The 1960’s, a time of activism, and speaking out against what many thought was wrong, led to multiple changes in government and the economy. Conflicts in America took over and consumed politics and civilians in this era. Problems with the civil rights of African Americans, the anti-war effort, and even issues within the government caused trouble on a national scale. America’s government and civilians learned from their mistakes of the 1960’s, such as, civil rights, anti-war protests, the Vietnam War, and presidential elections by changing laws and being more tolerant.
Civil rights were a huge issue during the 60’s, considering African Americans haven’t ever been completely “free,” per say, ever since they arrived as slaves in the 1800’s. Blacks weren’t the only people whose goal was to gain more freedom; women were fighting for equality in the workplace and in society as well. Marches and picket lines were a common occurrence, but positive results for the protestors were uncommon and often turned into violent incidents. Laws against women’s rights and black’s equality were socially unnecessary and had to be changed. We as a country learned our lesson by assimilating to their desires. Even in minor issues such as collegiate sports, affirmative action was enforced and women had to have to same amount of sports as men. Women were granted the ability to cast their vote after this era when the government found that they deserved that right. Like the women, the blacks fought for their constitutional rights during the 60’s, which led to many protests, often violent. Martin Luther King Jr., a pacifist and prominent civil rights activist, led many of the nonviolent protests of the era, but was assassinated by a white man as a result. We learned that blacks had an equal amount of rights as us and were allowed to assimilate completely into our society after the 1960’s.
Anti-war protestors were another cause of disturbance in America in the 1960’s. The government was disrupted due to the “hippy” invasion of America during this time. The president and his associates disliked this group of pacifists because they criticized their role in Vietnam. The whole reason Nixon launched his “war on drugs” was due to the hippies’ lust for it in the first place. He thought if he eliminated drugs, he could eliminate the hippy protestors. As a nation today, we still have drugs, marijuana in particular, illegal, which is an aspect of life we learned from back then. We were in Vietnam in the first place to contain the power of communism from spreading. We were in over our heads then because we were outnumbered and lost thousands of men due to the conscription of civilians to the war. A lesson learned from that was the elimination of a war draft. We no longer have drafts for any war. The Vietnam War led to numerous changes in our government and social life.
Many things were changed with respect to presidential elections at this juncture of the 60’s and 70’s as well. June 17, 1972, the committee of Richard Nixon’s Republican Party broke into the Democratic Party offices to steal official information regarding their strategies for defeating Nixon in the ensuing election. Nixon was accused of covering up the scandal and was unsuccessful in his campaign and was later impeached. This led to many new wave ideas in elections in the future. The media became more aggressive in their following of the campaigns and led to vast campaign finance reforms. So, in light of these scandals, we learned lessons for our mistakes.
America’s citizens, government included, learned many lessons involving civil rights, anti-war efforts, the Vietnam War, and presidential elections, by changing policies and attitudes toward these issues. Since we are a diverse culture, with millions of people, there is an inevitable possibility for contempt toward ideas. Nothing in the country can always be perfect, but we can always learn from what we did wrong the times before.
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