Unit 7: Social Movements of the 1960s

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The Lunch Counter in Greensboro, North Carolina

On February 1, 1960, 4 freshmen from a black college in Greensboro, North Carolina, went to a store and sat down at a lunch counter. When they asked for coffee, the waitress said she could not serve people like them. The students, believing the segregation law which kept black and white people from eating together was wrong, did not move.

The manager came and talked to the students. A policeman walked up and down behind them, holding his stick. The students continued to sit at the counter. People crowded into the store to watch what might happen, until the store closed. The next day, a greater number of students came to the store and sat down at the lunch counter. Day after day, additional students came.

This quiet "sit-in" by black students in Greensboro began the civil rights movement in the 1960s, the first of several social movements during that decade.

One American historian, Howard Zinn, describes how the protests spread after the first sit-in in Greensboro in 1960: "In the next twelve months, more than fifty thousand people, mostly black, some white, participated in demonstrations of one kind or another in a hundred cities, and over 3 600 people were put in jail. But by the end of 1960, lunch counters were open to blacks in Greensboro and many other places."

The Woolworth lunch counter

The civil rights movement, and the youth anti-war, and the women's liberation movements which followed, had long roots in United States history. However, many people who worked in the 1960s movements believed they were creating something new and exciting which would make deep changes in American society.

　　"We shall overcome!" black Americans sang, affirming their commitment to fight racial prejudice.

　　"Let it all hang out!" young people advised each other, defying their parents, who controlled their emotions and tried to keep personal matters from becoming public.

　　"Hell, no, we won't go." anti-war demonstrators chanted, refusing government orders to be drafted into the army and fight in Vietnam.

The Civil Rights Movement

　　"Speak your heart without interruption," women encouraged each other in "consciousness-raising" groups which helped women recognize how they were being held back by a society in which men dominated politics, economics, the family, and even private conversation.

Why Did the Social Movements Begin?

Youth Anti-War Movement

Why did Black Americans risk their lives breaking the law and defying the Ku Klux Klan? Why did young people disobey their parents, school administrators, and civil and military authorities? What brought women out of their homes into public demonstrations for Civil Rights, against the War in Vietnam and for their own liberation from male dominance? And why did these social movements become strong in the 1960s?

During the fifteen years between the end of World War II and the 1960s, many American men worked hard to achieve their dreams. The federal government subsidized education and home ownership for veterans of World War II and the Korean War. They remembered the hard times of the depression of the 1930s and believed they could protect their families by working hard for long hours. Many of them encouraged their wives to stay in their middle-class homes in the suburbs, raising their three or four children. They believed they were living the American Dream.

However, there were some people in the United States who had a different idea of what the American Dream was. In the 1960s, three groups—Afro-Americans, young people and women—were dissatisfied with their lives.

During World War II, many American Negroes had a taste of life outside the South. Some earned good salaries in the war industry and in government jobs; others joined the army or navy. Their children attended high school and college. They knew that life in the segregated South, where Negroes were prevented from working at good jobs and getting a good education, was not the American way of life.

Middle-class white women were well-educated and had the opportunity to work in responsible jobs for good pay during World War II. But when men returned from the war, they were given the good jobs. Women earned less money and had fewer opportunities to advance than men working in the same jobs, or they became housewives, isolated at home with their children.

American Soldiers in Vietnam

Many young people resented traditional white male values in U.S. society. They believed their fathers, who worked long hours away from home to earn money for themselves and their families, were selfish. Young women did not want to follow their mothers' examples, staying home doing unpaid work, or working outside the home for low pay. Young people believed they had the right to choose the way they would live their lives. They wanted to work at jobs which were interesting, not just work to make money. They thought that they knew better than their teachers.

When the US army began to fight in Vietnam, many people thought the war was wrong. They did not understand why US troops were fighting in Asia. Young people, black and white, did not want to join the army and fight in Vietnam. Mothers did not want their sons drafted into the army.

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