such as <a href="https://www.oldhall.org.uk/old-hall-community/">Old Hall</a> in Suffolk where octogenarians live alongside children and adults under one roof. This is a community of around 50 people who farm the land, share their meals and manage the manor house in which they live.</p>
<p>As society evolves, so too do the forms that intentional communities take.
While the specific challenges may change, the human desire for connection and a sense of belonging remains constant.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/224680/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Kirsten Stevens-Wood does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>From conscientious objectors to hippies and seniors, intentional communities offer refuge and purpose for people seeking a different way of life.Kirsten Stevens-Wood, Senior Lecturer, Cardiff Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2180022023-11-20T13:18:30Z2023-11-20T13:18:30ZGood profits from bad news: How the Kennedy assassination helped make network TV news wealthy<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560217/original/file-20231117-28-k0daxt.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=4%2C4%2C2983%2C2436&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">President John F. Kennedy is seen shortly before his assassination on Nov. 22, 1963.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://newsroom.ap.org/detail/TV-MemorableMoments/4239d513431b455cb8a35299340210b1/photo">Associated Press</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>In journalism, bad news sells. “If it bleeds, it leads” is a famous industry catchphrase, which explains why <a href="https://www.routledge.com/If-It-Bleeds-It-Leads-An-Anatomy-Of-Television-News/Kerbel/p/book/9780813398198">violent crime</a>, <a href="http://cup.columbia.edu/book/terrorism-and-the-media/9780231100151">war and terrorism</a>, and <a href="https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118841570.iejs0202">natural disasters</a> are ubiquitous on TV news.</p>
<p>The fact that journalists and their employers make money from troubling events is something researchers rarely explore. But even if it seems distasteful, the link between negative news and profit is important to understand. As <a href="https://cmj.umaine.edu/faculty-staff/michael-j-socolow/">a media historian</a>, I think studying <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00947679.2023.2195346">this topic</a> can shed light on <a href="http://doi.org/10.1007/s42761-021-00046-w">the forces</a> that <a href="https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01538-4">shape contemporary journalism</a>.</p>
<p>The assassination of John F. Kennedy 60 years ago offers a case study. After a gunman killed the president, television news offered wall-to-wall, nonstop coverage at considerable cost to the networks. This earned TV news a reputation for public-spiritedness that lasted decades.</p>
<p>This reputation – which may seem surprising now but was widely accepted at the time – obscured the fact that TV news would soon become enormously profitable. Those profits are due in part because awful news attracts big audiences – which remains the case today.</p>
<h2>The JFK assassination made Americans turn to TV news</h2>
<p>Shortly after Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, the TV networks demonstrated their sensitivity to the tragedy by canceling commercials and <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo3641671.html">devoting all their airtime to the story</a> for several days. CBS President Frank Stanton would later call it “the longest uninterrupted story in the history of television.” At one point, 93% of all U.S. TVs were tuned into the coverage.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="In a black and white image, a young woman is seen crying in front of half a dozen televisions." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560213/original/file-20231117-23-37j1d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=64%2C0%2C3163%2C4132&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560213/original/file-20231117-23-37j1d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560213/original/file-20231117-23-37j1d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560213/original/file-20231117-23-37j1d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=755&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560213/original/file-20231117-23-37j1d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560213/original/file-20231117-23-37j1d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560213/original/file-20231117-23-37j1d6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=949&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">As televisions report news of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, a woman weeps in a Sears department store in Levittown, Pa.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/as-televisions-in-the-background-report-news-of-the-news-photo/1396714258">Jack Rosen/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>Estimates vary, but the networks’ decision to forgo ads <a href="https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2023-11-14/kennedy-assassination-60th-anniversary-tv-news-viewers-walter-cronkite">may have cost them as much as US$19 million</a> – which is $191 million in 2023 dollars. </p>
<p>For decades, the networks presented their assassination coverage as <a href="https://search.worldcat.org/title/42593182">the epitome of public service</a>. And over and over, network executives and journalists argued that TV news was uniquely protected from the economic pressures found elsewhere in broadcasting. </p>
<p>TV news in the early 1960s was “the loss leader that permitted NBC, CBS and ABC to justify the enormous profits made by their entertainment divisions,” ABC News’ <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/11/12/AR2010111206508_pf.html">Ted Koppel reminisced</a> in The Washington Post in 2010. He added, “It never occurred to the network brass that news programming could be profitable.”</p>
<p>The public-service narrative that took root in November 1963 ignored the fact that the huge audiences turning to TV news for information and comfort would soon become very lucrative. </p>
<h2>How TV news became a money machine</h2>
<p>Only two months before Kennedy’s assassination, in September 1963, the networks expanded their evening newscasts to 30 minutes. They had previously been 15 minutes, offering little more than headlines. The expanded newscasts <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884910379707">sold out all their advertising opportunities</a> immediately, as television news drew the predictable daily mass audiences that sponsors craved.</p>
<p>The Kennedy assassination coverage, combined with the expanded newscasts, significantly increased the commercial value of TV news. Throughout the 1960s, broadcast journalism began to mature into the most lucrative genre of programming on American television. </p>
<p>By the 1965-1966 television season, NBC’s “The Huntley-Brinkley Report” <a href="https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,941023,00.html">generated $27 million in advertising a year</a>, making it the network’s most lucrative program – out-earning even “Bonanza,” the top entertainment show. “The CBS Evening News” was <a href="https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,941023,00.html">drawing in $25.5 million</a> in advertising, making it the second-most profitable program on U.S. television. </p>
<p>Around this time, networks were telling regulators that they had sacrificed millions of dollars for public service through journalism. For example, <a href="https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uiug.30112068807905&seq=351&q1=a+direct+responsibility+to+the+public+in+news+and+public+affairs+which+is+not+necessarily+&start=1">in 1965 testimony</a> before the Federal Communications Commission, executives from ABC, CBS and NBC said their news divisions had loftier motives than simply making money. </p>
<p>But they were making money, and lots of it. By 1969, “Huntley-Brinkley” was <a href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00947679.2023.2195346">earning $34 million in advertising</a> on a production budget of $7.2 million, making the program – according to Fortune magazine – “the biggest source of revenue that the N.B.C. network has – bigger than ‘Laugh-In’ or ‘The Dean Martin Show.’” A decade earlier, “Huntley-Brinkley” had been making just $8 million in ad and sponsorship revenue.</p>
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<img alt="In a black-and-white photo, two news anchors, one smoking a pipe, are seen sitting in a broadcast studio at the Miami Beach Convention Center. In the background, conventioneers are seen milling around and a sign reads 'VICTORY IN 68'" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560230/original/file-20231118-19-whuibz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/560230/original/file-20231118-19-whuibz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560230/original/file-20231118-19-whuibz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560230/original/file-20231118-19-whuibz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560230/original/file-20231118-19-whuibz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560230/original/file-20231118-19-whuibz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/560230/original/file-20231118-19-whuibz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
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<span class="caption">Chet Huntley and David Brinkley broadcast from the Republican National Convention in 1968.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.gettyimages.com/detail/news-photo/chet-huntley-and-david-brinkley-broadcasting-for-nbc-at-the-news-photo/1297996689">Ben Martin/Getty Images</a></span>
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<p>The networks didn’t tout their profits, though. Instead, they <a href="https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/T/bo12345529.html">continually promoted their efforts</a> covering the Vietnam War, civil unrest and the assassinations of the 1960s as service in the public interest. They also claimed that news production cost them millions, and they <a href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1464884910379707">hid ad revenues</a> accrued by news programming elsewhere in their corporate budgets. Doing this gave them a leg up on regulatory privileges, such as station license renewals. </p>
<h2>The birth of modern TV news</h2>
