3 American History essays (For Nadia)

Running head: AMERICAN HISTORY 1

AMERICAN HISTORY 2

Write an expansive history of “the sixties” from around 1958 through 1979. What demographic changes caused the 1960s?(this question is not answered) Start with the Civil Rights movement in the mid-1950s and describe its key events and victories through the 1960s. How did this movement influence and shape the decade of the 1960s? How did it influence student activism, the second wave feminist movement, Chicano activism, and/or other movements you see as significant? (Did not answer how did it influence student activism and second wave feminist movement. Mentioned Chicano activism in only one sentence) Describe each of these movements and their main contributions (not answered in details) (obviously your answer should take this chronology into the 1970s). Why do you think the sixties ended?

Give Me Liberty

The 1950s and the 1960s were full of civil rights struggles. America was finding itself in a better manner and in a more integrated form. The main event of the mid-1950s was the match against the racial discrimination in the US. It is during this time that the mainly the people of color and the activists took to the streets to pressure for the non-discrimination of the minority in the US. For the 1950s, the activists confronted the system that took the black people and the rest of the minority people as being inferior to the white majority (Foner 2013). For this reason, they engaged in battles with the government to have the African American people have their freedom and rights. This marked the end of slavery in the US. The discrimination was however not fully terminated after the end of the slave trade. For this reason, the 1960s marked the time of getting onto the streets to match for better rights of all people. This resulted in the passing of bills what bills? protecting the African American people from unfair discrimination. The black people activists stopped seeing it as a struggle for their rights, but an avenue towards attaining future freedom. They viewed the struggle as one enabling them to win back that which they had lost during the world war.

The civil rights influenced the feminist movement. This is because the two seek for the liberation of the oppressed in the society. Feminism movement, therefore, seeks the liberation of the women from discrimination based on their gender. Fighting for the rights of the minority paved the way for this movement (Foner 2013). The Chicano movement was aimed at liberating the Mexican American from the oppression of the majority. The African American civil rights movements fought mainly for the black liberation, mainly from slavery. This formed a platform on which the Mexicans learned from and thus found it necessary to induce force to win their freedom. The basis was all about the liberation of the minority in the American society.

The sixties then ended. This is because there was too much pressure on the government to have in place a lasting solution to the movements. This was nothing better but providing what the activists were fighting for (Foner 2013). In this case, the government passed different legislation, protecting the minority from being exploited unfairly. The minority had no reason to have movements for issues that were well catered for under the law.

References

Foner, E. (2013). Give Me Liberty! An American History: Seagull Fourth Edition (Vol. 1). WW Norton & Company.