...were you associated with.
The 60s were the Boomer's Activist hay day. Boomers made the establishment listen to what many of the "silent generation" were afraid to say.
Woodstock was a 3 day festival of peace and music. Where many musicians and artists performed. At that time most of the music played were protests against the Viet Nam War and social injustice protests.
The Black Panthers and the Black Muslims were very vocal and active for civil rights. Many thought both groups were home grown terrorists
The Yippies: The Youth International Party. Yippies were more radicalized than the Hippies. They were covert with their actions.
Yippies created absurdist political manifestos suggesting incredible acts of civil disobedience .Like making the suggestion to put LSD into city water systems.
The Hippies: Where the flower children. They were 60s version of the beatniks. They believed in the Peace Love and Happiness motto. The Flower Children who believed in free love for everyone. They were more peaceful than the yippies but still rejected mainstream society.
Some of us, like me, were too young to be activists. We were still under the thumbs of the "silent generation" You know, that meek generation whose motto was "take what you get, don't buck the system"
Yes, I remember in 1968, I was 12. It was a Sunday morning and we were doing our usual Sunday thing, going to see my Grandparents.
We lived in Akron, Ohio at the time. My grandparents lived down in the tiny burg of Waynesburg.
We had to go down Wooster Avenue, the then hot spot of the city, to get to where we were going.
The Civil Rights movement was in full swing. I remember as the car crawled down the avenue, looking out of the car window and seeing buildings smoldering, cars turned over on their hoods, people hurling bricks at the police, who were out in full force. And how the police kept pushing the crowds back away from traffic.
I remember thinking what's all the fuss. Why are people so upset. My parents never spoke to my brother and me about politics and civil rights, they just kept quiet and went with the flow.
Then I remembered hearing about a man who had been shot and killed. A famous Black man by the name of Martin Luther King Jr. who only wanted for everyone in this country to get along.
It wasn't until I was up at Kent State that I heard he famous "I have a dream" speech. Oh, and what a speech it was. I still get chills when I hear it.
In my child-like mind, I remembered thinking, "hurling bricks and turning over cars doesn't seem to peaceful to me."
That's one picture I vividly remember seeing in the 60s.
Years later when I understood about the 60s and knew that I was a baby boomer. I grasped how the boomers just 4 or 5 years older than I, changed the face of America.
Some justice was brought through civil disobedience, some through peaceful means. However it was done -- Student Boomers rocked America to her core and made changes for all her citizens better.