<p>Ultimately, the chaotic, cacophonous and confusing decade of the 1960s would end up launching the hyper-commercial media world we live in today. Chasing sensational investigative stories, such as Watergate and the Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal, would <a href="https://www.upi.com/Archives/1987/07/08/Oliver-North-draws-big-ratings/8772552715200/">generate higher ratings</a> and <a href="https://niemanreports.org/articles/the-transformation-of-network-news/">more advertising revenue</a>, and turn broadcast journalists into national celebrities. </p>
<p>The original values animating network broadcast journalism at its inception would surrender to more lucrative formats. “60 Minutes” – a CBS News production – eventually became the most valuable network-owned programming property <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=n2c6DwAAQBAJ&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&dq=Tell+Me+a+Story+60+Minutes&source=gbs_navlinks_s">in the history of American television</a>, and by the 1980s almost every local news station had <a href="https://www.wiley.com/en-us/News+is+People%3A+The+Rise+of+Local+TV+News+and+the+Fall+of+News+from+New+York-p-9780813812076">launched its own</a> “I-Team” investigations group.</p>
<p>Eventually, the professionalism that drew audiences to TV news in the wake of the Kennedy assassination in 1963 would be supplanted by audience growth strategies <a href="https://books.google.com/books?id=lyWiYgEACAAJ&dq=inauthor:%22Frank+N.+Magid+Associates%22&hl=en&newbks=1&newbks_redir=0&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwilh7nH9suCAxXOFFkFHY1GDZEQ6AF6BAgBEAE">sold by TV news consultants</a>. Audience analytics, minute-by-minute engagement metrics and Q-scores calibrating anchor “likability” would <a href="https://penguinrandomhousehighereducation.com/book/?isbn=9780143113775">standardize formats and homogenize newsgathering</a> in the drive to maximize profits.</p>
<p>Yet through the decades, one constant remains: Bad news sells. It’s a media-industry truism whether we’d like to study it or not, and the news broadcasts airing today, 60 years after the events of November 1963, prove it.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/218002/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael J. Socolow does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>The JFK assassination was a landmark event in TV news history.Michael J. Socolow, Professor of Communication and Journalism, University of MaineLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/2029072023-04-21T12:42:02Z2023-04-21T12:42:02ZBlack students in Washington state played key role in the Civil Rights Movement, new book states<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/522174/original/file-20230420-29-ne9bdl.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=40%2C102%2C6692%2C4444&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">A protest led by the Black Student Union at the University of Washington at Seattle, 1968. </span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://depts.washington.edu/labpics/zenPhoto/uw_bsu/pitre/photo12.jpg">Emile Pitre Collection</a></span></figcaption></figure><p><em>When it comes to civil rights history, the focus is often on the marches, boycotts, sit-ins and other protests that took place in the South. In “<a href="https://nyupress.org/9781479810406/washington-state-rising/">Washington State Rising</a>,” Marc Arsell Robinson, assistant professor of African American history at California State University, San Bernardino, takes a look at the civil rights protests that occurred in a lesser-examined region of the United States: the Pacific Northwest. The following Q&A is about what Robinson found for his forthcoming book, which is set to be published in August 2023.</em></p>
<h2>Why write a book on Black student activism in the Pacific Northwest?</h2>
<p>As an African American born and raised in Seattle, I was curious to learn if and how my hometown was connected to the protests of the Civil Rights and Black Power movements. I was pleased to learn the city, and region, was deeply connected to these larger movements. I felt a responsibility to share what I had learned. </p>
<p>Also, studies of Black protests from the 1960s tend to focus on the South. And even studies of civil rights events and groups outside the South position the Pacific Northwest as marginal. This pattern holds true of research on 1960s Black student activism, such as the studies of nationwide protest by <a href="https://www.worldcat.org/title/black-campus-movement-black-students-and-the-racial-reconstitution-of-higher-education-1965-1972/oclc/744287241">Ibram X. Kendi</a> and <a href="https://www.ucpress.edu/book/9780520282186/the-black-revolution-on-campus">Matha Biondi</a>. </p>
<p>My book shines light on Black Power’s reach beyond major cities like New York, Chicago and Los Angeles. It shows Black Power’s impact on higher education, and it details how some Black student activists used community organizing and interracial alliances to create change.</p>
<h2>What was one of your most interesting discoveries?</h2>
<p>The Black Student Union, or BSU, at the University of Washington helped connect the Black Panther Party to Seattle. The group formed in fall 1967, and later several of its members helped co-found the Seattle Panthers in April 1968. This includes Aaron Dixon, who <a href="https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/421-my-people-are-rising">confirms in his memoir</a> that he was in the Black Student Union at UW before being appointed by Bobby Seale as Captain, or leader, of the Seattle Panthers.</p>
<p>Moreover, as detailed in “Washington State Rising,” Dixon and other Seattle activists were introduced to the Panthers through BSU activities, including a trip to Oakland and San Francisco in April 1968 for a Black political conference, and the BSU’s network of local campus chapters and allied groups.</p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="A book cover featuring a black and white photo of two Black men and one Black woman sitting at a table." src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521726/original/file-20230418-20-tb6yny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/521726/original/file-20230418-20-tb6yny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521726/original/file-20230418-20-tb6yny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521726/original/file-20230418-20-tb6yny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=894&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521726/original/file-20230418-20-tb6yny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521726/original/file-20230418-20-tb6yny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/521726/original/file-20230418-20-tb6yny.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">‘Washington State Rising’ tells the little-known story of the civil rights struggle in the U.S. Pacific Northwest.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://nyupress.org/9781479810406/washington-state-rising/">Marc Arsell Robinson/NYU Press</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>What is the legacy of the Black Student Union in Washington state?</h2>
<p>Examples of the Black Student Union’s legacy are the Black studies courses and programs that were established in the 1960s. Prior to this, very few, if any, classes or assigned materials included the perspectives and experiences of Black people. Today, students and faculty continue to study Black history, even if names of programs or departments have changed to <a href="https://theconversation.com/california-vetoed-ethnic-studies-requirements-for-public-high-school-students-but-the-movement-grows-148486">ethnic studies and so forth</a>.</p>
<p>Similarly, ongoing efforts to recruit and retain diverse students, faculty and staff are part of the Black Student Union’s legacy. The most prominent example is the <a href="https://www.washington.edu/omad/">Office of Minority Affairs and Diversity</a>, known as OMAD, at UW. This initiative was a direct outcome of the Black Student Union’s <a href="https://depts.washington.edu/civilr/BSU_beginnings.htm">1968 sit-in</a> of the UW president’s office and negotiations with campus officials. The BSU was protesting UW’s small population of nonwhite students and faculty, along with related concerns. Today, the OMAD continues to offer African American and other minority students academic advising, cultural support, tutoring, leadership development and more.</p>
<h2>What does Black student activism in Washington state look like today?</h2>
<p>Black Student Unions are active at numerous colleges and universities in Washington, including the two schools featured in my book, the University of Washington and <a href="https://dailyevergreen.com/tag/black-student-union/">Washington State University</a>.</p>
<p>Like their 1960s counterparts, progressive Black students today continue to push their institutions to create, maintain and expand initiatives to graduate Black students, hire Black faculty and fund Black studies and related curricula.</p>
<p>In recent years, Black students across the Pacific Northwest have <a href="https://www.dailyuw.com/news/keep-the-pressure-on-uw-blm-continues-to-protest-for-unmet-demands/article_d1e7828e-ba7f-11ea-a0e5-9735552dd63b.html">organized in support of Black Lives Matter</a> and against the killings of unarmed Black people, often using social media as a tool for communication and public education. Overall, today’s Black student politics and struggles for greater equity continue the legacy of the Black Student Unions of the 1960s.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/202907/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Marc Arsell Robinson received the 2022 Mellon Emerging Faculty Award. He was also previously a student and employee of the University of Washington and Washington State University.</span></em></p>Washington isn’t a state that typically comes to mind in discussions about student-led protests from the Civil Rights Movement. A Black history professor seeks to change that with a new book.Marc Arsell Robinson, Assistant Professor of History, California State University, San BernardinoLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1398142020-06-05T12:08:22Z2020-06-05T12:08:22ZMinneapolis’ ‘long, hot summer’ of ‘67 – and the parallels to today’s protests over police brutality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339971/original/file-20200605-176554-a6i53b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=13%2C80%2C2983%2C1891&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Police stand guard on Plymouth Avenue as firemen battle fires on July 21, 1967.
</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Robert Walsh</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The scene was intense. Black residents of Minneapolis angered over an incident of police brutality <a href="https://startribune.newspapers.com/image/188066486">fought with officers in the streets</a> and set buildings ablaze. Many were injured; dozens were arrested. Eventually the National Guard, called in to patrol the streets, ordered black citizens back into their homes. </p>
<p>This may sound a lot like a scene from the past week, but it’s actually a flashback to 1967, when <a href="https://www.mnopedia.org/event/civil-unrest-plymouth-avenue-minneapolis-1967">African Americans took to the streets</a> of north Minneapolis after a series of abuses that, like today, culminated in days of unrest.</p>
<p>It took place in one of the “<a href="https://www.ushistory.org/US/54g.asp">long, hot summers</a>” of the 1960s, when black Americans in cities across the country protested and rioted over police abuse and segregation. While our history books <a href="https://theweek.com/captured/712838/long-hot-summer-196">remind us of famous riots</a> in major cities like Los Angeles, Newark and Detroit, what took place in Minneapolis – where the black population back then was <a href="https://www.minnpost.com/mnopedia/2020/01/how-near-north-came-to-be-one-of-minneapolis-largest-black-communities/">just 8%</a> – is often forgotten. </p>
<p><a href="https://sst.asu.edu/content/rashad-shabazz-0">I stumbled</a> across this story while doing research on a book about the Minneapolis music scene and <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-minneapolis-made-prince-130173">how it made Prince</a>. With protests and riots taking place across the country to protest the murder of <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/topics/george-floyd-87675">George Floyd</a>, now’s a good time to revisit what happened in Minneapolis in 1967 – and why it represents a missed opportunity that laid the seeds for today’s unrest.</p>
<h2>‘Long, hot summers’</h2>
<p>African Americans living in north Minneapolis in the 1960s faced the <a href="http://www.doi.org/10.2307/2096395">same problems of segregation, poverty and disinvestment</a> that blacks in other American cities endured.</p>
<p>Frustration with the resulting marginalization as well as discriminatory Jim Crow laws <a href="https://www.ushistory.org/US/54g.asp">led to a rippling series of urban uprisings</a> in the U.S. in 1964. The unrest finally reached Minneapolis in 1966, when <a href="https://www.mnopedia.org/event/civil-unrest-plymouth-avenue-minneapolis-1967">looting and arson took place on Plymouth Avenue</a>, a major street in north Minneapolis. </p>
<p>One result of the tumult was black cultural centers began to spring up across the country, including in Minneapolis, where <a href="https://www.startribune.com/plymouth-avenue-racial-tensions-since-the-60s/353209691/">city officials helped establish</a> The Way in the north of the city. The center became a space where local African Americans could hold community meetings, play sports and perform. Prince, who grew up in the neighborhood, practiced and performed there – and even played a little ball. </p>
<p>But it also became a place where blacks could share their stories of life in the city and organize themselves. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339975/original/file-20200605-176585-d7352n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339975/original/file-20200605-176585-d7352n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339975/original/file-20200605-176585-d7352n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339975/original/file-20200605-176585-d7352n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339975/original/file-20200605-176585-d7352n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339975/original/file-20200605-176585-d7352n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339975/original/file-20200605-176585-d7352n.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=501&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prince grew up in north Minneapolis near The Way, where he frequently performed.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Jim Steinfeldt/Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>A week of unrest</h2>
<p>The city’s response to unrest one year later was decidedly less accommodating. </p>
<p>On July 19, 1967, an <a href="https://startribune.newspapers.com/image/184838858/?terms=Aquatennial%2Bparade%2Briot%2Bnegro%2Bwoman">altercation broke out</a> between two teenage black girls at the city’s <a href="https://www.mnopedia.org/event/minneapolis-aquatennial">Aquatennial Torchlight parade</a>. Nearby police trying to break up the scuffle between them threw both girls to the ground. When a young teenage black boy who witnessed the incident complained to the officer about the treatment of the girls, another officer struck him too. </p>
<p>News of what had happened spread quickly among black residents, and many gathered at The Way the next day to organize a protest in response. Later that night, black residents marched along Plymouth Avenue and demanded the officers be held accountable. </p>
<p><a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/1053/stribjuly21.pdf?1591324500">Police arrived</a>. <a href="https://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/07/19/minneapolis-plymouth-avenue-riots-anniversary">Tensions escalated</a>. An officer struck a pregnant woman in the belly – she subsequently miscarried – and fights between residents and police broke out. Protesters threw rocks and set fires to buildings with Molotov coattails.</p>
<p>More cops were called, and more residents joined the ensuing fight. By the next morning, the protesters were causing havoc, prompting the city’s mayor, Arthur Naftalin, to call in the National Guard to squash the protests. Burned buildings, injured protesters and over 30 arrests marked the end of the protest four days later. No police officers were held accountable for their treatment of black citizens. </p>
<h2>A tale of two responses</h2>
<p>City officials, naturally, wanted to get to the bottom of what had happened in hopes of preventing another riot in the future. They did so in two ways. </p>
<p>The first was a <a href="https://startribune.newspapers.com/image/188066642/?terms=Aquatennial%2Bparade%2Briot%2Bnegro%2Bwoman">public forum</a>, organized by local religious leaders, that focused on listening to the grievances of the protesters and other residents. Protesters who attended made it clear that fatigue with police brutality was the main reason they marched and rioted. </p>
<p>“This will show them we are not going to take any more of the cops shoving and pushing us,” said one protester. Another explained the violence of the protesters was a normal response to social conditions. “You back a colored man into a corner and complain when he comes out fighting,” he said. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339974/original/file-20200605-176554-1on7thk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/339974/original/file-20200605-176554-1on7thk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339974/original/file-20200605-176554-1on7thk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339974/original/file-20200605-176554-1on7thk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=397&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339974/original/file-20200605-176554-1on7thk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339974/original/file-20200605-176554-1on7thk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/339974/original/file-20200605-176554-1on7thk.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=499&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">George Floyd’s brother Philonise Floyd, far right, and cousin Shareeduh Tate, second from right, share their memories of Floyd at a memorial service at North Central University, on June 4, 2020, in Minneapolis.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>But in the city’s other response, officials came to a very different conclusion for what caused the unrest. The county impaneled an all-white grand jury to identify those who “perpetrated the crimes,” determine if there was a conspiracy and consider any “constructive decisions that would be helpful in the future.” </p>
<p>From the start, the prosecutorial nature of the grand jury made it feel like officials were ignoring the community’s call for a different model of policing, one that takes black safety and the value of black life seriously. </p>
<p>Moreover, the grand jury’s report, in addressing whether there were any “constructive decisions” that could prevent a recurrence, disregarded the community’s claims of brutality as the impetus for the uprising. </p>
<p>“No weapons were fired by authorities,” the report claimed, though a young black man <a href="https://cdn.theconversation.com/static_files/files/1054/stribjuly21b.pdf?1591324576">was rushed to the county hospital</a> with a gunshot wound. “And there is no evidence of so-called ‘police brutality.’”</p>
<p>The grand jury recommended The Way and its staff be investigated for inciting the disturbance. Finally, the report concluded that more beat police patrolling “certain areas” like north Minneapolis would help to better establish positive connections between police and communities of color.</p>
<p>And so, by ignoring the voices of the black community and their calls for change and accountability – and instead doubling down on the kind of policies that caused the problems – the city of Minneapolis squandered an opportunity to improve relations between black citizens and the police. Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer on May 25 is a consequence of this public policy failure. </p>
<p>As Americans grapple with how to respond to today’s unrest, I hope they don’t make the same mistake they did in 1967. </p>
<p>[<em>You’re smart and curious about the world. So are The Conversation’s authors and editors.</em> <a href="https://theconversation.com/us/newsletters/weekly-highlights-61?utm_source=TCUS&utm_medium=inline-link&utm_campaign=newsletter-text&utm_content=weeklysmart">You can get our highlights each weekend</a>.]</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/139814/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Rashad Shabazz receives funding from the Institute for Humanities Research at Arizona State University. </span></em></p>After a riot broke out in 1967, Minneapolis officials squandered an opportunity to address the structural racism that led to George Floyd’s death and a wave of unrest across the country.Rashad Shabazz, Associate Professor at the School of Social Transformation, Arizona State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1056402018-10-30T10:44:36Z2018-10-30T10:44:36ZThe soundtrack of the Sixties demanded respect, justice and equality<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242768/original/file-20181029-76405-t6rnc6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">The Supremes, with their polished performances and family-friendly lyrics, helped to bridge a cultural divide and temper racial tensions.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-International-News-Ente-/0897f662ca564589975e8c01730f5ea4/10/0">AP Photo/Frings</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>When Sly and the Family Stone released “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/7lL2lMWNtzOcf5HnEudNgn?si=Iki3pMgHRYGigF5i_0reow">Everyday People</a>” at the end of 1968, it was a rallying cry after a tumultuous year of assassinations, civil unrest and a seemingly interminable war.</p>
<p>“We got to live together,” he sang, “I am no better and neither are you.”</p>
<p>Throughout history, artists and songwriters have expressed a longing for equality and justice through their music.</p>
<p>Before the Civil War, African-American slaves gave voice to their oppression through protest songs camouflaged as <a href="https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200197495/">Biblical spirituals</a>. In the 1930s, jazz singer Billie Holiday railed against the practice of lynching in “<a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/jazz-and-the-civil-rights-movement-2039542">Strange Fruit</a>.” Woody Guthrie’s <a href="https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/woody-guthrie">folk ballads from the 1930s and 1940s</a> often commented on the plight of the working class.</p>
<p>But perhaps in no other time in American history did popular music more clearly reflect the political and cultural moment than the soundtrack of the 1960s – one that exemplified a new and overt social consciousness.</p>
<p>That decade, a palpable energy slowly burned and intensified <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/01/01/1968s-chaos-the-assassinations-riots-and-protests-that-defined-our-world/?utm_term=.b71ae9680ebe">through a succession of events</a>: the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War.</p>
<p>By the mid-1960s, frustration about the slow pace of change began to percolate with riots in multiple cities. Then, in 1968, two awful events occurred within months of each other: the assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Kennedy.</p>
<p>Through it all, there was the music.</p>
<p><a href="https://www.osu.edu/features/2016/the-music-man.html">Coming of age during this time in Northern California</a>, I had the opportunity to hear some of the era’s soundtrack live – James Brown, Marvin Gaye, The Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix and The Doors.</p>
<p>At the same time, virtually everyone in the African-American community was directly connected in some way or another to the civil rights movement.</p>
<p>Every year, I revisit this era in <a href="https://news.osu.edu/students-learn-a-lesson-in-rock-n-roll/">an undergraduate class I teach</a> on music, civil rights and the Supreme Court. With this perspective as a backdrop, here are five songs, followed by a <a href="https://open.spotify.com/user/osuprezdrake/playlist/1glThKK9iTE9CRAQ0d9pC4?si=BJgzMNRVR42_cHgRtmhEMA">playlist</a> that I share with my students. </p>
<p>While they offer a window into the awakening and reckoning of the times, the tracks have assumed a renewed relevance and resonance today.</p>
<p><strong>“<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/18GiV1BaXzPVYpp9rmOg0E?si=zswsOON-Rqq1mWntenzr5Q">Blowin’ in the Wind</a>,” Bob Dylan, 1963</strong></p>
<p>First made a hit by the folk group Peter, Paul and Mary, the song signaled a new consciousness and became the most covered of all Dylan songs. </p>
<p>The song asks a series of questions that appeal to the listener’s moral compass, while the timeless imagery of the lyrics – cannonballs, doves, death, the sky – evoke a longing for peace and freedom that spoke to the era.</p>
<p>As one critic <a href="https://www.npr.org/2000/10/21/1112840/blowin-in-the-wind">noted</a> in 2010: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“There are songs that are more written by their times than by any individual in that time, a song that the times seem to call for, a song that is just gonna be a perfect strike rolled right down the middle of the lane, and the lane has already been grooved for the strike.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>This song – along with others such as “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall” and “Chimes of Freedom” – are among the reasons Bob Dylan <a href="https://www.nobelprize.org/prizes/literature/2016/dylan/lecture/">received the Nobel Prize in Literature</a>. </p>
<p><strong>“<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/0KOE1hat4SIer491XKk4Pa?si=s_jCKsCDTV-MPBpQsOcQ4w">A Change is Gonna Come</a>,” Sam Cooke, 1964</strong></p>
<p>During a 1963 tour in the South, Cooke and his band <a href="https://www.npr.org/2014/02/01/268995033/sam-cooke-and-the-song-that-almost-scared-him">were refused lodging</a> at a hotel in Shreveport, Louisiana. </p>
<p>African Americans routinely faced segregation and prejudice in the Jim Crow South, but this particular experience shook Cooke.</p>
<p>So he put pen to paper and tackled a subject that represented a departure for Cooke, a crossover artist who made his name with a series of Top 40 hits.</p>
<p>The lyrics reflect the anguish of being an extraordinary pop headliner who nonetheless needs to go through a side door.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=434&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/242767/original/file-20181029-76393-1opcg8r.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=545&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Singer Sam Cooke stands next to a huge reproduction of his head on the roof of a Manhattan building.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.apimages.com/metadata/Index/Watchf-Associated-Press-Domestic-News-Entertain-/0856cfd19a274ac9a9df38a0520d601c/2/0">AP Photo</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Showcasing Cooke’s gospel roots, it’s a song that painfully and beautifully captures the edge between hope and despair. </p>
<p>“It’s been a long, a long time coming,” he croons. “But I know a change is gonna come.”</p>
<p>Sam Cooke, in composing “A Change is Gonna Come,” was also inspired by Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind”: <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/the-unlikely-story-of-a-change-is-gonna-come">According to Cooke’s biographer</a>, upon hearing Dylan’s song, Cooke “was almost ashamed to have not written something like that himself.”</p>
<p><strong>“<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/307kcWJQNMdiYYKj1LgClU?si=gTWTLeaHTHGhJZTIHVfRCw">Come See About Me</a>,” The Supremes, 1964</strong></p>
<p>This was one of my favorites of their songs at the time – upbeat, fun and necessarily “unpolitical.” </p>
<p>The Supremes’ record label, Motown, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/20/arts/artsspecial/motowns-link-to-civil-rights-movement-on-display.html">played an important role bridging a cultural divide</a> during the civil rights era by catapulting black musicians to global stardom. </p>
<p>The Supremes were the Motown act with arguably the broadest appeal, and they paved the way for other black artists to enjoy creative success as mainstream acts.</p>
<p>Through their 20 top-10 hits and <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_cBv3wzcGs">17 appearances</a> from 1964 to 1969 on CBS’ popular weekly live program “The Ed Sullivan Show,” the group had a regular presence in the living rooms of black and white families across the country. </p>
<p><strong>“<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/2rOyqEU3frual4yxJymr0Z?si=5zOXUWbKSv2ThFa7pFfbbA">Say it Loud – I’m Black And I’m Proud</a>,” James Brown, 1968</strong></p>
<p>James Brown – the <a href="http://www.jamesbrown.com/bio/default.aspx">self-proclaimed</a> “hardest working man in show business” – built his reputation as an entertainer par excellence with brilliant dance moves, meticulous staging and a cape routine.</p>
<p>But with “Say it Loud – I’m Black And I’m Proud,” Brown seemed to be consciously delivering a starkly political statement about being black in America.</p>
<p>The track’s straightforward, unadorned lyrics allowed it to quickly <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/20/opinion/sunday/james-brown-say-it-loud-50-years.html">become a black pride anthem</a> that promised “we won’t quit movin’ until we get what we deserve.”</p>
<p><strong>“<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/7s25THrKz86DM225dOYwnr?si=WRIrWDZbRpKnMr9v-1aNqQ">Respect</a>,” Aretha Franklin, 1967</strong></p>
<p>If I could choose only one song to represent the era it would be “Respect.” </p>
<p>It’s a cover of a track previously written and recorded by Otis Redding. But Franklin makes it wholly her own. From the opening lines, the Queen of Soul doesn’t ask for respect; she demands it. </p>
<p>The song <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/08/14/how-aretha-franklins-respect-became-an-anthem-for-civil-rights-and-feminism/?utm_term=.0a5db56fd9be">became an anthem</a> for the black power and women’s movements. </p>
<p>As Franklin <a href="https://www.vox.com/2018/8/17/17699170/aretha-franklin-2018-respect-song-otis-redding-feminism-civil-rights">explained</a> in her 1999 autobiography: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>“It was the need of a nation, the need of the average man and woman in the street, the businessman, the mother, the fireman, the teacher – everyone wanted respect. It was also one of the battle cries of the civil rights movement. The song took on monumental significance.”</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Of course, these five songs can’t possibly do the decade’s music justice.</p>
<p>Some other tracks that I share with my students and count among my favorites include Simon & Garfunkel’s “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/2LkaNhCrNVmcYgXJeLVmsw?si=FOV9PY_AS9qN2uqK8gh6Dw">The Sound of Silence</a>,” Barry McGuire’s “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/1x95pWB3KeK3evKa1VrW6e?si=TllEVkaFSomi_tzqnXnqgQ">Eve of Destruction</a>” and Lou Rawls’ “<a href="https://open.spotify.com/track/6lE3fTHyZgGtT2adZSLYxW?si=8UKuSQZ_ScyoFxJ8hUw0TQ">Dead End Street</a>.”</p>
<iframe src="https://open.spotify.com/embed/user/osuprezdrake/playlist/1glThKK9iTE9CRAQ0d9pC4" width="100%" height="380" frameborder="0" allowtransparency="true" allow="encrypted-media"></iframe><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/105640/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Michael V. Drake does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Fifty years ago, Sly and the Family Stone sang ‘We got to live together, I am no better and neither are you.’ The words ring just as true today.Michael V. Drake, President, The Ohio State UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1012992018-08-27T20:40:20Z2018-08-27T20:40:20ZRed-state politics in and out of the college classroom<p>For two decades, I have taught U.S. women’s and gender history at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, a blue town in a blue state, <a href="https://cola.siu.edu/history/faculty-and-staff/faculty/zaretsky.php">marooned in an ocean of red</a>. </p>
<p>Bordered by Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta and the Ozarks, Southern Illinois is surrounded by the country’s poorest rural regions.</p>
<p>Some of my students arrive from white farming communities and are the first in their families to attend college. They grow up on church, military, patriotism and traditional family, and they come from a world different from mine. I grew up in 1970s San Francisco, and my parents were leftists.</p>
<p>As I prepared to teach about abortion and gay rights for the first time in 2003, I approached the classroom with trepidation. I feared that our discussions would mirror the country’s culture wars and lead to tension among students. </p>
<p>One joy of teaching is when students surprise you, and I soon discovered that my fears had been unwarranted. </p>
<h2>Students surprise; teacher learns</h2>
<p>Classroom discussions of “hot button” issues turned out to be not so hot after all. </p>
<p>Sure, a student might declare that marriage should be between a man and a woman, but her declaration had no fight behind it. Most students simply did not get worked up about gay rights. By the early 2000s, almost all of them had a relative who had come out. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233512/original/file-20180824-149475-1hx87os.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233512/original/file-20180824-149475-1hx87os.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233512/original/file-20180824-149475-1hx87os.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233512/original/file-20180824-149475-1hx87os.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=406&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233512/original/file-20180824-149475-1hx87os.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233512/original/file-20180824-149475-1hx87os.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233512/original/file-20180824-149475-1hx87os.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=511&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, where author Zaretsky teaches.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Southern Illinois University</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Regardless of what they might have been told in church, they asserted, who were they to stand in the way of the happiness of an uncle or a cousin? </p>
<p>Three decades after gay rights pioneer Harvey Milk had urged his brothers and sisters to come out, this tactic had borne fruit everywhere, <a href="https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300222616/harvey-milk">including the “heartland”</a> where I teach.</p>
<p>Thus, well before gay marriage became legal, I was telling friends back home that if my students were any indication, the question was not whether, but when.</p>
<p>It turned out that the issue that most angered my students was the Vietnam War. This was odd, I thought at first, because the conflict had ended years before they had been born. </p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/fear-of-a-non-nuclear-family-102245">Fear of a Non-Nuclear Family</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>But in one class, an older student who was the daughter of a Vietnam veteran recounted a story that had been passed down in her family since the early 1970s: Upon his return from overseas, her father had been spat on by anti-war activists. </p>
<p>Others chimed in that they had heard similar stories. These stories were mythical, not because such incidents had never occurred, but rather because opponents of the anti-war movement had overstated their frequency and intensity in order to brand wartime opposition as unpatriotic. When I gently suggested this was the case, <a href="https://nyupress.org/books/9780814751473/">as one scholar has argued</a>, my students swung back, insisting that the stories were true.</p>
<p>It quickly became clear to me that these stories felt true to my students because they resonated with their own experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan. </p>
<p>Those military interventions were not abstractions to them. Some were veterans themselves, a few suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder, virtually all of them knew someone in the service and many came from military families. </p>
<p>The Vietnam stories struck a chord because they presented a portrait that my students found painfully familiar: loyal Americans who had served their country but who felt forgotten by U.S. institutions and the broader political culture.</p>
<h2>Developing a theory</h2>
<p>This classroom episode surprised me, but it shouldn’t have. </p>
<p>My students confirmed what I had discovered through my own research on the <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9780807857977/no-direction-home/">recent history of conservatism</a>, which revealed a deep sense of betrayal among Americans who had sacrificed their bodies on behalf of the U.S. military and felt that they had received little recognition in return. </p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233519/original/file-20180824-149475-17h4hqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233519/original/file-20180824-149475-17h4hqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233519/original/file-20180824-149475-17h4hqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233519/original/file-20180824-149475-17h4hqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=466&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233519/original/file-20180824-149475-17h4hqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233519/original/file-20180824-149475-17h4hqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/233519/original/file-20180824-149475-17h4hqi.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=586&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Prisoner of war Lt. Col. Robert L. Stirm is greeted by his family as he returns home from Vietnam in 1973. Zaretsky’s students believed veterans were treated badly by the U.S.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">AP/Sal Veder</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Scholars argue that in the early 1970s the “culture wars” erupted <a href="https://www.press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/W/bo20063403.html">and divided the country</a>. And there is no question that both conservative and liberal actors mobilized around issues like <a href="http://www.pewforum.org/2006/05/23/is-there-a-culture-war/">abortion and gay rights</a>.</p>
<p>But my research pointed to something else that fueled the nation’s rightward march: the rise of an aggrieved nationalism rooted in a sense of bodily injury.</p>
<p>I first detected this nationalism when I studied the families of American POWs and MIAs in Southeast Asia, many of whom believed that their sons, brothers, fathers and husbands <a href="https://www.uncpress.org/book/9780807857977/no-direction-home/">had been left behind twice</a> — first by a U.S. government that had failed to bring them home, and then by a libertine culture that had turned against the war. </p>
<p>These were patriotic families who felt let down by their country.</p>
<p>Years later, I encountered something similar when I researched U.S. veterans who had sustained radiation injuries during their <a href="http://natashazaretskyonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/RadiationSufferingPatrioticBodyPolitics.pdf">World War II-era service</a> and who later became ill with cancer. </p>
<p>By the late 1970s, these “atomic veterans” and their relatives were leveling the same charge. They were forgotten men and women who had served their country, but who had been betrayed by the government, which refused to acknowledge that it had <a href="https://cup.columbia.edu/book/radiation-nation/9780231179812">endangered its citizens</a>.</p>
<p>The 1970s gave rise to the culture wars, no question. But it also gave rise to the accusation that the most loyal Americans had suffered through sickness, injury and premature death, and had been forgotten and let down. </p>
<p>This claim fueled a rising hostility toward big government, which championed liberal reform on behalf of racial and sexual minorities ostensibly at the expense of white, <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780809026746">hard-working, patriotic Americans</a>.</p>
<h2>Empathy in the classroom</h2>
<p>When my students became so angry toward Vietnam era anti-war activists, I was taken aback. I had to go beneath the surface of our debate and ask why this issue had stirred them. </p>
<p>Yes, the debate was about history, and I appealed to historical accuracy in order to challenge their assumptions about the past. That is, after all, my job. </p>
<p>But swimming just beneath the surface were their own experiences as young people who come from economically struggling rural communities whose members shoulder the burdens of U.S. militarism.</p>
<p>Simply telling them that they had gotten the history “wrong” would not have sufficed. </p>
<p>Instead, I had to pair my commitment to historical truth with a no-less-powerful commitment to empathy — an attempt to make sense of their anger historically and hopefully provide them with the tools to do the same.</p>
<p>My friends and relatives back home sometimes thank me for being out here in the heartland, “winning hearts and minds.” </p>
<p>But is that even my role?</p>
<p>Certainly, my students have changed my worldview, but how much have I changed theirs? That question is hard to answer, because my interactions with students are brief. They spend just over 37 hours with me over the course of one semester. That is not a lot of time. </p>
<p>But during those hours, we break away from the gerrymandered world of social media and encounter one another face to face. </p>
<p>Those encounters can be difficult and frustrating. Yet they have also yielded moments when the divisions and suspicions that dominate our political landscape fall away. </p>
<p>I am not here to win the hearts and minds of my students, but I like to imagine that I have opened some of them. What I know for sure is that they have opened mine. </p>
<p><em>Our new podcast “<a href="https://heatandlightpod.com">Heat and Light</a>” features Prof. Zaretsky discussing conservative reaction to the 1960s in depth.</em></p>
<p><a href="https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/heat-and-light/id1424521855?mt=2"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233721/original/file-20180827-75984-1gfuvlr.png" alt="Listen on Apple Podcasts" width="134" height="34"></a> <a href="https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly9oZWF0YW5kbGlnaHRwb2QuY29tL2ZlZWQucnNz"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233720/original/file-20180827-75978-3mdxcf.png" alt="" width="134" height="34"></a> <a href="https://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=221807&refid=stpr"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233716/original/file-20180827-75981-pdp50i.png" alt="Stitcher" width="116" height="34"></a> <a href="https://radiopublic.com/heat-and-light-WYDE55"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233717/original/file-20180827-75990-86y5tg.png" alt="Listen on RadioPublic" width="105" height="34"></a> <a href="https://tunein.com/podcasts/History-Podcasts/Heat-and-Light-p1149068/"><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/233723/original/file-20180827-75984-f0y2gb.png" alt="Listen on TuneIn" width="86" height="34"></a></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/101299/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Natasha Zaretsky does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A scholar raised by leftist San Francisco parents in the 1970s ends up teaching in the heartland, where her students represent a very different kind of politics. What she learns from them is profound.Natasha Zaretsky, Associate Professor of History, Southern Illinois UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/972292018-07-19T21:22:09Z2018-07-19T21:22:09ZHow Canadian boomers got into pot<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227217/original/file-20180711-27018-166vzs1.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Actors Luana Anders and Peter Fonda smoking a joint in a scene from the 1969 film 'Easy Rider,' a countercultural movie that influenced drug use by baby boomers in the 1960s</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">(Columbia Pictures)</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The legalization of marijuana in Canada comes almost a century after the drug was first declared an illegal substance in 1923, but pot didn’t explode in popularity until the 1960s when a group of rebellious people began promoting it a shortcut to peace and enlightenment.</p>
<p>Concerned about the new use of this drug, in 1969, <a href="http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2014/sc-hc/H21-5370-2-1-eng.pdf">the Royal Commission on the Non-Medical Use of Drugs</a> visited coffee shops and universities to talk to young people about marijuana use.</p>
<p>One student told them marijuana reveals “a greater sense of the universe.” He enthused that “things you never noticed… now jump out … and every event becomes suddenly deep.” Another touted that cannabis could be the “catalyst to the great Epiphany.”</p>
<p>One participant promised “fantastic benefits” from smoking marijuana and said that it could lead to “a much better way of living.”</p>
<p>In short, many baby boomers believed marijuana use could usher in a new era of experience, enlightenment and joy. Half a century ago, this was utterly new to most Canadians.</p>
<h2>Cannabis convictions soar</h2>
<p>Convictions for cannabis went from 60 in 1965 to 6,292 in 1970. By the spring of 1970, the Royal Commission on the Non-Medical Use of Drugs suggested that somewhere between 1.3 and 1.5 million Canadians had used marijuana.</p>
<p>A survey of Toronto adults in 1971 showed that 8.4 per cent had used cannabis in the previous year, with higher rates among young people. Thirty per cent of people between the ages of 18 and 25 said they had tried the drug, while only 10 per cent of people aged 25 to 35 had smoked marijuana. From 1968 to 1972, <a href="https://www.erudit.org/fr/revues/uhr/2013-v42-n1-uhr01125/1022057ar/">marijuana use at Toronto high schools tripled</a>.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/how-pot-smoking-became-illegal-in-canada-92499">How pot-smoking became illegal in Canada</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>What made this new generation of young people reject the hard-drinking ways of their elders in favour of a new drug? Part of marijuana’s appeal was its illicit status — it allowed baby boomers to reject the rules of the “establishment” and the habits of their parents.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227233/original/file-20180711-27015-1s735l6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227233/original/file-20180711-27015-1s735l6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227233/original/file-20180711-27015-1s735l6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227233/original/file-20180711-27015-1s735l6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=401&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227233/original/file-20180711-27015-1s735l6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227233/original/file-20180711-27015-1s735l6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227233/original/file-20180711-27015-1s735l6.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=504&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Timothy Leary addresses a crowd of hippies at the ‘Human Be-In’ that he helped organize in 1967. Leary told the crowd to ‘Turn on, Tune in and Drop out.’</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">(AP Photo/Bob Klein)</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>It was believed marijuana would open them to new experiences, while alcohol diminished awareness. As the LSD guru, Timothy Leary, put it in his <a href="https://archive.org/stream/politicsofecstas00learrich/politicsofecstas00learrich_djvu.txt"><em>Politics of Ecstasy</em></a>, alcohol consumption brought about the “State of Emotional Stupor” while marijuana would lead to “The State of Sensory Awareness.”</p>
<p>Marijuana users were well aware that their parents already took a wide array of legal and prescription drugs. They were often highly critical of prescription drugs like barbiturates and tranquillizers. They believed these drugs numbed people to the injustices and inadequacies of North American society.</p>
<h2>Promises of enlightenment</h2>
<p>By contrast, marijuana promised to open a path to enlightenment. Many baby boomers were interested in Eastern religions and transcendent experiences. As Charles Reich put it in his <em><a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1970/09/26/reflections-the-greening-of-america">Greening of America</a></em>, an ode to the new generation, “using marijuana is more like what happens when a person with fuzzy vision puts on glasses.”</p>
<p>Reich explained that marijuana enabled people to hear new sounds in music and to visualize the world in new ways. It would allow them to understand time differently, thereby releasing them from the unrelenting demands of a capitalist society.</p>
<hr>
<p>
<em>
<strong>
Read more:
<a href="https://theconversation.com/the-truth-about-cannabis-on-canadian-campuses-99674">The truth about cannabis on Canadian campuses</a>
</strong>
</em>
</p>
<hr>
<p>Other marijuana users were influenced by the popular culture of the day to try the drug. The Beatles were getting <a href="http://www.songfacts.com/detail.php?id=119">“high with a little help”</a> from their friends. Janis Joplin spent all her money on drugs in “Mary Jane.” Bob Dylan intoned: “Everybody must get stoned.”</p>
<figure>
<iframe width="440" height="260" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/m2uTFF_3MaA?wmode=transparent&start=0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen=""></iframe>
<figcaption><span class="caption">The Beatles psychedelic animated movie ‘Yellow Submarine’ from 1968.</span></figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Drug use was also glorified in movies. The Beatles psychedelic cartoon <em>Yellow Submarine</em> premiered in 1968, while the countercultural classic <em><a href="https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0064276/">Easy Rider</a></em> came out the following year. It featured Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper driving their motorcycles from Los Angeles to New Orleans, smoking dope, taking LSD, visiting a commune and raising the ire of the establishment.</p>
<h2>Finding a ‘groove’</h2>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227234/original/file-20180711-27039-ti0nyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227234/original/file-20180711-27039-ti0nyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/227234/original/file-20180711-27039-ti0nyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227234/original/file-20180711-27039-ti0nyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227234/original/file-20180711-27039-ti0nyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=893&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227234/original/file-20180711-27039-ti0nyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227234/original/file-20180711-27039-ti0nyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/227234/original/file-20180711-27039-ti0nyz.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=1123&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Protesters stage a demonstration in Toronto’s Yorkville neighbourhood in the 1960s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Michel Lambeth/Library and Archives Canada</span>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span>
</figcaption>
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<p>From the Mariposa music festival to the coffee shops of Toronto’s Yorkville neighbourhood, marijuana wafted through the air of the late 1960s. Headshops were a vital part of the street life in countercultural communities like Vancouver’s Kitsilano. Stores like the Polevault in Vancouver featured coloured lights beaming through parachutes on the ceiling, while chairs, cushions and ashtrays invited people to stay and “groove.” Countercultural newspapers like the <em><a href="https://www.straight.com/shop/georgia-straight-50th-anniversary-book">Georgia Straight</a></em> (Vancouver), <em>Harbinger</em> (Toronto) and <em>Octopus</em> (Ottawa) <a href="https://books.google.ca/books/about/Underground_Times.html?id=pHuwAAAAIAAJ&redir_esc=y">glamourized marijuana in their pages</a>.</p>
<p>Marijuana proponents did not persuade the Royal Commission that marijuana would usher in a new era of enlightenment. But the Commissioners were persuaded that the costs of marijuana prohibition were too high, both for individuals and the state. They recommended the laws against the prohibition of marijuana be repealed.</p>
<p>This did not happen, as Marcel Martel explains in his book <a href="https://utorontopress.com/us/not-this-time-4"><em>Not this Time</em></a>. Jean Chretien’s <a href="https://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/chretien-jokes-about-trying-pot-once-its-decriminalized/article20451387/">attempt to decriminalize marijuana in 2003 also failed</a>.</p>
<p>Finally, more than 50 years after the “<a href="https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/07/lsd-drugs-summer-of-love-sixties">Summer of Love</a>”, cannabis will be legalized in Canada, although the dream of marijuana’s potential to create a new society has largely passed.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/97229/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Catherine Carstairs does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Canada will soon legalize marijuana. For aging baby boomers, the move is a culmination of a cultural phenomenon that started in the 1960s.Catherine Carstairs, Professor and Chair, Department of History, University of GuelphLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/875472017-12-22T13:43:31Z2017-12-22T13:43:31ZMagical Mystery Tour: a rare Beatles flop – but it paved the way for Monty Python<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/200393/original/file-20171221-15883-z7wx6c.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">
</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.shutterstock.com/image-vector/november-8-2015-vector-illustration-beatles-337587353?src=JlUF0ktJHM7Ufa4zmEapnw-1-2">Shutterstock/Anita Ponne</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The 50th anniversary of Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band was <a href="http://theconversation.com/sgt-peppers-at-50-the-greatest-thing-you-ever-heard-or-just-another-album-77458">much celebrated in 2017</a>. But this Christmas also marks 50 years since the release of another Beatles production that received much less critical acclaim – the Magical Mystery Tour film. </p>
<p>Much of the music within it was produced during a particularly fecund period (even by the Beatles’ standards) and is, or course, peerless – from the music hall echoes of Your Mother Should Know through the plaintive, melodic <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DGEX_7IqaC4">Fool on the Hill</a> to the boundary breaking <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UKIs1J_nB4A">I Am the Walrus</a>.</p>
<p>Unfortunately the film itself fell far short of that artistic bar. First broadcast on Boxing Day 1967, it is, to put it mildly, seriously flawed. Incoherent, sexist, technically shaky and verging on boring, history hasn’t been kind to its cinematic qualities. </p>
<p>Contemporary reviews and audience responses were also so generally scathing that Paul McCartney was moved to issue an apology of sorts to the television broadcast’s 20m viewers. He said in a <a href="http://www.beatlesinterviews.org/db67.html">hastily convened interview</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>We don’t say it was a good film. It was our first attempt. If we goofed, then we goofed. It was a challenge and it didn’t come off. We’ll know better next time.</p>
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<p>Matters weren’t helped by the Beatles’ psychedelic, colourful exploration being broadcast in black and white on BBC1. A repeat on BBC2 (then the only colour TV service) a few days later did little to redress the situation, if only because there were <a href="https://www.radios-tv.co.uk/colour-lauches-in-the-uk/">fewer than 200,000 colour sets</a> in the UK at the time. </p>
<h2>Pushing institutional boundaries</h2>
<p>For all the defensiveness of McCartney’s response (“You could hardly call the Queen’s speech a gasser”) they do point towards some retrospectively mitigating aspects of the Magical Mystery Tour film. </p>
<p>The film’s distinctly British surrealism and cavalcade of barking sergeant majors, fat aunts, dolly birds, wacky racers and midgets clearly prefigured Monty Python’s explosion of absurdity into mainstream television. </p>
<p>Indeed, George Harrison said later on that he saw Monty Python as a <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/10-things-you-didnt-know-george-harrison-did-w452593">continuation of the spirit of the Beatles</a>. He also funded some of their films, including The Meaning of Life – whose notorious <a href="https://laughingsquid.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/terry-jones-talks-about-playing.jpg">Mr Creosote sketch</a> has visual echoes of a scene in Magical Mystery Tour where John Lennon, dressed as a waiter, serves pasta to Ringo’s fictional Aunt Jessie <a href="http://www.magicalmysterytour.com/wp-content/gallery/what-happened-lisa-uploads/siteedp4317-045-mf.png">by the spade full</a>.</p>
<p>What the Pythons added to the mix were sharply honed scripts. Magical Mystery Tour, by contrast, was almost entirely ad-libbed from a <a href="http://www.magicalmysterytour.com/wp-content/gallery/piechart2/piechart-911x1024.jpg">one-page diagram</a>. The Beatles’ skill as writers and arrangers was poured into their music instead. </p>
<p>Something else the Pythons had, and which the Beatles lacked, was the benefit of Oxbridge educations. Magical Mystery Tour’s sensibility was more rooted in working class entertainment and tropes than the Pythons’ Oxbridge-infused references. </p>
<p>The very concept of a coach journey – albeit one largely filmed at a decommissioned RAF base – was based on the “charabanc” trips (<a href="http://onabbeyroad.com/0mmt2.html">group bus excursions</a>) of the band members’ childhoods.</p>
<p>The film evokes the past – both a British past in general and, more specifically, as filtered through the Beatles’ own histories. It certainly shows them pushing the boundaries of what a rock band of four Liverpudlians (whose post-school education essentially took place in the nightclubs of Hamburg) could attempt, both artistically and institutionally. Their commercial and creative clout allowed them to broadcast the film during a key annual peak slot for British television viewing.</p>
<h2>Prime time</h2>
<p>Magical Mystery Tour occupied a particular space in the history of mass entertainment – from the “end of the pier” shows, through the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donald_McGill">Donald McGill</a> postcards that George Orwell defended against artistic snobbery, to the anarchic weirdness of the likes of Mr Blobby on Saturday night TV. </p>
<p>The Beatles infused that particular strand of entertainment with the forward looking experimentalism of their music, while retaining a characteristic, widely recognisable Britishness. It was this that paved the road for Python and others to follow.</p>
<p>That Magical Mystery Tour was their first real failure since breaking through into the mainstream was also partly a matter of practicalities. While still flowering creatively, they were logistically rudderless after the death earlier that year of their manager Brian Epstein. </p>
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<p>Their lack of understanding of the demands of editing a film foreshadowed their later <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/features/apple-the-short-strange-blossoming-of-the-beatles-dream-2113050.html">business-related shortcomings</a>, notably the Apple boutique and record label. If the latter of these was <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/neil-aspinall-beatles-friend-and-road-manager-who-became-the-boss-of-apple-800235.html">revived to become the familiar Beatles brand of today</a>, it was initially a costly failure that contributed to the band’s demise.</p>
<p>But while the film may have overreached, it still demonstrates a clear broadening of mainstream creative boundaries. Popular music fans were certainly receptive to their successful experiments. And even if the broader television public was less ready for a caustic, psychedelic vision of Britain in prime time during the Christmas holidays, Magical Mystery Tour still stands as a useful cultural document. </p>
<p>The Beatles being what they ultimately became, there’s much to be gleaned from their falls as well as their flights.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/87547/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Adam Behr receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council. </span></em></p>The Fab Four made a less than fabulous film.Adam Behr, Lecturer in Popular and Contemporary Music, Newcastle UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.